Columnist Jeff German: Yucca lies coming to the surface

Friday, March 18, 2005 | 10:16 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

From Nevada's perspective the Yucca Mountain Project has been in a "death spiral" since July when a federal appeals court tossed out the government's inadequate safety standards for storing radioactive waste there.

This week, however, we moved a step closer to putting this multibillion-dollar boondoggle out of its misery.

And what an irony it is that the Energy Department, itself, placed the dagger in the project's heart.

The Energy Department told Congress Wednesday what Nevada leaders have suspected all along -- that government scientists may have rigged scientific research to make it look as though the mountain was safe.

E-mails from 1998 to 2000 were discovered from scientists who work for the U.S. Geological Survey, suggesting that documents were fabricated to move the much-delayed project along.

This is part of the scientific "evidence" that President Bush used in 2002 to designate Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump.

The stunning revelation sparked internal Energy and Interior department investigations and drew harsh words of condemnation from Gov. Kenny Guinn and Nevada's congressional leaders.

But it also brought smiles to the faces of people in the trenches in Nevada.

Bob Loux, the state's chief Yucca Mountain watchdog, told me Thursday he doesn't see any way the Energy Department can breathe life into the wounded nuclear waste project now.

"These guys are toast," Loux said. "This speaks to the heart of the Energy Department's flawed effort at Yucca Mountain."

Loux believes we are likely to see unprecedented political fallout from these allegations at a time when Congress and Yucca Mountain's biggest supporter, the wealthy nuclear power industry, are losing patience with the stalled project.

The stage has been set for hearings on Capitol Hill, new legal challenges from Nevada, more scrutiny within the Bush administration and maybe even a criminal probe in the state.

If documents, after all, were falsified by government scientists working at Yucca Mountain, that's called fraud -- a crime that falls under the jurisdiction of Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval.

Not surprisingly, Sandoval, a leading Yucca Mountain opponent, said he's anxious to get his hands on those e-mails, which the Energy Department has been reluctant to make public.

The attorney general has been doing research on what it would take to conduct a criminal investigation in Nevada.

Sandoval and the state's congressional leaders also are pushing for an independent federal inquiry. And they want U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to become involved.

The internal investigation ordered by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has no credibility at all, considering the department's history of deception and coverups at Yucca Mountain.

For all we know these allegations are just the tip of the iceberg. The odds are pretty good that other documents may have been falsified during the course of this epic battle.

So if we want to find out what happened here, we have to keep the Energy Department as far away as possible from the investigation.

It would be nice to finally hear the truth about Yucca Mountain.