Strategic Theme 4
Environmental Responsibility
Protecting the environment by providing a responsible resolution
to the environmental legacy of nuclear weapons production
The scope of the
Department’s environmental cleanup includes stabilization and disposition of some of the earth’s
most hazardous materials generated from spent nuclear fuel and nuclear radioactive waste material.
The cleanup program resulting from over five decades of nuclear weapons production and energy
research is the largest active cleanup program in the world. In addition, after active cleanup,
residual risks will remain for significant periods of time at most DOE cleanup sites. The
Department will take appropriate action to protect human health and the environment from these
residual risks. The Department continues its effort to construct a repository for the final
disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste.
Over the next six years, the Department will apply advanced science, engineering, and cleanup
technology to help ensure that it meets its national environmental cleanup strategic goals.
Environmental Responsibility Challenges
Cleanup of the nuclear weapon’s legacy is an enormously complex undertaking involving significant
challenges. DOE is also faced with Federal, State, and local regulatory policies that
create challenges. The Department’s effort to construct a repository for the final disposal
of spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste continues to meet regulatory challenges.
Finally, despite aggressive environmental cleanup efforts, the Department must be prepared to
address residual risks that will remain for significant periods of time at most DOE sites.
The following strategic goals address these environmental responsibility challenges.
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Environmental Responsibility Strategic Goals
Goal 4.1 – Environmental Cleanup
Complete cleanup of the contaminated nuclear weapons manufacturing and testing sites across the
United States.
Description: DOE is responsible for the risk reduction and cleanup of the environmental legacy
of the Nation’s nuclear weapons program, one of the largest, most diverse, and technically complex
environmental programs in the world. The Department will successfully achieve this strategic goal
by ensuring the safety of DOE employees and U.S. citizens, acquiring the best resources to complete the
complex tasks, and by managing projects throughout the United States in the most efficient and
effective manner. DOE has made significant progress in the last four years in shifting away from
risk management to embracing a mission completion philosophy based on cleanup and reducing risk.
The Department continues to demonstrate the importance of remaining steadfast to operating principles
while staying focused on the mission.
The Department has made progress in recent years in cleanup and/or closure of sites. As many as
seven sites will be completed by the end of 2006 including: Rocky Flats, Fernald, Columbus, Ashtabula,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-Main Site, and Kansas
City Plant.
DOE will maintain a focus on site completion, with an additional ten sites or areas projected to
be completed by the end of 2009. These include: Argonne National Laboratory – East, Miamisburg,
Brookhaven National Laboratory, East Tennessee Technology Park at Oak Ridge, Energy Technology
Engineering Center, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-Site 300, Inhalation Toxicology
Laboratory, Pantex Plant, Sandia National Laboratory, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
Eight Nevada "Off-sites" will be transferred to the Office of Legacy Management in FY 2007. Three
of these eight sites (the Central Nevada Test Area, Project Shoal Area, and the Rio Blanco Site)
are scheduled to close in 2010.
In addition to its emphasis on site cleanup and closures, the Department is also focusing on
longer-term activities required for the completion of the cleanup program. These include:
- Constructing and operating facilities to treat radioactive liquid tank waste into a safe,
stable form to enable ultimate disposition.
- Securing and storing nuclear material in a stable, safe configuration in secure locations
to protect national security.
- Transporting and disposing of transuranic and low-level wastes in a safe and cost-effective
manner to reduce risk.
Strategies to reach this goal
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Goal 4.2 – Managing the Legacy
Manage the Department’s post-closure environmental responsibilities and ensure the future
protection of human health and the environment.
Description: Over the last 15 years, the Department has made significant progress in
environmental remediation. Millions of cubic meters of waste have been removed, stabilized, or
disposed of, and a number of former weapons facilities have been transformed for other uses. The
overall risk to human health and the environment will continue to decrease as the Department
completes additional cleanup work. The new challenge will be to successfully manage the environmental
remedies and the residual risks in a manner that enables the optimal future use of the land and
facilities while continuing to protect human health. This is true for both the sites that are
closing and for those that continue to support ongoing DOE missions.
In addition to the sites cleaned up by the Office of Environmental Management, DOE is responsible
for sites remediated by other parties. The Department has responsibility for long-term surveillance
and maintenance at sites associated with the Formerly Used Sites Remedial Action Program (cleanup is
performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) and uranium mining and mill tailing sites (as specified
by the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act).
