Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Yucca project reviewer raised doubts about instruments

WASHINGTON -- Energy Department e-mail messages have raised questions about the accuracy of certain scientific instruments used in the evaluation of Yucca Mountain as a site for nuclear waste.

Records for some pieces of equipment suggest they were improperly calibrated for periods of days or months when they were in use, according to e-mail written in May and June 2000 by James Raleigh, a reviewer on the project.

"During the data verification review, I came across a number of items that need to be provided, reconciled or explained further," Raleigh wrote in three e-mails that listed possible errors.

Mistakes in the use or documentation of instruments used in Yucca Mountain experiments could complicate or disqualify the Energy Department's effort to license a nuclear waste repository at the Southern Nevada site.

Critics of the project at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, have identified quality assurance as a potential stumbling block for a repository, and DOE officials have said they have devoted extra attention and resources to correct problems.

DOE spokeswoman Anne Womack-Kolton said Monday the e-mails were a favorable sign because they showed reviewers were catching mistakes and calling on them to be fixed.

Womack-Kolton said DOE officials are investigating to determine whether the problems were corrected and whether they affected work.

"One would expect there are many e-mails like this as part of the quality-assurance process," Womack-Kolton said. "Work is reviewed, and if there are holes to be filled, there is communications back. This is not surprising."

But Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the e-mails illustrate sloppiness within the project and could provide more ammunition to challenge the repository.

"This tells me the (quality-assurance) program is a mess," Loux said. "Even the stuff that got through the system has tons of errors. We think there is probably more of this."

A Yucca quality-assurance reviewer who examined the e-mail for the Review-Journal cautioned against reading too much into them.

"These really are a snapshot in time," said the reviewer, who asked not to be identified. "It doesn't show all the work that went on afterwards to resolve these issues."

At least one of the e-mails discussed errors that were found in the Yucca drift scale test, in which segments of rock deep within the mountain were to be heated for four years to simulate the conditions that would be created by decaying nuclear waste, the reviewer said.

The e-mail, reported over the weekend in the New York Times, appeared unrelated to the announcement last week that at least one worker for the U.S. Geological Survey might have falsified documentation of Yucca Mountain research.

That disclosure, which came during a review of e-mail messages within the project, spurred the Energy and Interior departments to start inspector general investigations.

The Energy Department also began a review of Yucca Mountain science that led President Bush in February 2002 to declare the Nevada site suitable to build a repository for 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste.

Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval and U.S. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have urged U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the FBI to step in to secure documents for the investigations.

Three e-mails authored by Raleigh raising questions about Yucca instrumentation were made available by Nevada attorneys. They were discovered by a consultant searching online for documents tied to last week's disclosures.

Raleigh is employed in a regulatory office by Bechtel SAIC, the Yucca project's management contractor. Raleigh's secretary referred a call to a Bechtel spokeswoman, who said the company was investigating the matter.

A procurement review for a digital multimeter, which measures electrical current to other pieces of equipment, indicated it was certified for calibration on a date before it was delivered, "which does not appear appropriate," Raleigh said in a June 15, 2000, e-mail.

In the same e-mail, Raleigh said a review raised questions about calibration for a mass flow controller, which measures and controls the flow of gases.

The procurement record for another instrument "gives the appearance that it was falsified" because one part was dated Dec. 5, 1997, while the remainder was dated May 13, 1997, Raleigh said.