Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman talks Thursday after a tour of Yucca Mountain. He said he was impressed with work done at the planned nuclear waste repository, but that changes in leadership will let workers know that a repeat of credibility problems will not be tolerated. Photo by Gary Thompson.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN -- Wearing a hard hat and goggles, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman emerged from the dark tunnel inside this remote, barren ridge Thursday to say he was impressed with the exploratory effort and research being performed at the site of the nation's planned nuclear waste repository.

However, he said the verdict is still out on the credibility of the scientific work that focuses on the movement of water through pores and cracks in the volcanic rock. The findings are key in estimating when waste canisters will corrode and when lethal remnants of spent nuclear fuel will escape into the environment.

The credibility issue surfaced last year in a series of e-mails that had been written by federal geologists who discussed falsifying documents to meet deadlines. Data they compiled was used in computer models for three climate conditions that would occur over 1 million years, the time that the highly radioactive waste must be safely contained.

Bodman said Sandia National Laboratories is evaluating the hydrology work of the U.S. Geological Survey team to find out how reasonable the scientists' assumptions were and how conservative the staff was in characterizing their models.

"Those are tough questions," said Bodman, who is a chemical engineer. "I'm comfortable that we will get answers. I don't know what the answers are going to be, but I'm comfortable we will get answers."

Bodman said the people who were held accountable for the questionable work are no longer on the project and that his deputy, Paul Golan, acting director of the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, is spearheading an effort to change the cultural mind-set of the project's 2,000 employees.

"We need a leadership change here that indicates to the individuals who work here that we will not tolerate that which has gone on in the past," the 67-year-old energy secretary told reporters gathered along the rail tracks that lead to the north entrance of the 25-foot-diameter tunnel, which loops through the mountain.

Bodman is the third energy secretary in office to tour the finished, 5.2-mile exploratory tunnel. He was preceded by Bill Richardson and his immediate predecessor, Spencer Abraham.

Abraham visited the site in early 2002 prior to recommending it to President Bush as the nation's burial ground for entombing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in a maze of tunnels, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Bodman said his first impression of the site "was that an enormous amount of work has been done over a number of years."

He said he has heard people describe the project as failing. But after Thursday's tour, he said, "I have to tell you, based on my first evaluation of it, I was quite impressed with the quality and quantity of work that has been done in order to verify the underlying science of this program -- not that the job is done."

Earlier in the day, Bodman said, "The question, however, remains: Is it certain enough and is the quality enough?"

Also Thursday, Bodman defended a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla.

He said the bill is not a measure to put the project on a fast track that would step on states' rights and avoid safeguards, as critics have claimed.

Instead, he said the bill is primarily an attempt to remove barriers to gain title to land and water, expand the repository's capacity, develop infrastructure and secure funding generated by nuclear utility ratepayers.

Nevertheless, the government watchdog organization Public Citizen noted Thursday that the bill, if approved, would abolish state, local and tribal authority over transporting highly radioactive waste and spent fuel. In addition, the bill would exempt the mountain from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and allow hundreds of millions of pounds of hazardous heavy metals from waste containers to contaminate groundwater used for drinking and irrigation, the watchdog group said.

The state's leading critic of the project, Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, said the bill amounts to special treatment for a flawed site.

"No other entity or project would be allowed to have these kinds of exemptions," Loux said by telephone. "In his mind, these may be little barriers, but they want things that no other applicant can get."

As for expanding the repository's capacity to more than 120,000 tons of nuclear waste, DOE's Golan said the site's environmental impact statement considered such an expansion.

However, Loux noted, "The problem is none of it was characterized or studied. They certainly haven't studied that other area. They are just guessing what it is like. They have to cross the Solitario Canyon and Ghost Dance (earthquake) faults to get to it," he said.

Another critic, Judy Treichel of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, said, "I don't think he (Bodman) understands his own legislation."