Friday, June 10, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

U.S. Geological Survey chief resigns position

Yucca Mountain e-mail scandal put agency director in spotlight, but spokesman says departure unrelated to controversy

WASHINGTON -- The director of the U.S. Geological Survey, put on the hot seat this spring when it was disclosed that several agency scientists might have falsified Yucca Mountain documents, has resigned the post, it was announced Thursday.

Charles G. Groat has accepted several academic appointments at the University of Texas at Austin, Interior Department officials said. His resignation is effective June 17.

Groat has headed the USGS since November 1998. The low-profile federal science agency was pushed into a spotlight in March when it was disclosed that hydrologists had written e-mails raising questions about scientific findings at the designated Nevada nuclear waste site.

Groat's departure "has nothing to do with Yucca Mountain," USGS spokeswoman A.B. Wade said.

"Positions were offered to him at the University of Texas," Wade said. "They've been courting Dr. Groat for a number of years, and they have apparently sweetened the pot enough where he found it hard to say no."

Along with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Groat in March announced the discovery of a cache of e-mail messages written by USGS hydrologists between 1998 and 2000 discussing possible falsification of quality assurance documents on water infiltration research they had conducted.

The disclosures rocked the Yucca program and sparked investigations, still ongoing, by Energy Department and Interior Department inspectors general, DOE managers and a U.S. House subcommittee headed by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.

At an April 5 House hearing, Groat and an Energy Department witness were grilled by Nevada lawmakers about the e-mail messages. Groat was criticized for not taking immediate disciplinary action against the hydrologists, who remain employed at the agency.

Groat expressed support for investigations to clear the reputation of the USGS, which he said had "a 125-year reputation for sound, unbiased science."

Porter said Thursday that the USGS under Groat's leadership "has not been cooperative" in supplying documents he requested concerning the e-mails and three USGS hydrologists who have been linked to the messages.

"We have gotten very little from USGS," Porter said. "Personally (Groat) offered cooperation, but right now we have not received everything we have requested. I'm looking forward to working with a new director."

Neither Porter nor USGS spokeswoman Wade could give a full accounting late Thursday of which documents the agency had and had not supplied.

Similarly, Porter said, the Energy Department also has not been forthcoming with requested documents. Nevada lawmakers and Bodman met last month but could not agree on a timetable for the paperwork to be supplied.

"There is definitely a concern that Charles Groat will take with him important knowledge regarding work at Yucca Mountain that appears to have been falsified," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in a prepared statement.

John Arthur, deputy director of the Yucca Mountain Project, reported this week that the DOE tentatively has concluded that repository science was not compromised by the USGS scientists, who in the e-mails discussed using "fudge factors" in preparing quality assurance documents.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the USGS scientists were working under Energy Department supervision when they wrote the controversial e-mails.

"Very much to his credit as a scientist and public servant, Dr. Groat called for an independent commission to help uncover the extent of the damage that was done," Reid said.

Groat has accepted appointment at the University of Texas as the Jackson Chair in Energy and Mineral Resources in the School of Geosciences. He also will be the founding director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy.