Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since World War II, some employers have voluntarily sponsored postretirement health plans as a benefit to their employees. According to government sources, these health plans constitute the primary source of health coverage for retirees aged 55 to 64 and supplemental coverage for nearly one third of retirees aged 65 or older with Medicare coverage. However, with costs already amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars for large employers and the baby boom generation nearing retirement age, employers are taking actions to control the costs of providing these benefits. In response to concerns that government contractors may be receiving underserved financial benefits by reducing retiree health benefits that were paid for under government contracts, we reviewed (1) what changes, if any, government contractors had made to their retiree health benefit plans and (2) the extent to which government agencies oversee retiree health benefit costs."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Government Pension Offset (GPO) exemption was enacted in 1977 to equalize the treatment of workers covered by Social Security and those with government pensions not covered by Social Security. Congress asked GAO to (1) assess the extent to which individuals retiring from jobs not covered by Social Security may be transferring briefly to covered jobs in order to avoid the GPO, and (2) estimate the impact of such transfers on the Social Security Trust Fund."

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The objective of this calculation is to determine the structural response of a 21-Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) spent nuclear fuel waste package impacting an unyielding surface. A range of initial velocities and initial angles between the waste package and the unyielding surface is studied. The scope of this calculation is limited to estimating the area of the outer shell (OS) where the residual stress exceeds a given limit (hereafter ''damaged area''). The stress limit is defined as a fraction of the yield strength of the OS material, Alloy 22 (SB-575 N06022), at the appropriate temperature. The design of the 21-PWR waste package used in this calculation is that defined in Reference 8. However, a value of 4 mm was used for the gap between the inner shell and the OS, and the thickness of the OS was reduced by 2 mm. The sketch in Attachment I provides additional information not included in Reference 8. All obtained results are valid for this design only. This calculation is associated with the waste package design and was performed by the Specialty Analyses and Waste Package Design Section. The waste package (i.e. uncanistered spent nuclear fuel disposal container) is classified as Quality Level 1.

The long-term program aimed at selection of a site for a deep repository was initiated in Finland in 1983. This program has come to end in 2001 and a new phase aimed at implementation of the geological disposal of spent fuel has been started. In this new phase the first milestone is the application for a construction license for the disposal facility around 2010. To fulfill the needs for detailed design of the disposal system, an underground rock characterization facility (URCF) will be constructed at the representative depth at Olkiluoto. The excavation of this facility will start the work for underground characterization, testing and demonstration, which is planned to be a continuous activity throughout the whole life cycle of the deep repository. The overall objectives for the underground site characterization are (1) verification of the present conclusions on site suitability, (2) definition and identification of suitable rock volumes for repository space and (3) characterization of planned host rock for detailed design, safety assessment and construction planning. The objective for verification aims at assessing that the Olkiluoto site meets the basic criteria for long-term safety and as well the basic requirements for construction and thus justifies the site selection. The two …

This paper describes the approaches used in the clearing, cleaning, decontamination and decommissioning of a very large suite of seven concrete shielded caves and other facilities used by UKAEA at Winfrith Technology Centre, England over a period of about 30 years for the postirradiation examination (PIE) of a wide range of nuclear fuels and other very active components. The basic construction of the facilities will first be described, setting the scene for the major challenges that 1970s' thinking posed for decommissioning engineers. The tendency then to use large and heavy items of equipment supported upon massive steel bench structures produced a series of major problems that had to be overcome. The means of solving these problems by utilization of relatively simple and inexpensive equipment will be described. Later, a further set of challenges was experienced to decontaminate the interior surfaces to allow man entries to be undertaken at acceptable dose rates. The paper will describe the types of tooling used and the range of complementary techniques that were employed to steadily reduce the dose rates down to acceptable levels. Some explanations will also be given for the creation of realistic dose budgets and the methods of recording and continuously assessing …

