Editorial: True science would doom Yucca site

Friday, Feb. 20, 2004 | 5:45 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

Feb. 21-22, 2004

The federal government, including President Bush, has long been adamant in its assurances that Yucca Mountain will open only if "sound science" proves that it will be safe. The mountain, just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is being readied as the burial site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste. The amount of waste planned for burial is overwhelming -- trucks and trains loaded with the radioactive poison would arrive at Yucca Mountain daily for the rest our lifetimes and many lifetimes beyond that. If the science is wrong, the mountain and the water table below could become contaminated, creating a catastrophe. This being true beyond dispute, the term "sound science" should be sacrosanct. Instead it's become a glib, automatic response from policy makers and politicians.

In July 2002, Congress and the president approved Yucca Mountain -- long before hundreds of basic scientific questions about it had even been addressed. Yet under the mollifying term of sound science, the public was assured that Yucca Mountain is no cause for worry. With the exception of most Nevadans, who have been paying closer attention, the nation invested faith in the term. This is why we hope Paul Craig continues to speak out nationally on his well-informed insights.

Craig is a physicist and professor of engineering at the University of California at Davis. President Clinton in 1997 appointed him to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. The board was created by Congress in 1987 to act as an independent watchdog over the Energy Department's plans for disposing of nuclear waste and its plans for Yucca Mountain. Last month Craig resigned from the board, saying that would enable him to speak more freely.

In his first interview as an ex-member, Craig said the Energy Department's design for Yucca Mountain is fatally flawed. "The science is very clear. ... It's a bad design," Craig said. As the design stands, metal casks will be filled with highly radioactive liquid waste. The casks will then be buried in caverns under Yucca Mountain. The near-boiling temperature of the waste, Craig said, will heat the casks so much that the caverns' ground salts will liquify, leading to eventual corrosion and leaking of the casks. Craig was simply reiterating the findings of the whole board, which were made public in a report last November.

The review board's executive director, William Barnard, speaks highly of Craig, calling him a respected scientist with a record of accurately portraying the board's work. Barnard said Craig is raising valid concerns, adding, "The board always has had concerns about these high temperatures and now that the data is coming out, it looks like there is a problem."

Although the findings about high temperatures and what they could portend have been out for four months, the Energy Department has not meaningfully responded. It's only reaction has been a letter to the board from Margaret Chu, director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. "Our analyses do not suggest such results ..." Chu stated. If "sound science" were truly involved, the Energy Department would have released those analyses for review by the board members and other top scientists.

In going public with his concerns, Craig added to the body of knowledge indicating a pattern of unsound science by the Energy Department. The department, for example, has dismissed mounds of geologic evidence that Yucca Mountain is an unsafe location for nuclear waste. It has even disregarded the safety of its own workers at Yucca Mountain. The department admits that it was lax in enforcing protections against toxic dust as drilling was carried out in the 1990s. Additionally, a former contract worker at Yucca Mountain is alleging that her supervisor ordered her to change her field notes about the levels of toxic silica in the dust raised by the boring. Last summer, Yucca workers who raised alarms about the quality of work there were disciplined.

What we've seen from the Energy Department is a lot of unsound science. Yet it plunges onward, keeping to its design and its schedule of opening the mountain by 2010. It must have long ago decided that the term sound science is code for full speed ahead on Yucca Mountain.