NV: 'POTENTIAL HAZARD': State challenges Yucca rail action~ ... of skipping environmental studies

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department rushed to begin developing a Nevada railroad line to carry nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain without completing environmental studies required by a federal law, the state charged in court documents filed Thursday.

Attorneys for Nevada said the department violated the National Environmental Policy Act in a half-dozen ways, and committed other offenses, when it set out in late 2003 to mark a 319-mile path from Caliente to the proposed repository site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The state urged federal judges to stop the government from moving ahead on what has been called the nation's largest rail project in 80 years.

Nuclear waste shipments would create "great potential hazard to the surrounding environment, water and other natural resources," attorneys said in a brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The filing marked a new chapter in Nevada's legal maneuvering against the Yucca program since President Bush and Congress designated the nuclear waste site in 2002.

A Nevada victory in the case would not kill Yucca Mountain but would cause DOE to reconsider the railroad, causing more delays and adding to mounting questions surrounding the repository, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"This is not a fatal issue to the overall project; but in lieu of everything else going on, if their transportation planning is set aside it will add to a growing lack of confidence in the program," Loux said.

The state's legal charge comes a week after the uproar surrounding Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman's disclosure that at least one U.S. Geological Survey worker may have falsified data on climate conditions and water flow through the repository area.

The government's plans to open a repository by 2010 also have been delayed by two years or more by ongoing budget troubles and a court ruling last summer that threw out a 10,000-year radiation safety standard.

The Energy Department was ordered to reply to the Nevada case in a court brief by April 25.

In its filing, Nevada laid out arguments that DOE violated the National Environmental Policy Act in pursuing a rail strategy to move 77,000 tons of nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain.

DOE failed to justify its selection of the Caliente corridor in Yucca studies that it did perform, the state said.

Also, without adequate justification the department revived a strategy to load railroad cars with nuclear waste casks designed to be carried by trucks, the state charged. The idea had been rejected earlier as impractical and carrying the highest safety risk, attorneys said.

The state also alleged DOE usurped the authority of the Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency that would normally have jurisdiction over rail projects.

The Nevada state engineer and the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees most of the property along the Caliente corridor, also were not consulted, attorneys said.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Reid, Ensign pursue inquiry into Yucca project allegations

By SAMANHA YOUNG
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
and
KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- Nevada senators Thursday petitioned the Justice Department to launch their own investigation into allegations that government employees fabricated work relating to the Yucca Mountain Project.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller, the Nevadans requested immediate action be taken to "preserve and protect" records related to government's bid to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The request by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., comes a day after the departments of Energy and Interior admitted that two workers at the U.S. Geological Survey had falsified documents with studies on water penetration into Yucca Mountain.

The issue is a key component of the Bush administration's case that nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain would be safe for at least 10,000 years.

Fabricated data regarding possible water seepage into Yucca Mountain could delay further the troubled project or perhaps kill the repository site, critics said.

"Given the magnitude of human health and safety implications of the YMP, we hope that you will act decisively on this request," the senators wrote.

Reid and Ensign requested that records such as memos, reports, e-mails, models, documents and correspondences be gathered from the departments of Energy and Interior.

They said the net should be cast to the Environmental Protection Agency, contractors, industry and other government and private stakeholders associated with the project.

Announcements made yesterday "called into question the quality, validity and integrity of the scientific review and quality assurance processes" of the nuclear waste project, the senators wrote.

Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval sent Gonzales a letter Thursday demanding that the Energy Department immediately make all e-mails available about the falsification matter and that the Yucca Mountain database be secured "to protect it from further manipulation."

"To the extent fraudulent activity has occurred, no one connected with the project should be allowed access to the very data being investigated," Sandoval wrote.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said the Department of Energy should cease all operations at Yucca Mountain until the scientific evidence and studies in question have been reviewed.

"I fully support shutting down Yucca Mountain until all these questions are investigated and restudied," Gibbons said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., sent a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman that requested he appoint an independent investigation to look into the problem.

Justice Department spokesman Ben Porritt declined to comment.

"I can't confirm receipt of the letter, nor can I confirm any investigation or any pending investigation," Porritt said.

In Las Vegas, the U.S. Geological Survey's branch chief, Bob Craig, said the alleged fabrication dealt with processing of data that were plugged into computer models of how surface water will move through the mountain under future climate conditions.

The models try to calculate how much of a dose the public would receive and when from radioactive particles carried by water from corroding waste containers.

Asked whether the data are in question or the quality-assurance documents that trace its validity, a spokeswoman for the Geological Survey's headquarters in Reston, Va., said, "We're hoping of course it's the documentation and not the data."

"The appearance of impropriety is certainly loud and clear regardless of which it is," said the spokeswoman, A.B. Wade.

She said investigators are focusing on fewer than 20 e-mails that were sent about six years ago between a Geological Survey employee and the employee's supervisor who both work in one of the survey's offices in California.

The e-mails were copied to "seven or eight" others, Wade said.

She said the Energy Department alerted the Interior Department to the problem on Monday.

Project officials were aware of quality-assurance problems that dealt with verifying data and collecting valid, traceable measurements of Yucca Mountain's geologic features, said Bill Belke, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's on-site representative from 1995 to 2002.

In the seven years he looked over the shoulders of scientists as they studied the mountain, Belke often warned about sloppy record keeping. He said the Geological Survey scientists had the highest degree of mishaps and errors.

"A lot of it was carelessness, lack of checks and balances, lack of paying attention to details. They were always in a hurry to get the job done without double-checking," he said Thursday.

Although most of the errors were minor items in scientific notebooks, they did not bode well for the integrity of the project over the long term, he said.

"If you can't do the little things right now, what confidence do you have that they'll do the big things right later?" he asked.

The problems, Belke said, were "due to the lack of accountability, including DOE management."

USGS chief Chip Groat on Wednesday emphasized the severity of the situation to his some 10,000 agency workers in an e-mail obtained by the Review Journal.

"It is all of our jobs to safeguard that reputation through strict adherence to strong science ethics," he wrote. "I take these charges seriously and I will do everything to ensure that we continue to maintain our reputation for scientific excellence and credibility."

Wade said no disciplinary action has been taken against the two workers. Virginia-based attorney Joe Egan, Nevada's lead nuclear waste lawyer, said his office has formed a team of experts to sort through e-mails written by USGS workers in the quality-assurance area under question by the Energy Department.

Egan said he has documents showing that quality inspectors in 2000 reviewed USGS work from 1997 and 1998 and "uncovered dozens and dozens of deficiencies and outright fabrications." He declined to share the paperwork until it can be verified.

"We have documents suggesting they calibrated equipment that was not yet on site," Egan said. "This isn't just a few mistaken dates."

Depending on what investigators find, Egan said, the government might need to go back and redo scientific studies that were part of the site characterization completed to win congressional approval of the project in 2002.

If scientific studies are redone, Egan said, Congress might need to vote on the project again.

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