Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: The truth about Yucca

Friday, March 18, 2005 | 3:54 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WEEKEND EDITION

March 19 - 20, 2005

So much for sound science.

It looks like even the Department of Energy has to accept the fact that bad science has finally raised its ugly head high enough so that it can no longer be hidden among the miles of underground tunnels, the reams of scientific papers and the millions of rhetorical words designed to force Yucca Mountain on an unsuspecting and mostly trusting American public who have always wanted to believe that their government was on their side.

Well, now the truth is out. Or, at least, trying to get out where the light of day will doom Yucca Mountain to the fate it should have had years ago. The latest revelation from the DOE, that employees falsified critical scientific documents relating to the drip, drip, drip of water into and through Yucca Mountain as far back as six years ago -- a certain disqualifier for dump status if ever there was one -- has to signal the death knell for any plans to send the trucks and trains full of deadly radioactive waste to Nevada.

There is no question that the DOE, despite protestations of fairness to the contrary, will try its level best to find a way around the devastating news that employees of the United States Geological Survey falsified documents in order to make science match the desires of the power barons of the nuclear industry. But the fact remains that e-mails -- those pesky little tracers back to the scene of most crimes these days -- have given lie to any semblance of good science being the controlling factor in President Bush's decision to choose Yucca Mountain for special radioactive treatment.

Forgive me for being a skeptic, but it seems to be no coincidence that the information President Bush continues to rely upon -- to topple dictators and destroy cities with high-level radioactive waste -- is faulty to a giant fault. What is it about this administration that it continues to rely on bad information? Nevadans, for example, except for former Gov. Bob List, could have and did tell the federal government that the science of Yucca Mountain was not only faulty but also contrived. And the president chose not to listen.

Why? I believe it was because he was too beholden to the monied interests who own and run the power companies in this country. Who cares about Nevada when there are billions of dollars at stake in their ability to build and operate new nuclear plants all across the country? The only thing standing between those executives and their billions was the question of what to do with the radioactive waste. Hello, Nevada!

Well, now it can no longer be claimed by the president or anyone else that the science is sound. In fact, it has been claimed that the science -- perhaps all the science -- is faulty, made up and just plain wrong.

There is a saying in the law that when a witness answers falsely in a court of law, it is reasonable to assume that all of his testimony is equally false. False in one, false in all, I believe is a rough translation from the Latin. Is it any less applicable in this case when U.S. Geological Survey scientists, employed by the Department of Energy, admit falsifying their own scientific studies?

One of the first questions that comes to mind is why? Why did they falsify the documents? Could it be because the DOE was demanding that all scientists prove the case they wanted to make, not the one that the science supported? Now that would be a shock, don't you think?

And, even though the way water moves into and through Yucca Mountain is a critical determinant of the mountain's ability to hold the waste safely for 100,000 years or more, there are other issues that had to be certified as safe in order for the mountain to pass muster. Were those findings falsified, too?

I am not very confident that the head of the DOE will act properly in this case because his boss is so hell-bent on sending that stuff out our way, and we all know that what the president wants, the president gets. Why else would otherwise decent Americans lie about their scientific discoveries if not to save their jobs by saying what the boss wants to hear rather than what is?

But, on the off-chance that he is a responsible public servant, it doesn't take much more handwriting on the "nukular" wall to know that Yucca is finally dead, even though many in Congress and the White House refuse to admit as much. Documents that have been falsified about the very heart of this matter -- the science of protecting Americans generations hence -- cannot be overcome by rhetoric or political "wishifying."

This is a matter which should get a rise from our good governor and the GOP members of Nevada's congressional delegation. It always baffled me why they were just "disappointed" with President Bush's decision to send the waste to Nevada. Theirs were the words of politicians, not Nevadans. Maybe now they will get angry and hold the president to account for the bad science on which he continues to rely.

Rep. Jim Gibbons wants to be our next governor. Let him stand up tall on his soapbox in Washington and rail against our president if Bush refuses to admit that the science is bad and that he relied on falsified documents. Let him lead his colleagues and our president toward the right answer, which is that Yucca Mountain is a bust and it is time to let 21st century science find the answer.

Let our current governor, who when his term is over becomes a private citizen with grandchildren to protect like everyone else, stand up to Washington and demand that all documents be made public so the naive and gullible senators in Washington will know they have been had.

And let all those in this state who supported President Bush for re-election, because they believed he was a man of integrity, call on our president to exercise that integrity and scrub the Yucca Mountain mission.

It is time to let the politicians hear the real sounds of science. Who will be the first to speak out?

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