Yucca Mountain E-Mails May Jeopardize Project, Officials Fear

Internal Energy Department memos contend that e-mails by Yucca Mountain workers talking about making up data “are not likely to discredit or bring into question” key scientific conclusions about the proposed nuclear waste dump site.

But the memos, released Monday by a congressional committee, also indicate that department officials learned about the problem in early December -- more than three months before making it public.

And though they say “the potential for significant technical impacts is believed to be low,” the memos acknowledge that “the credibility and defensibility of the technical work supporting the project is brought into question.”

At issue are dozens of e-mails written between 1998 and 2000, mainly by two U.S. Geological Survey field workers studying how water moves through the proposed waste dump site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The USGS validated Energy Department conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation would be less likely to escape.

The e-mails, portions of which were released Friday, show the workers discussing concocting facts and keeping two sets of figures, one for themselves and one to show quality assurance officers.

“If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff,” one message said.

The House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, chaired by Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.), is holding a hearing on the issue today. Late Monday the subcommittee released Energy Department memos written when the e-mails surfaced about what the messages meant and “talking points” about how to respond.

Names, some proper nouns and other content were blacked out by subcommittee staffers to avoid compromising ongoing investigations by the FBI and the inspectors general at the Interior and Energy departments.

But what can be read shows officials deeply concerned about the effect of the e-mails on the project -- but also insistent about sticking to the message that no real harm to the underlying science was done.

“Depending on the current status of the work to which he contributed, these e-mails may create a substantial vulnerability for the program,” says one memo, apparently referring to the principal author of the e-mails. The page that includes that assessment is almost entirely blacked out.

One memo has a section titled “key points for your discussion with the secretary.” Among those points: “We do not believe that the questionable data has any meaningful effect on the results supporting the site recommendation.”

An Energy Department spokeswoman declined to comment, citing the continuing investigations.

The memos show that the individuals named in the e-mails created 150 or more reports and data sets. They were producing data used to estimate how much precipitation that falls on Yucca reaches the depths of the proposed repository. But the memos say that because large uncertainty factors are assumed in an overall program assessment, the potentially manipulated records weren’t likely to change outcomes.

Yucca Mountain is planned as an underground repository for 77,000 tons of defense waste and used reactor fuel from commercial power plants. The material is supposed to be buried for at least 10,000 years beneath the Nevada desert.

The e-mails were only the latest setback for the program, which has also suffered money shortfalls and an appeals court decision last summer that is forcing a rewriting of radiation exposure limits for the site.