By 2015, DOE will be conducting long-term surveillance and maintenance at approximately 120 sites
where there is no longer an ongoing Departmental mission. Roughly two dozen sites with ongoing
missions will also have surveillance and maintenance activities; those activities will be managed as
an integral part of the overall site operation.
A geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is vital for moving temporarily stored legacy
materials from former nuclear weapons sites to a safe, central storage location. The repository is
also necessary for preserving the nuclear option for electricity generation which provides
approximately 20 percent of the Nation’s electricity supply (nuclear energy is also addressed in
Strategic Goals #1.1 and #1.2). Integral to attaining this goal is the near-term licensing, subsequent
construction, and operation of the permanent repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain
authorized under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Strategies to reach this goal
- Protect human health and the environment through surveillance and maintenance activities that
verify workable environmental remedies.
- Preserve, protect, and ensure accessibility of legacy records and information associated with
current and historical site and facility operations.
- Optimally re-use lands, ensuring that human health and the environment are protected and
that regulators and the community are involved.
- Use environmental conflict resolution techniques to assist in the resolution or prevention
of disputes.
- Implement the Nuclear Waste Policy Act by completing the construction of a repository for
the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
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Crosscutting Science Integration
Based on discussions
with the science community, as well as environmental managers across DOE, the Department has identified
several areas relating to subsurface biogeochemistry and contaminant transport in groundwater in which hard work in basic science could yield significant benefits to the DOE cleanup mission. Molecular/atomic-scale science addressing the chemical
nature of environmental processes furthers the basic understanding of chemical, physical, and
biological processes occurring at larger scales in the subsurface. Investigations of biological
processes will lead to a better understanding of the myriad capabilities of microorganisms to
affect contaminant transport in the subsurface. The integration of molecular biology and genomics
techniques into subsurface science is essential to a mechanistic understanding of biological processes
controlling contaminant transport and bioremediation processes in the subsurface. This research
coupled with a more complete understanding of groundwater movement and the chemical nature of
reactive transport will help to advance new conceptual models of the mobility and fate of contaminants
in the environment. Research into novel monitoring and measurement tools is needed to verify the
performance of groundwater remediation techniques and long-term stewardship strategies. Resolving
subsurface contamination issues requires an integrative scientific approach with teams of researchers
working in the laboratory and in the field across scales to decipher and predict the mechanisms
controlling contaminant mobility in the environment. And there is both need and significant opportunity
to address chemistry and separations for radioactive waste; modeling, simulation, and scaling issues
for environmental management; and predictions of high level waste system performance over extreme time
horizons. While these are not exhaustive lists, they
represent an initial and ambitious set that offer high potential payoff, thus challenging the
science and technology communities to work together in the years ahead.
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External Factors
The following external factors could affect our ability to achieve the goals of our Environmental
Responsibility theme:
The Department must comply with all applicable
environmental laws and regulations. Changes in these laws and regulations can affect the
requirements associated with the environmental remedies and the resulting surveillance and
maintenance activities.
The end-state
for cleanup at many sites is not fully determined at the time of initial project planning,
resulting in changing requirements. The extent of cleanup required to satisfy interested
parties greatly affects cost, schedule, and scope of work.
Technological development is critical for solving
complex cleanup issues, but the success of such developments is inherently unpredictable.
Suitable and feasible cleanup technologies do not always exist when the development and
deployment of such innovative technologies could help reduce risk, lower cost, and accelerate
cleanup.
Uncertainties are inherent in the environmental cleanup program
due to the complexity and nature of the work. The Department is working to fully understand
the types of contaminants, their prevalence, and concentrations at a given site prior to the
execution phase of the cleanup.
Changes to the surrounding land use and demographics
can affect the Department’s approach to environmental protection, as well as the land use on the
Federally-owned property. Close coordination with surrounding land owners and communities is
necessary to anticipate and adjust to changes that could affect DOE-owned land and facilities.
Advances in science and technology can improve our
understanding of the natural environment, efforts to protect the environment, and the potential
impact to human health from residual risks. Scientific transformations could enable improved
and more cost-effective environmental remedies and/or allow a broader variety of land and
facility use.
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