A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the importance of land acquisition to the success of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Initiative, focusing on: (1) what the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force did to identify and acquire lands needed to accomplish the goals of the initiative from 1996 through 1999; and (2) what the Department of the Interior did to help ensure that it maximized the acreage purchased--that is, bought as much land as possible, with $200 million in Farm Bill grants."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Civil Air Patrol, focusing on the: (1) nature of the relationship between the Air Force and the Patrol; (2) Air Force's oversight of the Patrol; (3) Patrol's management and oversight of its own activities; and (4) plans to resolve identified problems."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on how the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) determines highway investment requirements, focusing on the: (1) methodology the Highway Economic Requirements System (HERS) computer model uses to generate its estimates of the nation's highway investment requirements; (2) strengths and limitations of the model; and (3) usefulness of the HERS estimates for deciding on federal investments in highway infrastructure."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on states' practices regarding Medicaid reimbursement of school-based administrative activities, focusing on: (1) the extent to which school districts and states claim Medicaid reimbursement for school-based health services and administrative activities; (2) the appropriateness of methods states use to establish bundled rates for school-based health services and to assess the costs of administrative activities that their schools may claim as reimbursable; (3) states' retention of federal Medicaid reimbursement for services provided by schools and schools' practice of paying contingency fees to private firms; and (4) the adequacy of the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) oversight of state practices regarding school-based claims, including safeguards employed to ensure appropriate billing for health services and administrative activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) use of recovery auditing, a process that identifies and collects overpayments made to vendors, focusing on DOD's: (1) progress in recovering overpayments and the reasons for any delays; and (2) use of recovery auditing."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report summarizes GAO's findings on the Department of Defense's (DOD) Future Years Defense Program (FYDP). Although total funding in the 2001 FYDP is about $16 billion more than in the 2000 FYDP, DOD may not be able to implement its operation and maintenance and procurement programs as planned. GAO identified several areas in which costs may be understated or savings overstated, increasing the risk that in the next FYDP the military will have to shift more funds to these accounts from other accounts. DOD's efforts to reduce its infrastructure costs may not yield the savings that it planned to use to fund modernization and readiness needs. Because the military services and the defense organizations have already adjusted their current budgets and future years funding projects to reflect these expected savings, they will likely experience funding shortfalls unless other adjustments are made or additional ends are provided."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the policies, procedures, and practices of the military departments for protecting the confidentiality of communications between military dependents and counselors, therapists, and other service providers regarding family abuse, focusing on the: (1) extent of reported spousal and child abuse within the military; (2) degree to which dependent conversations about family abuse are subject to disclosure; and (3) nature of Department of Defense (DOD) efforts to address the confidentiality of dependent communications."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on whether agencies were adhering to the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) memorandum requiring federal agencies to post privacy policies on their Internet Websites, focusing on: (1) whether agencies have clearly labelled and easily accessed privacy policies posted on their principal Web sites; (2) whether agencies' privacy policies posted on their principal Web sites inform visitors about what information an agency collects, why the agency collects it, and how the agency will use the information; (3) how selected agencies have interpreted the requirement to post privacy policies at major entry points; and (4) whether selected agencies have posted privacy policies on Web pages where the agency collects substantial personal information or when applicable, notices that refer to the Privacy Act of 1974."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) coverage to tribal contractors under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, focusing on: (1) the process for implementing FTCA coverage for tribal self-determination contracts; (2) the FTCA claims history for tribal self-determination contracts for fiscal years (FY) 1997 through 1999; and (3) FTCA coverage issues that are unique to tribal contractors."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) and the Durable Medical Equipment Regional Carriers' (DMERC) actions to implement a final rule for processing Medicare payments, focusing on whether: (1) it was proper for HCFA to issue its inherent reasonableness regulations as an interim final rule, and whether HCFA is authorized to delegate responsibility for making payment adjustments to the DMERCs; (2) the DMERCs' survey methods were adequate to support the proposed payment reductions; and (3) the proposed payment reductions will reduce patient access to the affected medical products."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed issues related to the regulation of electronic trading systems, focusing on: (1) how technology is being used in the exchange-traded futures market, and what concerns this use raises under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA); (2) how technology is being used in the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market, and what concerns this use raises under the CEA; and (3) what alternatives have been suggested for addressing the concerns raised under the CEA by the use of technology in the exchange-traded futures and OTC derivatives markets."

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With the exception of control of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) ventilation fans, and their shutdown in the case of smoke in the ducts, all implementations of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) in Dzero have been made within the fundamental premise that no uncertified PLC apparatus shall be entrusted with the safety of equipment or personnel. Thus although PLCs are used to control and monitor all manner of intricate equipment, simple hardware interlocks and relief devices provide basic protection against component failure, control failure, or inappropriate control operation. Nevertheless, this report includes two observations as follows: (1) It may be prudent to reconfigure the link between the Pyrotronics system and the HVAC system such that the Pyrotronics system provides interlocks to the ventilation fans instead of control inputs to the uncertified HVAC PLCs. Although the Pyrotronics system is certified and maintained to life safety standards, the HVAC system is not. A hardware or software failure of the HVAC system probably should not be allowed to result in the situation where the ventilation fans in a smoke filled duct continue to operate. Dan Markley is investigating this matter. (2) It may also be prudent to examine the network security of those …