Four hand-held tools were tested for failed high-level waste melter decontamination and decommissioning (D&D). The forces felt by the tools during operation were measured using a tri-axial accelerometer since they will be operated by a remote manipulator. The efficiency of the tools was also recorded. Melter D&D consists of three parts: (1) glass fracturing: removing from the furnace the melted glass that can not be poured out through normal means, (2) glass cleaning: removing the thin layer of glass that has formed over the surface of the refractory material, and (3) K-3 refractory breakup: removing the K-3 refractory material. Surrogate glass, from a formula provided by the Savannah River Site, was melted in a furnace and poured into steel containers. K-3 refractory material, the same material used in the Defense Waste Processing Facility, was utilized for the demonstrations. Four K-3 blocks were heated at 1150 C for two weeks with a glass layer on top to simulate the hardened glass layer on the refractory surface in the melter. Tools chosen for the demonstrations were commonly used D&D tools, which have not been tested specifically for the different aspects of melter D&D. A jackhammer and a needle gun were tested for …

By the time the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) completes its Disposal Phase in FY 2034, the Department of Energy (DOE) will have disposed of approximately 109,378 cubic meters (m3) of Transuranic (TRU) waste in WIPP (1). If DOE adheres to its 2005 Pollution Prevention Goal of generating less than 141m3/yr of TRU waste, approximately 5000 m3 (4%) of that TRU waste will be newly generated (2). Because of the overwhelming majority (96%) of TRU waste destined for disposal at WIPP is legacy waste, the characterization and certification requirements were developed to resolve those issues related to legacy waste. Like many other DOE facilities Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has a large volume (9,010m3) of legacy Transuranic Waste in storage (3). Unlike most DOE facilities LANL will generate approximately 140m3 of newly generated TRU waste each year3. LANL's certification program was established to meet the WIPP requirements for legacy waste and does not take advantage of the fundamental differences in waste knowledge between newly generated and legacy TRU waste.

WESKEM, LLC's Environmental, Safety and Health (ES&H) Department had previously assessed that a lack of consistency, poor communication and using antiquated communication tools could result in varying operating practices, as well as a failure to capture and disseminate appropriate Integrated Safety Management (ISM) information. To address these issues, the ES&H Department established an Activity Hazard Review (AHR)/Activity Hazard Analysis (AHA) process for systematically identifying, assessing, and controlling hazards associated with project work activities during work planning and execution. Depending on the scope of a project, information from field walkdowns and table-top meetings are collected on an AHR form. The AHA then documents the potential failure and consequence scenarios for a particular hazard. Also, the AHA recommends whether the type of mitigation appears appropriate or whether additional controls should be implemented. Since the application is web based, the information is captured into a single system and organized according to the >200 work activities already recorded in the database. Using the streamlined AHA method improved cycle time from over four hours to an average of one hour, allowing more time to analyze unique hazards and develop appropriate controls. Also, the enhanced configuration control created a readily available AHA library to research and …

Research is being conducted at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to assess corrosion rates of metals in the subsurface environment in direct support of waste management operations and environmental restoration activities. This research addresses a need identified by Department of Energy-Headquarters when reviewing the performance assessment for the low-level waste disposal facility at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex. Corrosion rates are a key factor determining release rates of long-lived radionuclides from activated metal waste streams. Radionuclide releases from these wastes are key contributors to the projected long-term dose associated with the disposal facility. Short-term results from the corrosion samples buried for one and three years suggest that the corrosion rates assumed for the assessments are conservative. However, the rates appear to be increasing, thus, future retrievals of coupons will be used to identify whether the increasing trend continues.

