20 Environmental Management Technology Development treated end products. DOE-EM should give full consideration to the characteristics of the final waste form in the perspective of its potential disposal environment. Ultimately, treatment technologies must be evaluated as a total system and in lifecycle context. 2. Selection of treatment technology and decisions to develop new technologies should be based on perceived needs associated with specific waste streams and potential advantages with regard to various issues such as types and quantities of wastes, quality criteria that define the end products and their use, and cost. Application of available and near-mature technologies may still leave some waste-treatment problems unsolved and, for the latter, new approaches may be required. Development of new treatment technologies should focus on adequacy and cost effectiveness of existing technologies for mixed-waste treatment, rather than on new, potentially applicable treatment technologies for mixed-waste streams. 3. Adequate characterization of mixed wastes is a critical element for successful and cost-effective implementation of mixed-waste management. Techniques used for characterization of mixed wastes should be adapted and limited to meet the essential requirements of the treatment processes and waste-management systems. Recommendations: Decontamination and Decommissioning Focus Area 1. DOE EM-50 has stated to the D&D Subcommittee that new technologies are needed to perform D&D tasks in safer, better, cheaper, and faster ways than are possible with presently available technologies. However, no documentation of the basis for this premise, which is the justification for the entire technology-development program, has been provided to the subcommittee or identified. Further, no basis was found for establishing the level to which sites should be decontaminated other than the need to comply with statutory, regulatory, and contractual requirements. End-use risk and cost are also major drivers. The tripartite agreements between the state of Washington, EPA, and DOE have been put in place largely without consideration of end use or rigorous risk assessment. As a result, existing statutes and regulations have been applied without adequate analysis of actual risk to populations and the environment. DOE should establish and document criteria to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of existing and candidate technologies and to identify deficiencies in these technologies. Such criteria should include cost effectiveness, probability of success, time of availability, secondary waste streams, and risk to operators and the public. After this evaluation has been accomplished, the basis for projecting the need for and/or the superiority of future technologies should be stated explicitly. The 5 "Total system" means all steps of waste management from generation to disposal. "Life cycle" refers to all costs and efforts related to the application of a technology, :.e.. R&D, delays due to new R&D and demonstration, licensing/acceptance, implementation, etc Some overlap may exist between the two Technology Devlopment in DOE 21 process should start with a needs assessment for the D&D Focus Area and should identify available technologies, technology gaps, and criteria for establishing priorities. DOE is also in urgent need of defining criteria by which to decontaminate sites on a "necessary and sufficient" basis within regulatory constraints. Such an exercise might indicate that current technologies are adequate to meet many cost and schedule targets. External peer review should be applied to each of these steps as appropriate. 2. The D&D Focus Area 1995 Strategic Plan's emphasis on relatively mature technologies and large-scale demonstrations, is too narrowly focused (USDOE, 1994b). The D&D Focus Area should revise its strategic plan to provide for a comprehensive D&D technology-development program. This plan should specify a process that will yield a systematic assessment of D&D needs and available technologies, identify technology gaps, develop criteria for establishing priorities, and justify each demonstration project that will be funded and executed. This effort should include a balanced program of basic and applied research, exploratory and advanced development, engineering design, demonstration, and implementation. This strategic plan should also be flexible, including provisions for future periodic revisions as new data and experiences are gained. 3. DOE should address planning in terms of a process, as many organizations have found that the most valuable aspect of any strategic-planning exercise is the process of assembling the plan rather than the specific details of the plan. In order for the plans to succeed, DOE decision makers (and not their support contractors) should draft the plans. DOE managers should set aside time for the planning exercise, which must include the undivided attention of the highest-level decision makers. The plan will succeed best if it has commitment from the highest and broadest levels of management. Different levels of DOE representatives could draft the different plans. but the strategic-planning document must include the highest-level decision makers Authors of the management plan should include those responsible for managing the plan, and the authors of the implementation plan should include those responsible for implementing the plan. The intent of the above recommendation is to encourage DOE-EM management to identify those activities that are most important and then carry out these high-priority activities effectively. Cross-Cutting Areas Appendix A also contains a report on technologies that are generic to and cut across a number of focus-area programs. Three of these technologies are specifically designated by DOE as cross cutting and have their own budgetary designations. These formally recognized cross-cutting technologies are (1) efficient separations and processing, (2) characterization, monitoring, and sensor technologies; and (3) robotics technology. In addition to these three areas, there are other technologies that are broadly applicable but not managed individually The 22 Environmental Management Technology Development contains discussions on areas of this type, i.e., vitrification, incineration, supercritical waste oxidation, and disposal technologies. This report covers the topics in varying degrees of detail but generally cites the reasons for the generic interest in each of the cross-cutting technologies. Some preliminary perspective on the status of technology development and on technological challenges requiring further effort is also included. As with the focus-area reviews, additional information will be collected and assessed in 1996. Recommendations to the cross-cutting areas are discussed below. Recommendations: Cross-Cutting Areas 1. In planning the research and development needed to support a specific remediation project (e.g., the Hanford tanks), the technology-development activities must be structured to produce an integrated system to deal with all aspects of the project: characterization, retrieval, treatment, stabilization, and disposal. For example, the processes developed for separation of the various waste components during the treatment phase must be compatible with one another as well as with the stabilization technology and with the minimization of cost and risk in disposal and storage. Similarly, the stabilization processes must be designed to consider not only the nature of the treated waste but also the disposal conditions and the duration of the storage period. 2. The DOE EM-50 robotics-development program has a broad range of ongoing projects with planned technology demonstrations and assessments. Documentation and presentations to date show that these projects have not been prioritized and funded according to DOE-EM needs, nor that there has been the required "buy-in" by other DOE organizations (EM-30, EM-40, etc.) for this work. DOE should carefully assess the robotics technology needs of all DOE-EM organizations, then plan, schedule, and budget for robotics demonstrations and assessments on a needs-driven basis. REFERENCES National Research Council. 1995. Committee on Environmental Management Technologies Report for the Period Ending December 31, 1994. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE). 1994a. Merit Review with Peer Evaluation for EM Integrated Technology Development. PreDecisional Draft. 1994. U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE). 1994b. Environmental Management SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTAMINANT PLUMES Statement of Task The Plumes Subcommittee was established to assist the Committee on Environmental Management Technologies (CEMT) in identifying the major technological needs in the Department of Energy's (DOE) Plumes Focus Area. Plumes are an integral component of DOE's Environmental Management (EM) strategy. For the purposes of this report, plumes are defined as chemical and/or radiological contaminants exceeding background concentrations in ground water or soil outside an engineered barrier, including landfills. This report will review the EM-50 assessment of the relative number, size, and importance of various categories of contaminant plumes at DOE sites, and whether remediation of the various classes of contaminant plumes is possible. In addition, the report will identify the most important technology needs regarding containment and remediation. Scope of Problem and Needs Currently, DOE is facing the need for cleanup of contaminant plumes at a dozen sites. However, the magnitude of the problem cannot be fully evaluated without a precise functional definition of a contaminant plume and a characterization of each identified plume in the DOE complex, a characterization that would include contaminant concentrations, volume of the affected area, hydrogeologic considerations, and other relevant information. These plumes contain radionuclides, heavy metals, organic compounds, light nonaqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs), and dense nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs) and are the result of historic open dumping, leaking containers, leaking storage tanks, and other precursor events. The greatest challenge to restoration of these contaminant plumes-and indeed, to many current and future environmental and economic challenges-is finding or developing appropriate technological solutions, many of which may not exist at this time. In addition, the subsurface conditions and the physical and chemical contaminant |