“I believe sound science, not politics, must prevail in the designation of any high-level nuclear waste repository. As President, I would not sign legislation that would send nuclear waste to any proposed site unless it’s been deemed scientifically safe.” --Candidate Bush on the Campaign Trail, 2000.

Nevada is a Red State that voted again in 2004 for Bush, even after he lied to them about Yucca Mtn? And now this -- charges that government scientists deliberately faked data???

E-mails suggest efforts aimed at clinching nuclear waste project

(AP)  E-mails by several government scientists on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project suggest workers were planning to fabricate records and manipulate results to ensure outcomes that would help the project move forward.

“I don’t have a clue when these programs were installed. So I’ve made up the dates and names,” wrote a U.S. Geological Survey employee in one e-mail released Friday by a congressional committee investigating suspected document falsification on the project.

“This is as good as it’s going to get. If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff.”

In another message the same employee wrote to a colleague: “In the end I keep track of 2 sets of files, the ones that will keep QA happy and the ones that were actually used.” QA apparently refers to “quality assurance.”

The e-mails were in a batch of correspondence released in advance of next week’s hearing by the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Work Force and Agency Organization, chaired by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.

The Energy and Interior departments revealed the existence of the e-mails March 16, and inspectors general of both departments are investigating. The FBI also is conducting a probe, according to a subcommittee staffer.

10,000-year burial

Yucca Mountain, approved by Congress in 2002, is planned as the nation’s 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, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Many Nevadans and some environmentalists say the waste can never be safely stored and the plan puts local residents at risk. There also are concerns among others outside the state that hauling the waste to Nevada puts at risk those along the routes.

[...]

The e-mails provide a window into the environment surrounding the project, first considered over 20 years ago. Names and some proper nouns were blacked out by congressional staffers before they were released.

“Science by peer pressure is dangerous but sometime (sic) it is necessary,” says one message, by a second scientist at the geological survey.

The emergence of the e-mails was the latest setback for Yucca Mountain, which has also suffered money shortfalls and an appeals court decision last summer that is forcing a rewrite of radiation exposure limits for the site. The Energy Department recently abandoned a planned 2010 completion date, and department officials have not given a new date.

More here at E&E News.

E&E's special section on Yucca Mtn.