Scientists suspected of falsifying documents on nuclear waste site

Federal scientists may have falsified documents on a key safety issue for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste dump, two federal agencies said Wednesday. If the allegations prove true, it could delay and possibly kill the controversial plan to bury nuclear waste in a mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas starting in about a dozen years.

That would be a major blow to the stalled Bush energy plan, which calls for building new nuclear-power plants provided there’s someplace to store their waste, said Henry Lee, a Harvard University energy and environment professor.