In May 0f 2000, the Cerro Grande wild land fire burned approximately 48,000 acres in and around Los Alamos. In addition to the many buildings that were destroyed in the town site, many structures were also damaged and destroyed within the 43 square miles that comprise the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). A special Act of Congress provided funding to remove Laboratory structures that were damaged by the fire, or that could be threatened by subsequent catastrophic wild land fires. The High Pressure Tritium Laboratory (HPTL) is located at Technical Area (TA) 33, building 86 in the far southeast corner of the Laboratory property. It is immediately adjacent to Bandelier National Park. Because it was threatened by both the Cerro Grande fire in 2000, and the 16,000- acre Dome fire in 1996, the former tritium processing facility was placed on the list of facilities scheduled for Decontamination and Decommissioning under the Cerro Grande Rehabilitation Project. The work was performed through the Facilities and Waste Operations (FWO) Division and is integrated with other Laboratory D&D efforts. The primary demolition contractor was Clauss Construction of San Diego, California. Earth Tech Global Environmental Services of San Antonio, Texas was sub-contracted to Clauss Construction, …

Amersham owns a former Caesium-137 sealed source production facility. They commissioned RWE NUKEM to carry out an Option Study to determine a strategy for the management of this facility and then the subsequent decommissioning of it. The decommissioning was carried out in two sequential phases. Firstly robotic decommissioning followed by a phase of manual decommissioning. This paper describes the remote equipment designed built and operated, the robotic and manual decommissioning operations performed, the Safety Management arrangements and summarizes the lessons learned. Using the equipment described the facility was dismantled and decontaminated robotically. Some 2300kg of Intermediate Level Waste containing in the order of 4000Ci were removed robotically from the facility. Ambient dose rates were reduced from 100's of R per hour {gamma} to 100's of mR per hour {gamma}. The Telerobotic System was then removed to allow man access to complete the decommissioning. Manual decommissioning reduced ambient dose rates further to less than 1mR per hour {gamma} and loose contamination levels to less than 0.25Bq/cm2. This allowed access to the facility without respiratory protection.

The Kaiser-Hill Company, LLC has the responsibility for closure activities at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS). One of the challenges faced for closure is the disposition of radiologically contaminated gloveboxes. Evaluation of the disposition options for gloveboxes included a detailed analysis of available treatment capabilities, disposal facilities, and lifecycle costs. The Kaiser-Hill Company, LLC followed several processes in determining how the gloveboxes would be managed for disposition. Currently, multiple disposition paths have been chosen to accommodate the needs of the varying styles and conditions of the gloveboxes, meet the needs of the decommissioning team, and to best manage lifecycle costs. Several challenges associated with developing a disposition path that addresses both the radiological and RCRA concerns as well as offering the most cost-effective solution were encountered. These challenges included meeting the radiological waste acceptance criteria of available disposal facilities, making a RCRA determination, evaluating treatment options and costs, addressing void requirements associated with disposal, and identifying packaging and transportation options. The varying disposal facility requirements affected disposition choices. Facility conditions that impacted decisions included radiological and chemical waste acceptance criteria, physical requirements, and measurement for payment options. The facility requirements also impacted onsite activities including management strategies, decontamination …

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) regulations that set standards for protection of the public against radiation do not currently contain specific requirements for the control of solid materials with small or no amounts of radioactivity. Absent a National standard, NRC routinely evaluates, on a case-by-case basis, licensee requests to release solid materials when they are obsolete or no longer useful during operations, or when the facility is being shut down during decommissioning. As part of its continuing examination regarding the control of solid materials, NRC sponsored and received a report from the National Academies' (NA's) National Research Council that reviewed technical bases, policies, and precedents, and made several recommendations for moving forward on this issue. NRC evaluated the NA report and developed a set of options for proceeding with a process for examining approaches for control of solid materials. This paper explains the option that NRC chose and summarizes NRC's technical basis development and related National and international activities.

Environmental cleanup that is occurring at most U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites is going to be long and expensive. How expensive can really only be answered when cleanup paths forward have been identified, agreed to, and planned. In addition, all the major issues must have been identified. This also means being able to answer the question ''What about the waste?'' Where the waste goes and how it will be handled greatly affects the cost. However, within the mandatory safety and legal envelope, ingenuity can play a huge role in keeping the cost down, getting necessary decisions made earlier in the process, and being protective of the worker, public, and the environment. This paper examines how ingenuity addressed a cleanup action that had no agreed to and identified path forward and resulted in a decision made early that has spurred thinking on what to do with the other similar waste cleanup situations. The Canyon Disposition Initiative (CDI) is an example of finding a better way to address a specific problem, getting agreement on a path forward, opening the options for waste disposal, and reducing the time line for final disposition. For the CDI, the challenge was whether an old inactive …

