Tuesday, April 5, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department knew about e-mails detailing possibly falsified work on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in December, according to internal department memos released Monday.
The department developed talking points and fact sheets before announcing the problem in March.
Department officials had contrasting opinions about the potential impact of the e-mails and the alleged falsification, with one writer doubting it had any meaning and another finding potential "vulnerabilities" with what appeared to be "deliberate failures" in the process to back up the science of the proposed high-level nuclear waste dump.
The new documents were released Monday by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., as a follow-up to Friday's release of 93 pages of partially redacted e-mails. Porter is conducting a hearing today into the alleged falsification of work on the dump.
Among those expected to testify are Ted Garrish, the Energy Department's top Yucca Mountain official, Charles "Chip" Groat, head of the U.S. Geological Survey, and the inspectors general of the Energy and Interior departments.
Monday's documents included the e-mails, several previously unreleased messages and internal memos compiled as the department learned about the situation.
One memo says the first knowledge of the e-mails occurred in December 2004 while the department was reviewing documents for License Support Network. Meetings took place but "no specific action resulted." Instead, "a conversation about other e-mail issues" brought the matter up again on March 9.
An undated memo between unamed Radioactive Waste Management employees said a memo was sent March 11 "describing potential program vulnerabilities resulting from what appear to be deliberate failures to follow quality assurance procedures and possible falsification of data committed by a USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) employee" between May 18, 1998, and March 20, 2000.
That memo also includes a June 2002 report using plans developed by the department and the U.S. Geological Survey to determine radiation doses that may include the data allegedly falsified by the employee. The report concluded water infiltration in the mountain would not disqualify it from being recommended as the site to store nuclear waste.
The memo gives the recipient five "key points for your discussion with the Secretary," including "the implication of the information contained in the e-mails does not impact the site recommendation and we do not believe that the questionable data has any meaningful effect on the results supporting the site recommendation," according to the memo.
But also in the new document set, a separate, heavily redacted memo with a recommended course of action for the still unnamed employee says, "Depending on the current status of the work to which he contributed, these e-mails may create a substantial vulnerability for the program."
Monday's documents include a detailed list of 53 e-mails in question. Names and other identifying information has been redacted but the department summarized the suspicious language in each.
Other memos give more information about the people involved. One document says the technical staff involved worked on "planning and fielding an extensive shallow drilling program (over 75 boreholes) that produced the data used to estimate how much of the precipitation that falls at Yucca Mountain has a potential to infiltrate and potentially reach repository depths."
Water is an important concern at the dump site because it can carry radiation through the rock and eventually down into the groundwater.
Another memo says one of the people involved worked for five months in 2000 as a data verification engineer using his Nuclear Regulatory Commission background and knowledge of the commission's auditing procedures. He left the project in August 2000 but returned in July 2003 as a senior licensing engineer.
The memos say work discussed in the e-mails affects two current Analysis and Model Reports but the people named in the e-mails worked on more than 150 reports or data sets.
All the memos discuss an investigation into the matter and a review of the data in question. One document said review will take four to eight weeks.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., sent a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Monday demanding that work at Yucca Mountain stop until investigations into the alleged data falsification are complete.
"It is clear that scientific malpractice has occurred and fundamental questions about the quality, validity and integrity of the scientific review and quality assurance processes associated with the YMP (Yucca Mountain project) must first be answered about the project," the senators wrote. "Given the magnitude of human health and safety implications of the Yucca Mountain project, we hope that you will act immediately on this request."
But work on the project will continue.
"The department is thoroughly investigating the alleged falsifications of the quality assurance documents and related work while aggressively moving forward with the license application," said department spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton. "If in the course of the ongoing investigations if any work is found to be deficient, it will be replaced or supplemented with analysis and documentation that meet appropriate Quality Assurance standards."
archive