In 1999, eight soil gas sampling points ranging in depth from 4.9 ft to 32 ft below ground surface (bgs) in two clusters were installed adjacent to well 699-41-1, south of the Hanford Townsite. Fifteen soil gas sampling points, ranging in depth from 7.0 ft to 10.4 ft bgs, were installed to the north and east of the 100-K East Reactor facility. Gas phase soil moisture samples were collected using silica gel traps from all eight sampling locations adjacent to well 699-41-1 and eight locations at the 100-K Area. Soil gas samples for helium-3 measurements were collected at all sampling points. No detectable tritium (<240 pCi/L) was found in the soil moisture samples from either the Hanford Townsite or 100-K Area sampling points. This behavior suggests that tritiated moisture from groundwater is not migrating upward to the sampling points and there are no large vadose zone sources of tritium at either location. Helium-3 analyses of the soil gas samples showed significant enrichments relative to ambient air helium-3 concentrations with a depth dependence consistent with a groundwater source from decay of tritium. Helium-3/helium-4 ratios (normalized to the abundances in ambient air) at the Hanford Townsite ranged from 1.012 at 5 feet …

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Marine sediment remediation at the United Heckathorn Superfund Site was completed in April 1997. Water and mussel tissues were sampled in January 1998 from four stations near Lauritzen Canal in Richmond, California, for the first post-remediation monitoring of marine areas near the United Heckathorn Site. Dieldrin and DDT were analyzed in water samples, tissue samples from resident mussels, and tissue samples from transplanted mussels deployed for 4 months. Concentrations of dieldrin and total DDT in water and total DDT in tissue were compared to pre-remediation data available from the California State Mussel Watch program (tissues) and the Ecological Risk Assessment for the United Heckathorn Superfund Site (tissues and water). Biomonitoring results indicated that pesticides were still bioavailable in the water column, and have not been reduced from pre-remediation levels. Annual biomonitoring will continue to assess the effectiveness of remedial actions at the United Heckathorn Site.

Fully turbulent inflow past a shallow cavity is investigated for the configuration of an axisymmetric cavity mounted in a pipe. Emphasis is on conditions giving rise to coherent oscillations, which can lead to locked-on states of flow tones in the pipe-cavity system. Unsteady surface pressure measurements are interpreted using three-dimensional representations of amplitude-frequency-inflow velocity; these representations are constructed for a range of cavity depth. Assessment of these data involves a variety of approaches. Evaluation of pressure gradients on plan views of the three-dimensional representations allows extraction of the frequencies of the instability (Strouhal) modes of the cavity oscillation. These frequency components are correlated with traditional models originally formulated for cavities in a free-stream. In addition, they are normalized using two length scales; inflow boundary-layer thickness and pipe diameter. These scales are consistent with those employed for the hydrodynamic instability of the separated shear layer, and are linked to the large-scale mode of the shear layer oscillation, which occurs at relatively long cavity length. In fact, a simple scaling based on pipe diameter can correlate the frequencies of the dominant peaks over a range of cavity depth. The foregoing considerations provide evidence that pronounced flow tones can be generated from a …

This document provides a documented basis for the required design pressure rating and pump pressure capacity of the Hanford Site waste-transfer system in support of the waste feed delivery to the privatization contractor for vitrification. The scope of the analysis includes the 200 East Area double-shell tank waste transfer pipeline system and the associated transfer system pumps for a11 Phase 1B and Phase 2 waste transfers from AN, AP, AW, AY, and A2 Tank Farms.

This Acceptance Test Procedure (ATP) provides for the inspection and testing of the new Pumping Instrumentation and Control (PIC) skid designed as ''U''. The ATP will be performed after the construction of the PIC skid in the fabrication shop.

Ventilation Stack Continuous Air Monitor (CAM) Interlock System failure modes, failure frequencies and system availability have been evaluated for the RPP. The evaluation concludes that CAM availability is as high as assumed in the safety analysis and that the current routine system surveillance is adequate to maintain this availability. Further, requiring an alarm to actuate upon CAM failure is not necessary to maintain the availability credited in the safety analysis, nor is such an arrangement predicted to significantly improve system availability. However, if CAM failures were only detected by the 92-day functional tests required in the Authorization Basis (AB), CAM availability would be much less than that credited in the safety analysis. Therefore it is recommended that the current surveillance practice of daily simple system checks, 30-day source checks and 92-day functional tests be continued in order to maintain CAM availability.

This system design description (SDD) addresses the instrument air (IA) system of the spent nuclear fuel (SNF). This IA system provides instrument quality air to the Cold Vacuum Drying (CVD) Facility. The IA system is a general service system that supports the operation of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, the process equipment skids, and process instruments in the CVD Facility. The following discussion is limited to the compressor, dryer, piping, and valving that provide the IA as shown in Drawings H-1-82222, Cold Vacuum Drying Facility Mechanical Utilities Compressed & Instrument Air P&amp;ID, and H-1.82161, Cold Vacuum Drying Facility Process Equipment Skid P&amp;ID MCO/Cusk Interface. Figure 1-1 shows the physical location of the 1A system in the CVD Facility.

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Volume 2 provides estimated chemical and radionuclide inventories of sludge currently stored within the Hanford Site's 105-K Basin This volume also provides estimated chemical and radionuclide inventories for the sludge streams expected to be generated during Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Project activities.

The general thermal hydraulics program GOTH-SNF was used to predict the thermal response of the waste in tanks 241-AY-102 and 241-AZ-102 when mixed by two 300 horsepower mixer pumps. This mixing was defined in terms of a specific waste retrieval scenario. Both dome and annulus ventilation system flow are necessary to maintain the waste within temperature control limits during the mixing operation and later during the sludge-settling portion of the scenario are defined.