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Transuranic and Mixed Waste Focus Area (TMFA), funded from fiscal year (FY) 1996 though FY 2002, was tasked with finding solutions for the mixed waste treatment problems of the DOE complex. During TMFA's initial technical baseline development process, three of the top four technology deficiencies identified were the need for amalgamation, stabilization, and separation/removal technologies for the treatment of mercury-contaminated mixed waste. The Mercury Working Group (HgWG), a selected group of representatives from DOE sites with significant mercury waste inventories, assisted TMFA in soliciting, identifying, initiating, and managing efforts to address these areas. Solicitations and contract awards were made to the private sector to demonstrate both the amalgamation and stabilization processes using both actual mixed wastes and surrogate samples. The goal was to develop separation and removal processes that will meet DOE's needs. This paper discusses the technology selection process, development activities, and the accomplishments of TMFA through these various activities.

The extent of environmental contamination created by the nuclear weapons legacy combined with expensive, ineffective waste cleanup strategies at many U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites prompted Congress to pass the FY96 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, which directed the DOE to: ''provide sufficient attention and resources to longer-term basic science research, which needs to be done to ultimately reduce cleanup costs'', ''develop a program that takes advantage of laboratory and university expertise, and'' ''seek new and innovative cleanup methods to replace current conventional approaches which are often costly and ineffective.'' In response, the DOE initiated the Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP)-a targeted, long-term research program intended to produce solutions to DOE's most pressing environmental problems. EMSP funds basic research to lower cleanup cost and reduce risk to workers, the public, and the environment; direct the nation's scientific infrastructure towards cleanup of contaminated waste sites; and bridge the gap between fundamental research and technology development activities. EMSP research projects are competitively awarded based on the project's scientific, merit coupled with relevance to addressing DOE site needs. This paper describes selected EMSP research projects with long, mid, and short-term deployment potential and discusses the impacts, focus, and results of the …

Engineers at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) have developed means of contamination control associated with jet-grouting buried radioactive mixed waste sites. Finely divided plutonium/americium oxide particulate can escape as the drill stem of the jet-grouting apparatus exits a waste deposit in preparation for insertion in another injection hole. In studying various options for controlling this potential contamination, engineers found that an elaborate glovebox/drill string shroud system prevents contaminants from spreading. Researchers jet-grouted a pit with nonradioactive tracers to simulate the movement of plutonium fines during an actual application. Data from the testing indicate that the grout immobilizes the tracer material by locking it up in particles large enough to resist aerosolization.

The United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Nevada Test Site (NTS) is one of two regional sites where low-level radioactive waste (LLW) from approved DOE and U.S. DOD generators across the United States is disposed. In federal fiscal year (FY) 2002, over 57,000 cubic meters of waste was transported to and disposed at the NTS. DOE and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations ensure that radiation exposure from truck shipments to members of the public is negligible. Nevertheless, particularly in rural communities along transportation routes in Utah and Nevada, there is perceived risk from members of the public about incremental exposure from LLW trucks, especially when ''Main Street'' and the LLW transportation route are the same. To better quantify the exposure to gamma radiation, a stationary monitoring array of four pressurized ion chambers (PICs) have been set up in a pullout just before LLW trucks reach the entrance to the NTS. The PICs are positioned at a distance of one meter from the sides of the truck trailer and at a height appropriate for the design of the trucks that will be used in FY2003 to haul LLW to the NTS. The use of four PICs (two on each …

This paper summarizes the Department of Energy's (DOE's) current efforts to strengthen its activities for the management and disposition of DOE-owned spent nuclear fuel (SNF). In August 2002 an integrated, ''corporate project'' was initiated by the Office of Environmental Management (EM) to develop a fully integrated strategy for disposition of the approximately {approx}250,000 DOE SNF assemblies currently managed by EM. Through the course of preliminary design, the focus of this project rapidly evolved to become DOE-wide. It is supported by all DOE organizations involved in SNF management, and represents a marked change in the way DOE conducts its business. This paper provides an overview of the Corporate Project for Integrated/Risk-Driven Disposition of SNF (Corporate SNF Project), including a description of its purpose, scope and deliverables. It also summarizes the results of the integrated project team's (IPT's) conceptual design efforts, including the identification of project/system requirements and alternatives. Finally, this paper highlights the schedule of the corporate project, and its progress towards development of a DOE corporate strategy for SNF disposition.

