This Biennial Environmental Compliance Report (BECR) documents environmental regulatory compliance at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a facility designed and authorized for the safe disposal of transuranic (TRU) radioactive waste, for the reporting period of April 1, 2002, to March 31, 2004. As required by the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act (LWA) (Public Law [Pub. L.] 102-579, as amended by Pub. L. 104-201), the BECR documents U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) compliance with applicable environmental protection laws and regulations implemented by agencies of the federal government and the state of New Mexico.

Solar photoelectrochemical water-splitting has long been viewed as one of the “holy grails” of chemistry because of its potential impact as a clean, renewable method of fuel production. Several known photocatalytic semiconductors can be used; however, the fundamental mechanisms of the process remain poorly understood and no known material has the required properties for cost effective hydrogen production. In order to investigate morphological and compositional variations in metal oxides as they relate to opto-electrochemical properties, we have employed a combinatorial methodology using automated, high-throughput, electrochemical synthesis and screening together with conventional solid-state methods. This report discusses a number of novel, high-throughput instruments developed during this project for the expeditious discovery of improved materials for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production. Also described within this report are results from a variety of materials (primarily tungsten oxide, zinc oxide, molybdenum oxide, copper oxide and titanium dioxide) whose properties were modified and improved by either layering, inter-mixing, or doping with one or more transition metals. Furthermore, the morphologies of certain materials were also modified through the use of structure directing agents (SDA) during synthesis to create mesostructures (features 2-50 nm) that increased surface area and improved rates of hydrogen production.

Correspondence from Catherine Murphy to Eleanor Brown containing a copy of the information Murphy has on file for Brown and a list of the WASPs in Region 2. A handwritten note at the top of page 1 states, "Total 175 WASP in Reg II."

This report provides information about the farm credit system which provides financial cooperative lending to agricultural and aquatic producers, rural homeowners etc.

The effects of fluoride on the corrosion behavior of Titanium Grade 7 (0.12-0.25% Pd) have been investigated. Up to 0.1 mol/L fluoride was added to the NaCl brines at 95 C, and three pH values of 4, 8, and 11 were selected for studying pH dependence of fluoride effects. It was observed that fluoride significantly altered the anodic polarization behavior, at all three pH values of 4, 8, and 11. Under acidic condition fluoride caused active corrosion. The corrosion of Titanium grade 7 was increased by three orders of magnitude when a 0.1 mol/L fluoride was added to the NaCl brines at pH 4, and the Pd ennoblement effect was not observed in acidic fluoride-containing environments. The effects of fluoride were reduced significantly when pH was increased to 8 and above.

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Letter from Philip A. Berkebile, Executive Vice President at TDNA, to Darrell Colemen, President and Publisher at Wichita Falls Times Record News, on October 25, 2004. The letter is in regards to a prior conversation between Wesley R. Turner and Coleman, in which Coleman accepted his nomination for the TDNA board of directors if offered by the 2005 nomination committee. The nomination committee met and formally nominated Coleman to be one of the four recommended candidates for election.

Letter from Philip A. Berkebile, Executive Vice President at TDNA, to Charles A. Spence, Publisher at The Midland Reporter-Telegram, on October 25, 2004. The letter is in regards to a prior correspondence between Wesley R. Turner and Spence, in which Spence said that he would accept the nomination for the TDNA board of directors if offered by the 2005 nomination committee. The nominating committee has formally nominated Spence to be one of the four recommended candidates for election. cc'd on the letter are Donnis Baggett and Wesley R. Turner.

We report on a search for the pair production of scalar leptoquarks, LQ, using 191 pb{sup -1} of proton-antiproton collision data recorded by the CDF experiment during Run II of the Tevatron. The leptoquarks are sought via their decay into a neutrino and quark yielding missing transverse energy and several jets of large transverse energy. No evidence for leptoquark production is observed, and limits are set on {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} LQ{ovr OQ}X {yields} v{bar v}q{bar q}X). Using a next-to-leading order theoretical prediction of the cross section for scalar leptoquark production, we exclude first-generation leptoquarks in the mass interval 78 to 117 GeV/c{sup 2} at the 95% confidence level for BR(LQ {yields} vq) = 100%.

