Columnist Jeff German: Quality time for DOE? Not likely

Saturday, Sept. 17, 2005 | 3:58 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

Sept. 17-18, 2005

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

QUALITY HAS never been associated with the Energy Department's oversight of Yucca Mountain.

Safety standards for storing deadly nuclear waste there were tossed out by a federal court, research allegedly was rigged by government scientists and the project was recommended to Congress before all of the geological studies were completed.

So when a top Energy Department official told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week that, after more than two decades of mismanaging the project, it had decided to focus on the quality of its work at this 11th hour, the news was met with skepticism in Nevada.

Paul Golan, the acting chief of the multibillion-dollar Yucca Mountain project, 90 miles from Las Vegas, said the Energy Department no longer had a timetable to submit its long-overdue license application to the commission.

"It's going to be ready when its done," Golan said. "A quality organization does things right the first time."

Peggy Maze Johnson, the executive director of Citizen Alert, an anti-Yucca Mountain group, was almost speechless when told of Golan's remarks.

"It just takes your breath away," she said. "Do they think we're that stupid?

"You can't take something that is so flawed and turn it into a quality product. It's absolutely an impossible task."

Bob Loux, the state's top Yucca Mountain watchdog, likened Golan's words to putting a fresh coat of paint on a house that's crumbling and falling apart.

"They've got a scientifically bad site, and none of this polishing up changes any of that," he said. "It's a bad site and it will always be a bad site."

The fact is the Energy Department has been more concerned over the years about the politics of Yucca Mountain than the quality of the project.

No one believes the federal agency has even the slightest chance of suddenly turning into a "quality organization."

For the last 22 years, the Energy Department has been manipulating the project's scientific data to appease the influential nuclear power industry, which is running out of room to store radioactive waste at its plants across the country.

During this time, according to Loux, Yucca Mountain has had 13 different directors.

Loux sees Golan's words as yet another attempt to cater to the nuclear power industry, which has been left with the sinking feeling that the project is on the verge of collapsing.

"They're desperately trying to demonstrate that there's some credibility here when everyone knows there isn't and never has been," Loux said.

With setback after setback in recent years, the Energy Department has been forced to delay its scheduled opening of Yucca Mountain.

The project was supposed to begin accepting waste in 2010. Then the date was pushed back to 2012, and now some Energy Department officials have been saying the project won't be ready to open until 2017.

The department's massive application, which is expected to include more than three million documents, also was supposed to have been filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2002. But now we're told there is no timetable. The application may be submitted sometime next year.

A "quality organization" would stop the lies and give us the straight story about the incompetence taking place at Yucca Mountain.

It would shut down a project that is not meant to be and find another solution to storing nuclear waste -- far away from Nevada.