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Government Scientist Denies Tampering With Data on Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site
A U.S. government scientist yesterday denied altering documents or data on the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository in Nevada, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 6). “I have never falsified any documents related to Yucca Mountain or any other project,” Joseph Hevesi, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist in Sacramento, told a House Government Reform subcommittee. E-mails written by Hevesi and other scientists suggest they tampered with data related to the site in order to improve its chances for approval, Yucca Mountain critics have said. In one e-mail, Hevesi wrote, “In the end I keep track of two sets of files, the ones that will keep [quality assurance] happy and the ones that were actually used.” The set of data for quality assurance was only different from the other set in that it had a header field, Hevesi told the subcommittee. “All the numbers in those files are identical, so in essence they are identical files,” he said. In another e-mail, Hevesi stated, “I don’t have a clue when these programs were installed. So I’ve made up the dates and names. … This is as good as it’s going to get. If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff.” “I’m making an off-the-cuff remark to identify I may not know the exact date. My wording here is poor, and I should have used ‘educated guess,’” he told the panel. Hevesi added that he never felt pressure from project managers to reach specific conclusions. “I feel the work is sound, and I realize it doesn’t seem that way with these e-mails,” he told lawmakers. “The e-mails I characterize, myself, as being water-cooler talk, and I would not do that again in hindsight.” Reviews of the work by Hevesi and others have thus far turned up nothing that would undermine the scientific underpinnings of the project, John Arthur, Yucca Mountain project deputy director, told the panel. “Preliminarily, we believe there is ample corroborating data ... that validates the technical basis for the project,” Arthur said (Erica Werner, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 29).
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