The objective of this project is to design, fabricate and field demonstrate a cost effective, multi-spectral scanner for natural gas leak detection in transmission and distribution pipelines. During the first year of the project, a laboratory version of the multi-spectral scanner was designed, fabricated, and tested at En'Urga Inc. The multi-spectral scanner was also evaluated using a blind DoE study at RMOTC. The performance of the scanner was inconsistent during the blind DoE study. However, most of the leaks were outside the view of the multi-spectral scanner. Therefore, a definite evaluation of the capability of the scanner was not obtained. Despite the results, sufficient number of plumes was detected fully confirming the feasibility of the multi-spectral scanner. During the second year, a rugged prototype scanner will be developed and evaluated, both at En'Urga Inc. and any potential field sites.

With the nation's coal-burning utilities facing the possibility of tighter controls on mercury pollutants, the U.S. Department of Energy is funding projects that could offer power plant operators better ways to reduce these emissions at much lower costs. Mercury is known to have toxic effects on the nervous systems of humans and wildlife. Although it exists only in trace amounts in coal, mercury is released when coal burns and can accumulate on land and in water. In water, bacteria transform the metal into methylmercury, the most hazardous form of the metal. Methylmercury can collect in fish and marine mammals in concentrations hundreds of thousands times higher than the levels in surrounding waters. One of the goals of DOE is to develop technologies by 2005 that will be capable of cutting mercury emissions 50 to 70 percent at well under one-half of projected DOE/EPA early cost estimates. ADA Environmental Solutions (ADA-ES) is managing a project to test mercury control technologies at full scale at four different power plants from 2000-2003. The ADA-ES project is focused on those power plants that are not equipped with wet flue gas desulfurization systems. ADA-ES has developed a portable system that was tested at four different …

The 2004 Gordon Research Conference on Atomic and Molecular Interactions was held July 11-16 at Colby-Sawyer College, New London, New Hampshire. This latest edition in a long-standing conference series featured invited talks and contributed poster papers on dynamics and intermolecular interactions in a variety of environments, ranging from the gas phase through surfaces and condensed media. A total of 90 conferees participated in the conference.

The primary purpose of this model report is to develop abstractions for the response of engineered barrier system (EBS) components to seismic hazards at a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and to define the methodology for using these abstractions in a seismic scenario class for the Total System Performance Assessment - License Application (TSPA-LA). A secondary purpose of this model report is to provide information for criticality studies related to seismic hazards. The seismic hazards addressed herein are vibratory ground motion, fault displacement, and rockfall due to ground motion. The EBS components are the drip shield, the waste package, and the fuel cladding. The requirements for development of the abstractions and the associated algorithms for the seismic scenario class are defined in ''Technical Work Plan For: Regulatory Integration Modeling of Drift Degradation, Waste Package and Drip Shield Vibratory Motion and Seismic Consequences'' (BSC 2004 [DIRS 171520]). The development of these abstractions will provide a more complete representation of flow into and transport from the EBS under disruptive events. The results from this development will also address portions of integrated subissue ENG2, Mechanical Disruption of Engineered Barriers, including the acceptance criteria for this subissue defined in Section 2.2.1.3.2.3 of the …

The purpose of this model report is to provide documentation of the conceptual and mathematical model (Ashplume) for atmospheric dispersal and subsequent deposition of ash on the land surface from a potential volcanic eruption at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This report also documents the ash (tephra) redistribution conceptual model. These aspects of volcanism-related dose calculation are described in the context of the entire igneous disruptive events conceptual model in ''Characterize Framework for Igneous Activity'' (BSC 2004 [DIRS 169989], Section 6.1.1). The Ashplume conceptual model accounts for incorporation and entrainment of waste fuel particles associated with a hypothetical volcanic eruption through the Yucca Mountain repository and downwind transport of contaminated tephra. The Ashplume mathematical model describes the conceptual model in mathematical terms to allow for prediction of radioactive waste/ash deposition on the ground surface given that the hypothetical eruptive event occurs. This model report also describes the conceptual model for tephra redistribution from a basaltic cinder cone. Sensitivity analyses and model validation activities for the ash dispersal and redistribution models are also presented. Analyses documented in this model report update the previous documentation of the Ashplume mathematical model and its application to the Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) for the License Application …

