INTRODUCTION 7 remediation or waste minimization do not exist. In other cases, the development of new technology and processes might substantially reduce the costs of, or risks associated with, remediation and waste management. An effective technology-development program focused on such opportunities is an essential element of an overall strategy for reducing the cost and speeding the pace of the Environmental Management Program. In some cases, fundamental science questions will have to be addressed before a technology or process can be engineered. For example, improved understanding of the principles of pollutant transport in groundwater is required for important advancement in the development of groundwaterremediation technology. There is a need to involve more basic science researchers in the challenges of the Department's remediation effort. The formula is simple: Department research managers must fund long-term research programs with the most creative and innovative researchers, and the researchers must be kept involved with the "customers"-those who have the particular remediation or waste-minimization problems. Environmental Mission or Environmental Ethic? The Department spends more resources on its Environmental Management Program than on any other activity, and environmental management is often described as one of the Department's central missions. However, the Department should view its remedial activities as industry does, not as a central mission, but rather as a job that must be completed so that the Department can return to its more basic missions. Viewing it this way will help keep the focus of remediation activities on efficiency and cost effectiveness rather than on creating a self-perpetuating activity. Waste minimization and pollution prevention should be embraced as integral to the performance of such missions as supporting long-term national security and science and technology development. US industry is refocusing and substantially broadening its vision of how to do its business in this manner, and the Department should do likewise (see also pp. 107-108, 154). For current products and processes, that means setting pollution-prevention goals and acknowledging that the most effective way to reach them is to make environmental criteria a part of experiment, process, and product designs. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT'S NOTABLE INITIATIVES A number of initiatives are rapidly introducing change into a system that was established during the Cold War. It is too early to assess their effectiveness and how long they will last, but their principles and general direction are PART I: SYNTHESIS REPORT and we recognize that change will continue even during the final preparation of this report. Research and Development Initiative The Office of Energy Research and the Office of Environmental Management have made a commitment to create a new program designed to integrate a long-term research effort into the Environmental Management Program to make crucial advances. The Congress has allocated $50 million of the Environmental Management Program funding for this effort. Such collaboration is the kind of integration recommended in all the subcommittees' reports. Keys to the success of the effort include consistency of funding, a commitment from program managers in the Department to make it a truly new effort rather than a repackaging of existing programs, and a broad outreach to universities and industries and foreign researchers in partnership with the Department's National Laboratories (see also pp. 117-119, 121-122, 150-151). An example of this kind of an effort is the creation of the Consortium on Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), which resulted from recommendations of an earlier National Research Council report (NRC, 1994). Contractor Relations Establishing a system that is managerially and financially in control is one of Environmental Management's stated goals. One example of how it is attempting to achieve that goal is the introduction of a contract-reform initiative. Several basic elements of the reform are increased competition; renewed focus on the protection of workers, the public, and the environment; a results-oriented focus; and performance-based incentives. In recent months, a performance-based integrated contract adopting the elements of the contractreform initiative has been introduced and implemented at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site. Some workshop participants emphasized that it is too early to predict the effectiveness of the new contract, but all subcommittees strongly supported the intentions and direction of the contractreform effort (see also pp. 34-35, 79, 147–149). Key to the success of this effort will be a clear written statement by Department leadership of the desired relationship between Department employees and contractors. Budgeting Process One notable initiative has been the integration of risk and long-term cost data into budgeting. While we did not undertake a critical review of the technical elements of the report, the publication of Risks and the Risk Debate: INTRODUCTION 9 Searching for Common Ground, "The First Step" (DOE, 1995d) the broad intent of this effort is indeed an important first step for integrating risk assessment into budgeting. Current efforts to integrate options to reduce the cost of maintaining sites and facilities in a safe status while awaiting remediation, which will necessarily incorporate cost-benefit