WASHINGTON — Three scientists involved with
e-mails about falsifying documents on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump
won't be made available to testify before a congressional panel, the Interior
Department said Friday.
The department's U.S. Geological Survey also released a letter from the panel
that reveals the scientists' names for the first time.
The letter sent Thursday by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., requests the presence of
Joe A. Hevesi, Alan L. Flint and Lorraine E. Flint "to meet with
subcommittee staff regarding statements contained in the e-mails in
question."
Porter's House Government Reform federal work force and agency organization
subcommittee has been investigating the e-mails, written between 1998 and 2000
and made public by the Energy Department last month, that show Yucca Mountain
workers discussing concocting facts and keeping two sets of figures, one for
themselves and one to show quality assurance officers.
In one e-mail a USGS scientist wrote: "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."
Only redacted versions of the e-mails have been made public so it's impossible
to tell what role Hevesi or the Flints had, and subcommittee staff declined to
elaborate. All are listed on USGS Web sites as research hydrologists in
Sacramento, Calif. Messages left on their office voice-mails were not
immediately returned Friday.
The Flints share a home number in Davis, Calif.
The FBI and the inspectors general at the Interior and Energy departments are
investigating the possibility of fraudulent work on the nuclear waste dump
planned for 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Interior Department cited the
investigations in turning down Porter's request for the scientists' presence at
a hearing set for next Wednesday.
"Given the potentially serious implications for the employees involved, the
department believes it is inappropriate to require the individuals identified by
the subcommittee to testify in a public hearing about the matters under active
investigation," said a letter sent to Porter on Friday by Matt Eames,
director of the Interior Department's office of congressional and legislative
affairs.
Chad Bungard, deputy staff director and chief counsel for Porter's panel, said
the subcommittee was evaluating how to respond. He said subpoenas were a last
resort.
The workers who wrote the e-mails were studying how water moved through the
desert site where the government wants to store 77,000 tons of commercial and
defense nuclear waste for at least 10,000 years. The USGS validated Energy
Department conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation
would be less likely to escape.
Hevesi and the Flints are listed on a Lawrence Berkeley Lab Web site as
co-authors of a report on water infiltration at Yucca.
Source: Associated Press