Environmental Protection

Argonne's environmental policy commits the laboratory to condust all activities — including experiments, facility operations, construction activities, and other activities — in an environmentally safe and sound manner consistent with Argonne permit conditions.

Argonne strives to be a good neighbor and a responsible environmental steward. A number of Argonne programs care for the environment by continually monitoring and measuring environmental contaminant on site and by conscientiously tracking, collecting and properly disposing of the small amounts of chemical and radioactive wastes that Argonne research generates. Argonne also carries out environmental monitoring for the U.S. Department of Energy of Red Gate Woods, where nuclear-reactor-related research was performed from 1943 to the mid 1950s.

The following links provide access to official technical reports and to short, easier-to-read summaries of these activities.

• Environmental monitoring – A short fact sheet summarizing Argonne 's programs to monitor the effects of its activities on the local environment.
  
  
• Waste handling and disposal – A short fact sheet summarizing the waste created by Argonne activities and the laboratory's programs to responsibly handle and dispose of it.
  
  
• Pollution Prevention – Argonne 's pollution prevention programs divert waste from landfills, conserve energy, improve indoor air quality and reduce operating costs. Since 1996, these programs have saved Argonne and taxpayers about $11 million. The program has been declared one of the best in the U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory system.
  
  
• Land and Wetlands Management and Habitat Restoration – The Argonne landscape is a mosaic of tall grass prairie, oak savanna, oak forest and wetland areas. Argonne 's land management programs preserve and protect these natural habitats, which to clean the air and water, to reduce flooding and to enhance the site's aesthetics.
  
  
• Summary Site Environmental Report – (4.2 MB, PDF) Because Argonne's annual Site Environmental Report is necessarily lengthy, detailed and highly technical, Argonne works with honors science classes at nearby Downers Grove South High School to develop a shorter, easier-to-read Summary Site Environmental Report. This document summarizes in plain English the annual results or Argonne 's ongoing site environmental monitoring and surveillance program.
  
  
• Site Environmental Report – (17.7 MB, PDF) Argonne's most recent annual report on environmental monitoring and clean-up activities at its Illinois site. The report is searchable from the Web. An archive of reports since 1972 is also available online.
  
  
• Surveillance of Site A and Plot M – (1.34 MB, PDF) An official annual report of environmental surveillance of Site A and Plot M at Red Gate Woods in the Cook County Forest Preserve. A number of small research reactors, including the world's first nuclear reactor, operated on this site from 1943 to the mid 1950s. The report is searchable from the Web.