This review describes high temperature methods of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LILW) treatment currently used at SIA Radon. Solid and liquid organic and mixed organic and inorganic wastes are subjected to plasma heating in a shaft furnace with formation of stable leach resistant slag suitable for disposal in near-surface repositories. Liquid inorganic radioactive waste is vitrified in a cold crucible based plant with borosilicate glass productivity up to 75 kg/h. Radioactive silts from settlers are heat-treated at 500-700 0C in electric furnace forming cake following by cake crushing, charging into 200 L barrels and soaking with cement grout. Various thermochemical technologies for decontamination of metallic, asphalt, and concrete surfaces, treatment of organic wastes (spent ion-exchange resins, polymers, medical and biological wastes), batch vitrification of incinerator ashes, calcines, spent inorganic sorbents, contaminated soil, treatment of carbon containing 14C nuclide, reactor graphite, lubricants have been developed and implemented.

For more than a decade, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has managed an environmental remediation project at its former uranium processing facility near Fernald, Ohio. To address public concerns about what will happen at the site once remediation is completed, the Site- Specific Advisory Board for the site, the Fernald Citizens Advisory Board (FCAB), designed and implemented the Future of Fernald. process to involve the public in planning for the site's future. The FCAB recently coordinated a feasibility study of post-remediation public access to site information. Information is a key component of Community-Based Stewardship, a system in which the public plays an integral role in long-term stewardship of a site. This study found that has just begun to address community needs for information during long-term stewardship. Through a public workshop, conducted as part of the study, the public was able to identify the kinds of information that are needed and how that information should be presented.

At some sites both chemical and radiological investigation of soil and groundwater is required for overall site characterization. While the planning and execution of investigation activities is usually completed to fulfill regulatory (i.e., United States Environmental Protection Agency or United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission) requirements, coordination of chemical and radiological investigation programs may provide an opportunity for reducing the duration of investigation activities and reducing overall project costs. There are several similarities in the chemical and radiological investigation processes that one can take advantage of in program design and execution to efficiently plan and execute chemical and radiological investigations simultaneously. At sites where both chemical and radiological constituents are being investigated in soil and groundwater, various steps can be taken during the investigation processes to combine chemical and radiological investigation and characterization activities. With proper planning, investigating chemical and radiological constituents simultaneously in soil and groundwater can reduce the project schedule and provide cost savings for overall characterization of the site.

The alpha-contaminated solid waste generated in Belgium results from past activities in the fuel cycle (R & D +Reprocessing and MOX fabrication pilot plants) and present operation of BELGONUCLEAIRE's MOX fuel fabrication plant. After the main steps in the management of alpha-contaminated solid waste were established, BELGONUCLEAIRE, with the backing of BELGOPROCESS and ONDRAF/NIRAS, started the design and construction of the T & C and interim-storage facilities for this alpha waste. The accumulated solid alpha radwaste containing a mixture of combustible and non-combustible material will be sorted. After sorting, both the accumulated and recently-generated non-combustible alpha waste will be embedded in a cement matrix. The erection of the sorting and cementing units which include glove-boxes and the interim storage building for conditioned packages was completed at BELGOPROCESS, at the beginning of year 2002. Start-up operations for both facilities have been performed. Operating tests of the sorting and cementing units were completed in July 2002 and inactive operation campaigns were started in August 2002. The results of the tests and inactive campaigns are given. Overall testing of the storage building supervised by the Safety Authorities was successfully performed at the end of 202 after completion of the operating tests on the …