Trouble at Yucca.Byline: The Register-Guard Imagine that you are an astronaut who is scheduled for a shuttle launch. Shortly before lift-off, you learn that NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. scientists responsible for checking safety standards Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities or processes, etc. They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory. had falsified their work to prevent delays. Your reaction? The printable one probably goes something like: "Keep that shuttle - and me - on the ground until you know it's safe." A recent disturbing report on the planned high-level nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain Yucca Mountain, mountain in the SW Nevada desert about 100 mi (161 km) northwest of Las Vegas. It is the proposed site of a Dept. of Energy (DOE) repository for up to 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste (including commercial and defense spent fuel and high-level evokes a similar response. The Energy Department acknowledged in March that government employees had confided in e-mails to each other that they had fabricated fab·ri·cate tr.v. fab·ri·cat·ed, fab·ri·cat·ing, fab·ri·cates 1. To make; create. 2. To construct by combining or assembling diverse, typically standardized parts: research to make it appear that quality standards were satisfied - and to keep the project on track. Last week, a U.S. House subcommittee released dozens of the messages. In one of them, an analyst wrote that he withheld computer data from the project's quality assurance (QA) department. "In the end, I keep track of 2 sets of files, the ones that will keep QA happy and the ones that were actually used." In another message, a government worker wrote that he had made up dates involving the installation of software. "If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff," he said. These and dozens of other chilling e-mail messages have severely undermined the Department of Energy's claim that the nation's radioactive wastes can be stored in vaults carved deep in Yucca Mountain without contaminating groundwater for at least 10,000 years. The Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (previously known at various times as Site Y, Los Alamos Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National already has disputed the DOE's claim, saying its analysis found that radioactive wastes could seep into the water table within 300 years or less. The U.S. Geological Survey The term geological survey can be used to describe both the conduct of a survey for geological purposes and an institution holding geological information. A geological survey then issued its own study, which basically supported the DOE's original long-range projections. That would have been heartening heart·en tr.v. heart·ened, heart·en·ing, heart·ens To give strength, courage, or hope to; encourage. See Synonyms at encourage. Adj. 1. , except for the emergence of the e-mails indicating that scientists working for the Geological Survey may have falsified data to ensure that the project moved forward, The DOE and the White House have repeatedly claimed that their recommendation of the Yucca Mountain site is based on "sound science." But the e-mails cast serious doubt on that claim. The Yucca Mountain project should not move forward until the government can prove that its claims are based on real science and not a pro-nuclear agenda or mere expedience ex·pe·di·ence n. Expediency. Noun 1. expedience - the quality of being suited to the end in view expediency . |
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