Thursday, September 15, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Panel gets 4,980 documents in e-mail probe
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy said it delivered 4,980 pages of information Wednesday to a congressional panel investigating whether Yucca Mountain documents have been falsified.
The documents include personnel records of three hydrologists tied to e-mail messages that mention document falsification on the nuclear waste project, a DOE official said.
The department produced additional records related to the possible fabrications, as well as communications on the matter between DOE and Bechtel SAIC, the project's management firm.
Lists of water infiltration research conducted by the hydrologists and others at the Yucca site also were delivered, according to DOE spokesman Craig Stevens.
Stevens said DOE officials sent the pages to Congress as they continue to comply with a subpoena issued in July by the House Government Reform Committee.
A subcommittee headed by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., is investigating allegations raised by the e-mails that quality assurance documentation of certain water infiltration research may have been fudged.
Joseph Hevesi, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist who was a primary author of the e-mails, testified before Congress in June he did not falsify documents and any mention of it was not meant to be taken seriously.
The Energy Department delivered personnel records for Hevesi and for Alan and Lorraine Flint, married USGS hydrologists also identified as authors of some messages.
Porter "is encouraged, but he is still waiting for the rest," spokesman T.J. Crawford said.
Porter and the Energy Department remain at loggerheads over a subcommittee demand for a copy of a draft license application for the proposed repository.