analysis, will further strengthen the analytical basis of Environmental Management's budgeting process. Environmental Management has correctly recognized that without stakeholder acceptance and consensus on both the process and the outcomes, improved analytical techniques and better factual information will be of less value (although such techniques and information can serve to inform the stakeholders in those decisions). Public Participation The Department has made a substantial effort to improve the participation of its many stakeholders in its deliberations and decision-making, and the Secretary has shown exemplary leadership in this regard (see also pp. 69-70, 155). The result is a perceptible improvement in the credibility of the Department and of Environmental Management (surveys of stakeholders taken in 1992 and 1994 and presented to the Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board on October 26, 1995, showed a statistically significant change in the level of trust in the Department's Office of Environmental Management, p = 0.0003). Principal Recommendations RESULTS NEEDED NOW There are a number of common themes and observations throughout the four subcommittee reports. One is the observation that the Department has undertaken a long-term task. Nonetheless, there is a consensus among regulators, the Department, Congress, and the public that it is time to get on with the task of cleaning up the nuclear weapons complex. While there may be a consensus to get on with the task there is no real consensus as to what that means. For some it is meeting milestones in compliance agreements and for others it means remediating contaminated soil, groundwater, and buildings, even when the process chosen may take decades and many billions of dollars to complete regardless of what compliance agreement milestones may require. This committee believes getting on with the task, whichever definition one uses, will be accomplished most effectively by implementing a process for decision-making and accountability that includes Having a more specific set of goals for the program (see also pp. 66-67, 108-112, 141-142). • A process for prioritizing tasks which includes among its tools risk assessment, (which should consider the perspectives and values of stakeholders as recommended in Building Consensus (NRC, 1994)) and cost-benefit analysis (see also pp. 44-45, 46, 82-83, 103-104, 110, 120-121, 144-145). • A peer-reviewed remediation and waste-minimization technology selection and development process that is responsive to the needs of those implementing the remediation (see also pp. 65, 104, 113, 116, 119, 121, 122). • An overall organizational and management structure which both provides an opportunity for stakeholder input in each of the above activities (see also pp. 69-70, 83, 113, 146-147, 155-157) and provides incentives for stakeholders and federal and contract workers to implement these activities of the Environmental Management Program successfully (see also pp. 113, 147-149). Responsible Stewardship The lack of appropriate technology or a permanent solution for remediating a polluted site or facility should not be an excuse not to take appropriate steps on a near-term or interim basis. Responsible stewardship means undertaking appropriate near-term or mid-term action to remediate a site to protect the public and the environment when a permanent solution is not at hand. Communities and states that are willing to make institutional commitments to implement such plans for near-term and mid-term remedies are participating in responsible stewardship. In the absence of permanent solutions, responsible stewardship allows progress to be made by providing adequate protection against environmental and human health risks that are serious and long-lived (see also pp. 40-41, 48). It deals with waste in relatively short increments of time, say, 20 years. After such a period, existing approaches should be re-examined, and society can decide what to do for the next 20 years. Until permanent solutions are developed, actions taken as part of responsible stewardship that are irreversible should be avoided. An example at Hanford related to decisions about contamination along the Columbia River illustrates the idea of responsible stewardship. Stakeholders have placed a high priority on unrestricted access to lands along the river. They have also acknowledged that no solution for complete remediation of the underlying groundwater exists. Therefore, work has focused on the remediation of soils and on remediating and containing sources of groundwater contamination while the long-term goal of unrestricted use of the groundwater is retained. Another example is the approach taken to management of transuranic waste at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. Recently, the Department has undertaken a major effort at consolidating, repackaging, monitoring, and sheltering its transuranic waste. Instead of being exposed to the effects of weather and the possibility of corrosion and leaks, drums containing transuranic waste are stored on concrete or asphalt pads in weather-resistant structures. Much of the waste had been stored in earth-covered drums, which were expected to be needed for only a few years, until a permanent disposal site became available. The Department is now repacking drums that began to corrode or leak and is building new interim storage facilities (DOE, 1995a). It is important to underscore that responsible stewardship should not be |