http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Apr-02-Sat- 2005/news/26204008.html
Saturday, April 02, 2005 E-mails say scientists fabricated quality assurance on Yucca Mountain research REVIEW-JOURNAL Scientists on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project used "fudge factors" and made up dates to fabricate quality assurance of their work in modeling how water would move through the mountain under future climate conditions. Their fabrications and tactics to cover up their shortcomings are told in a 90-page collection of redacted e-mails released Friday by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., whose subcommittee will air the allegations at a hearing Tuesday. Some e-mails from scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, which also appear in Department of Energy files, instruct the reader to "delete this memo after you've read it." One says flatly: "I've made up the dates and names. ... If they need more proof I will be happy to make up more stuff." Another confirms that quality assurance for documenting data was sorely lacking in the models used to determine how much water will seep through the mountain, carrying off radioactive particles as the containers holding 77,000 tons of spent fuel corrode over time. "Wait till they figure out that nothing I've provided them is QA (quality assurance). If they really want the stuff, they'll have to pay to do it right," says an Oct. 29, 1998, message that appeared in both sets of redacted e-mails from the Interior and Energy departments. The e-mails portray a workplace where disgruntled employees felt pressured and rushed. One e-mail indicates two sets of files were used, one to make quality assurance officials "happy" and one that was actually used in the models. The words "fudge" or "fudge factor" appear in a couple of e-mails, including one that states: "Our infiltration model has virtually no infiltration in washes; what infiltration there is in washes is basically put there as a fudge factor. ... I could probably tear apart any of our models. Did somebody say seepage?" The e-mails show how frustrated some scientists were with trying to meet deadlines. "Yes the work is behind schedule but so is everything else because I'm the only one doing this work and I'll be damned if I drop everything else," an employee said in a March 26, 1999, message. "I'd be very happy to just hand the work over to somebody else at this point." The inspectors general for the Department of Energy and the Department of Interior are jointly investigating, along with the FBI, said Mary Kendall, a deputy inspector general at Interior. The Energy Department also is convening a study team to assess the impact on the science that it put forth when Yucca Mountain was recommended as a nuclear waste site in 2002. Because of the investigations, the names of the e-mail authors and the recipients of the messages were redacted by subcommittee lawyers, Porter said. The e-mails weren't redacted when they were turned over to the subcommittee. "We cannot jeopardize the criminal investigation, nor will we," Porter said Friday at his office in Henderson. A summary supplied by the House panel indicated the most provocative messages were exchanged by two U.S. Geological Survey employees. An Interior Department official said March 16 that up to 10 individuals might have had some involvement. Porter said some e- mails circulated to 40 or 50 people. Critics of the project seized the opportunity Friday to say the controversy will have a crippling effect on the government's multibillion-dollar effort to license and build a repository at Yucca Mountain. "I thought at first it might be one or more minor isolated incidents of some fabrication, but it's clear in reading these that it was many more than that," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "It's clear this mountain just isn't going to work," he said. Loux said, "The thing that is clear is that there was so much pressure from management to come up with the right answers that these guys weren't sleeping at night. The pressure must have been so great because they made stuff up." The e-mails were dated between 1998 and 2000, when the Energy Department began a push to piece together its science, including an emphasis on quality assurance. The so-called QA process required science technicians to painstakingly document and justify their work according to rigorous standards. " 'Piss on QA' was pretty much the spirit of the times, because we were holding them accountable to do things right," a project auditor said Friday. "Maybe these people didn't have much budget or time, who knows? Everybody has their reasons for doing things." Porter said his House subcommittee plans to release more internal documents Monday that show agency officials measuring potential damage as they reviewed the e-mail messages when they were discovered several weeks ago. "These e-mails describe deliberate failures to follow quality assurance procedures and irreproducible results related to the infiltration of water into the repository," the subcommittee chairman said in a DOE memo that will be released. "These documents acknowledging the problems are real and that they cannot duplicate those tests is the gut of what the story is," Porter said. He said forthcoming documents suggest that officials at Bechtel- SAIC, the project's managing contractor, might have been aware of the problems last year. The subcommittee has invited Bechtel-SAIC to send a representative to testify at Tuesday's hearing. "This begs for questions on how many people were involved and to what degree was management involved," Porter said. Nevada leaders who have fought the government over Yucca Mountain said the disclosures were a powerful blow to a program reeling from legal setbacks and budget cuts. "It should be obvious to everyone now that Yucca Mountain isn't going anywhere," said Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, who renewed a call for the Energy Department to put the project on hold. Republican Sen. John Ensign said the documents "have finally blown the lid off this fraudulent and ill-conceived project. The e-mails are proof that the only thing necessary at this point is that we get to the truth." Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley said, "If this doesn't put an end to Yucca Mountain, I don't know what could." Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons said he still was reviewing the documents but what he had seen so far was "quite revealing and disturbing." Stephens Washington Bureau writer Samantha Young contributed to this report. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/FHLuJD/_WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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