Report: Energy Department mismanaged Yucca property

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department gave away more than 1,300 pieces of property last year at Yucca Mountain that it could have sold for an estimated $458,000, a department inspector general's report said.

The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management gave an unnamed disposal contractor 9,000 metric tons of excess federal property and paid the company $73,000 to get rid of it, the report said. The office has not seen any money in return, according to the report.

Property included mining equipment, power generators and a drill that could have been used on site.

The inspector general's office found the deal "did not maximize the recovery of the government's investment" because the government did not receive any money from the sale of reusable property. It attributed the problems to weaknesses in property management.

Nevada's congressional delegation, which is against the proposed nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, blasted the Energy Department over the report.

In a letter sent to key members of committees that oversee Yucca Mountain funding, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said Congress should not allocate money for the project based on the report's discovery of poor property management.

"Congress cannot allow the (office's) flagrant disregard for agency rules go unchecked," Gibbons wrote in a letter sent Monday to Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who heads the same subcommittee in the House.

He asked the lawmakers to cut funding for the office for fiscal year 2005.

"It is my hope that this level of funding for the (office) will send a strong message to the Department of Energy that Congress does not take the priority of fiscal restraint and accountability lightly."

The House approved $131 million for the nuclear waste storage project at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, earlier this year. The Senate has not approved its budget and will not until after the November election. The department asked for $880 million.

The department's mismanaged property included:

A "roadheader," which is a piece of mining equipment used for drilling tunnels, valued at $792,000 that could have brought in up to $523,000 if resold.

Two power centers that cost $68,000 and appreciated to $82,000 in value and and a conveyor belt feeder worth $35,000, none of which had ever been used.

About 4,580 tons of iron and steel, some of which was never used, valued at $737,000. The inspector general's office estimated the department could have made $29,000 selling the materials on its own.

"This is just an example of the waste, fraud and mismanagement the DOE (Energy Department) has showed in working with the Yucca Mountain project," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said "The DOE is wasting money. They are either completely incompetent or so driven by arbitrary deadlines that they're doing shoddy work."

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the report highlighted "the ongoing mismanagement of the Yucca Mountain project by the Department of Energy and is further evidence that the project is misguided and unmanageable."

"Every step in the process to target Nevada as the nation's nuclear waste dumping ground has been marked by incompetence and inconsistency," Ensign said.

Nevada's congressional delegation was not surprised by the report.

"Once again, this is just another example of the DOE's (Energy Department's) failure to follow the rules and continued efforts to waste more money on a ill-thought scheme to bury nuclear waste in Nevada," Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said.

David Cherry, spokesman to Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she will review the report "with a special eye toward the decision by Yucca Mountain officials to ignore standing policy."

The report also discovered the department sold a drill it declared excessive even though site contractor Bechtel Nevada told Yucca Mountain officials it needed the drill. The department sold the drill for $67,000. Bechtel estimated a new one would cost $200,000, and it did not have enough money budgeted to buy one.

The inspector general's report, dated Sept. 27, also found the department gave two diagnostic trailers that belonged to the National Nuclear Security Administration over to the contractor that were not supposed to be sold. The department used the trailers for recording weapons test data, which has nothing to do with storing nuclear waste at Yucca.

"The NNSA determined that the trailers were missing when it conducted its physical inventory seven months after the disposal," the report said. The report said that normally the department would see if excess property could be used in another program or in another government agency and, if not, then auction the property to the highest bidder.

"The uneconomic disposal of Yucca Mountain property occurred because normal disposition procedures -- including offering available property to other department sites -- were not followed," according to the report. "The department lost the potential to recover funds that could have been used to satisfy pressing mission needs."

The inspector general's office found similar problems with property at the Nevada Test Site in March 2003 and other department sites in previous reports.