Thursday, March 17, 2005 | 8:42 a.m.
As word came that government documents may have been falsified relating to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, Nevada officials and scientists recalled similar problems plaguing the repository effort for years.
"How many times have we actually told them the books were cooked?" said Bob Loux, Nevada state Nuclear Projects Agency director.
Energy Department lawyers, preparing for a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, discovered a number of e-mails from 1998 through 2000 in which an employee of the U.S. Geological Survey "indicated that he had fabricated documentation of his work," a congressional committee learned Wednesday.
Robert Craig, the U.S. Geological Survey representative in Las Vegas for Yucca Mountain, said that beyond the sender and receiver of the e-mails received by the congressional committee, "a few went to other people."
The USGS employees' identities are being kept confidential while an investigation gets under way, Craig said.
"Credibility is suspect," he said. "Obviously, it's a very serious matter."
The discovery strikes at the heart of the state's argument against building a repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, because of unanswered questions about how fast water flows through the mountain and how quickly the climate could shift, Loux said.
"This one may be the one that pushes it over the edge," said Loux, a repository foe, recalling criticism leveled against the Yucca Mountain project by the General Accounting Office and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 1980s.
Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission on-site representative Bill Belke, learning about the fabrication allegations, said, "Wow. That's a shock."
Belke said that if Yucca Mountain were a nuclear reactor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would bring criminal charges against it for falsifying data. The NRC has no authority over Yucca at this time because there is no license before the commission.
"In any industry, that's a criminal act, falsifying documents," Belke said.
"It's up to the DOE (Department of Energy) to prosecute it."
In all his years working in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's office overseeing Yucca Mountain, Belke said he never found any falsified data. He's been retired for four years. Some Energy Department data were questioned for not being verified or validated under Belke's watch, but "those are two different things" in gravity, he said.
If the Energy Department can prove it was an isolated case, the project may survive intact. "If it's widespread, however, it could be real trouble for the Energy Department," Belke said.
"I'm shocked at this one," Belke said. "There's been one screw-up after another. Enough is enough."
Hydrologist Linda Lehman, a former consultant to the state for 21 years, said that she doesn't know whether the latest revelation will halt the repository, but it hurts support for the project.
"In court, it certainly hurts their credibility," Lehman said.
In 1986 the U.S. Geological Survey issued a stop-work order at Yucca because its scientists could not provide quality assurance for their work. Quality assurance sets procedures in place designed to prevent mistakes and oversights during scientific investigations.
At that time, one scientist had requested a specific core sample, but the Energy Department could not assure the sample. Core samples had been "thrown in the back of a truck and bounced all over," Loux said at the time.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also shut down the U.S. Geological Survey's core library in 1988 until it could assure accuracy in soil cores collected from the mountain.
In September 1988 the General Accounting Office issued a report that urged the Energy Department to stop work at Yucca Mountain once again because its quality assurance program had not been proven.
Also in September 1988 a group of 17 young U.S. Geological Survey scientists spoke out about how the Energy Department ignored essential scientific studies.
The scientists blamed a lack of autonomy for their ability to conduct scientific work at the site. They compared the repository study to the space shuttle Challenger disaster that killed seven astronauts.
"We may succeed in making the program comply with regulations, while being scientifically indefensible," they wrote.
The hydrologists complained that the Yucca program was top-heavy with managers.
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