More Suspect Yucca Mtn. E-Mails Said Found

Nov 16, 4:02 PM (ET)

By ERICA WERNER

WASHINGTON (AP) - There is more evidence of questionable work on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, an Energy Department inspector general's report said Wednesday.

Criminal investigations already were under way into a batch of e-mails the Energy Department disclosed in March that suggest government scientists falsified data on the project.

The inspector general uncovered more e-mails that raise new questions about work on the project.

"The office of inspector general found e-mails by other authors that identified possible conditions adverse to quality at Yucca," the report said. "However, these e-mails had not been identified by Yucca personnel as requiring further review."


One e-mail cited by the report says that the office of quality assurance "just discovered that (quality assurance) software requirements were being ignored." Another says: "We may want to backdate the notebook to when we started putting things together."

The report doesn't say who wrote the e-mails or how many were found, and a spokeswoman for the inspector general said she couldn't elaborate because of the criminal investigation into the original e-mails. Those were written by U.S. Geological Survey scientists studying how water moved through the dump site in the desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

It's not clear whether the newly discovered e-mails dealt with the same issue.

The report also says Yucca Mountain workers have not adequately focused on quality control in their reviews of e-mails written in connection with the project, and they should go back and look at approximately 10 million project e-mails. The e-mails and other documents are being reviewed as the Energy Department readies an application for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to operate the dump.

Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the Energy Department, said department managers have signed off on a corrective action plan to implement the report's recommendations. He said the 10 million e-mails - plus an additional 4 million subsequently discovered - will be reviewed through statistical sampling

"We certainly appreciate the information the inspector general gave and the recommendations the inspector general presented and this is something we take very seriously," Stevens said.

Problems at the Yucca Mountain dump, including the e-mail controversy, have delayed the projected opening date by years and it's now not expected until after 2012. The dump was approved by Congress in 2002 as a national repository for 77,000 tons of spent reactor fuel and high-level defense nuclear waste. It faces strong opposition from Nevada lawmakers.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20051116/D8DTPT8G7.html

I can't wait to see what Senator Reid has to say about this matter.

I have heard before that the repuks will lie about anything, but it is really true.

not truly reliable as a "red" state (very few EC votes)..and then there's the "sin" factor.. Could rightwingers ever be trusted to care very much about the place???

Any Nevadans who voted for *² should be ashamed of themselves.

What's worse, 77 tons of fuel in 100 different sites all around the US guarded by Barney Fife?

77 tons of fuel in ONE SITE with a fucking army on top of it?


Screw Nevada! Or Texas! Or WHEREEVER... This project needs to go forward for NATIIONAL SECURITY. Terrorists can take out a nuke site like Indian Pointe which is DOWNWIND FROM NYC.EASILY!! You like that? You want that? Well then continue to oppose this project.

a central site opens the u.s. to more possibilities of accidents or those boogey men terrorists than just about any other kind of plan.


your concern for n.y. over other places moves me as well -- uh, maybe not so much.

nuke sites.

How can you advocate the status quo?

These plant are hear to stay and yet 50 years on WE STILL HAVE NO PLAN for the waste?

Lead, follow or get out of the way. What are your suggestions to do with 77 tons of highly enriched uranium stored in 100 highly unsecured locations nationwide?

Is protection of the nation from self destruction what government is for?

onto trains, planes and automobiles and hauling it around thousands of miles is ''safer''.

what is safer -- are constructed bungaloes close to where the waste is right now -- and disposing of it that way -- moving it as little as possible.