Field and laboratory investigations of naturally occurring CO{sub 2}-reservoirs are being conducted to determine the characteristics of potential seal and reservoir units and the extent of the interactions that occur between the host rocks and the CO{sub 2} charged fluids. Efforts have focused on the Farnham Dome field, located in central Utah, the Springerville-St. Johns field in Arizona and New Mexico, and most recently, the Crystal Geyser-Salt Wash graben areas with their CO{sub 2}-charged geysers and springs in central Utah. At both the Springerville-St. Johns field and the central Utah CO{sub 2} spring area, there is evidence of extensive travertine deposits that document release of CO{sub 2} to the atmosphere. At Farnham Dome, calcite debris fields appear to be remnants of vein calcite and an earlier period of fluid leakage. The main achievements during this quarter are (1): preparation for a soil gas flux survey in October at the Crystal Geyser --Little Grand Wash fault zone, and the Salt Wash graben; (2) submission of an abstract to the upcoming Measurement, Monitoring and Verification session at the Fall AGU meeting; (3) submission of an invited abstract to the Gordon Conference on Hydrocarbon Resources; and (4) receipt of initial radiocarbon dates of …

This report discusses the scoping study performed to evaluate the use of a catalyzed electrolytic process for dissolving {sup 237}Np oxide targets that had been irradiated to produce {sup 238}Pu oxide. Historically, these compounds have been difficult to dissolve, and complete dissolution was obtained only by adding hydrofluoric acid to the nitric acid solvent. The presence of fluoride in the mixture is undesired because the fluoride ions are corrosive to tank and piping systems and the fluoride ions cause interferences in the spectrophotometric analyses. The goal is to find a dissolution method that will eliminate these issues and that can be incorporated into a processing system to support the domestic production and purification of {sup 238}Pu. This study evaluated the potential of cerium(IV) ions, a strong oxidant, to attack and dissolve the oxide compounds. In the dissolution process, the cerium(IV) ions are reduced to cerium(III) ions, which are not oxidants. Therefore, an electrolytic process was incorporated to continuously convert cerium(III) ions back to cerium(IV) ions so that they can dissolve more of the oxide compounds. This study showed that the neptunium and plutonium oxides were successfully dissolved and that more development work should be performed to optimize the procedure.

This report describes a process for performing preclosure criticality analyses for a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. These analyses will be performed from the time of receipt of fissile material until permanent closure of the repository (preclosure period). The process describes how criticality safety analyses will be performed for various configurations of waste in or out of waste packages that could occur during preclosure as a result of normal operations or event sequences. The criticality safety analysis considers those event sequences resulting in unanticipated moderation, loss of neutron absorber, geometric changes, or administrative errors in waste form placement (loading) of the waste package. The report proposes a criticality analyses process for preclosure to allow a consistent transition from preclosure to postclosure, thereby possibly reducing potential cost increases and delays in licensing of Yucca Mountain. The proposed approach provides the advantage of using a parallel regulatory framework for evaluation of preclosure and postclosure performance and is consistent with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approach of supporting risk-informed, performance-based regulation for fuel cycle facilities, ''Yucca Mountain Review Plan, Final Report'', and 10 CFR Part 63. The criticality-related criteria for ensuring subcriticality are also described as well as which guidance documents will be …

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This document describes the monitoring plan to meet the requirements for interim status groundwater monitoring at Hanford Site low-level waste burial grounds as specified by 40 CFR 265, incorporated by reference in WAC 173-303-400. The monitoring will take place at four separate low-level waste management areas in the 200-West and 200-East Areas, in the central part of the site. This plan replaces the previous monitoring plan.

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The Navy railroad service line runs between Shelton, Bremerton, and Silverdale, and is used by the Navy to transfer freight to its facilities. It is also used by commercial clients to ship service items and bulk cargo for municipalities along portions of the route. Culverts of various size and construction convey streams and stormwater runoff under the railroad line. These allow transfer of water and, in some cases allow for passage of juvenile and adult salmon into waters upstream of the culverts. As part of this project, 21 culverts along a 34-mile reach (Shelton to Bremerton) of this railroad were surveyed to evaluate their function and ability to allow salmon to utilize the streams. The culverts and attached watersheds were evaluated using criteria developed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to assign a Priority Index (PI) to barriers present on each fish-bearing stream. The PI is a relative numeric rating indicator, assigned using consistent criteria related to the degree of potential habitat gained by removing barriers and improving the function of the watershed. Of the 21 culverts evaluated, five were found to be complete fish-passage barriers and six were found to be partial barriers, primarily to juvenile salmon. …

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