Molten Salt Oxidation (MSO) is a promising alternative to incineration for the treatment of a variety of organic wastes. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has prepared a facility in which an integrated pilot-scale MSO treatment system is being tested and demonstrated. The system consists of a MSO vessel with a dedicated off-gas treatment system, a salt recycle system, feed preparation equipment, and a ceramic final waste forms immobilization system. This integrated system was designed and engineered based on operational experience with an engineering-scale reactor unit and extensive laboratory development on salt recycle and final forms preparation. The MSO/off-gas system has been operational since December 1997. The salt recycle system and the ceramic final forms immobilization became operational in May and August, 1998, respectively. We have tested the MSO facility with various organic feeds, including chlorinated solvents, tributyl phosphate/kerosene, PCB-contaminated waste oils & solvents, booties, plastic pellets, ion exchanged resins, activated carbon, radioactive-spiked organics, and well-characterized low-level liquid mixed wastes. MSO is shown to be a versatile technology for hazardous waste treatment and may be a solution to many waste disposal problems in DOE sites. This report presents the results obtained from operation of the integrated pilot-scale MSO treatment system through …

The Kolsky-Hopkinson Bar Dynamic Test Facility in Building PF-4 at TA-55 recently became operational and the first series of plutonium samples from a baseline alloy were successfully tested on December 8, 1997 through the dedicated efforts of a large number of people in groups NMT-9, NMT-11, MST-8, NMT-5, and JCI. The Enhanced Surveillance Program provided the necessary support for this achievement. The Kolsky-Hopkinson bar is an instrument designed to measure the uniaxial compression stress-strain characteristics of special nuclear materials (SNM) in a glovebox environment at intermediate strain rates (typically 500 s{sup {minus}1} to 10,000 s{sup {minus}1}), over a wide temperature range (cryogenic up to near-melting temperatures), and up to strains of about 50% per test. Due to radiation contamination hazards, SNM samples are contained within a specially designed glovebox with only a small portion of the bar system. The uniaxial high-strain-rate deformation behavior of SNM materials is revealed by stress-strain-strain rate curves calculated from strain signals acquired by gauges on the pressure bars. The compressive stress-strain mechanical behavior of a range of weapons-relevant SNM materials (both baseline and stockpile-aged plutonium and enriched uranium), measured over a wide range of strain rates and temperatures, is necessary to support the development of …

The UCSD/TEXTOR collaboration has achieved the completion of three major tasks this year: (1) pump limiter studies; (2) RI-mode turbulence studies; and (3) velocity shear stabilization of turbulence. Brief summaries of progress in each area are given.

The Yucca Mountain Project is considering some type of backfill, possibly emplaced as a capillary barrier, for inclusion in the Engineering Barrier System (EBS) at the potential Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository site. The performance of capillary barriers in isothermal, low- temperature, environments has been studied extensively (e.g., Ho and Webb, 1998; OZdenburg and Pruess, 1993; Ross, 1990). The performance of capillary barriers in an non-isothermal, high temperature environment, such as during the thermal pulse phase of a nuclear waste repository, has received much less attention. One concern is that the backfill materials may be altered from that of the as-placed material by the hydrothermal regime imposed by the emplacement of waste in the repository, changing hydrologic properties in a way that degrades the performance of the EBS system. This report is a status report on our efforts to address this concern. The work was initiated by SCR #98-76-041 and was authorized to begin at LLNL in summer 1998. This report is organized as follows. In the first part, we discuss our understanding of the relevant issues of backfill performance based on thermal hydrology. We focus here on changes to hydrologic properties, but we recognize that changes to thermal, mechanical …

IDWP is a software application that was developed to identify the groundwater monitoring wells at SRS that require containerization and treatment for purge water generated during sampling. Created by the Statistical Consulting Section of SRTC, IDWP is a SAS application that retrieves the necessary data for wells selected by the user from the Site's extensive groundwater database on a remote machine. The program then applies an algorithm, derived by the Environmental Protection Department from the SRS Investigation-Derived Waste (IDW) Management Plan, to the analytical results to determine whether containerization is required for the specified wells. IDWP produces output files that designate the containerization status of each of the selected wells, provide statistics to support the treatment facilities' permits, and assist with controlling and scheduling the handling of the managed purge water. The SRS Aqueous IDW Administrator in the Environmental Restoration Division (ERD) uses IDWP in conjunction with knowledge of new wells to produce quarterly reports that specify which groundwater monitoring wells require purge water containerization for each treatment facility. Special reports supply other groundwater information of interest to ERD, such as analytical concentration plots and groundwater data gathering. Benefits include the timely generation of containerization lists for each treatment facility; …

Annual report of the Children and Youth Community Resource Coordination Groups of Texas describing goals, activities, and accomplishments during fiscal year 1998.

Financial statements from the Employees Retirement System of Texas documenting ... for fiscal year 1997 and 1998.

This report provides a synopsis of the budget activity related to AIDS from the discovery of the disease in 1981 through FY1999. Funding for AIDS research, prevention and treatment programs within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) discretionary budget has increased from $200,000 in FY1981 to an estimated $3.85 billion in FY1999.

A method for calculating the redistribution of resonance radiation in hot, dense plasmas is developed by extending the Frequency Fluctuation Model (FFM). This paper is devoted to a brief review of lineshape theory in the linear response approximation, and an introduction to the FFM approach to the modeling of lineshapes in plasmas. This discussion begins with a consideration of the spectral lines emitted by complex ions in plasmas. As is well known, the lineshape is determined by the time- dependent coupling of the ion with the plasma environment. This plasma-emitter interaction, leads to Stark broadening of the spectral lines, and traditionally has been considered in the approximation which treats the ef&@ of the electrons on the emitting ion in the impact limit while the ionic perturbation is� taken to be quasi-static. In this approximation, the time dependence of the perturbation has been eliminated, resulting in a spectral line shape that has purely homogeneous and inhomogeneous contributions and that is described by a simple sum of independent electron imp� act broadened static components. In order to clarify the concepts presented, examples of radiative redistribution functions for simple cases are presented. Included is an example of an X-ray laser pumped system which …

EPA appropriations are included in the annual VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriation Bill. Two major issues were whether Superfund cleanups should be accelerated in the absence of statutory reforms and whether the requested state assistance funds are adequate. Because the House and Senate were in agreement on not granting the requested 50% increase in Superfund and in passing increased state funds, the chief conference issue focused on the roughly $225 million difference between the House and Senate versions.

The purpose of the Single Heater Test (SHT), the design of the test, and the borehole layout were reported by OCRWM M&O (1996a). Briefly, the main purpose of the SHT is to study the thermal- mechanical behavior of the densely welded non-lithophysal Topopah Spring tuff at the Exploratory Studies Facility (ESF). The SHT is also used as a shake-down for the test of the coupled thermal- mechanical- hydrological-chemical (TMHC) processes.

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The 2020 Vision project began in 1996 with two participating teachers and four classes. It has since grown to comprise more than a dozen participating teachers and hundreds of students across the country. Much of this growth took place in FY98, thanks to the accomplishment of several major goals: implementation of a mentor program, enhanced teacher training, a mid-year conference for students, recruitment of distant schools, and the development of an interactive Web site. The first part of this report describes these accomplishments, as well as future directions for 2020 Vision. The second part summarized the scenarios students wrote during the 1997-98 school year. it identifies recurrent themes in the students' scenarios and compares/contrasts them with scenarios written in the first two years of the project.

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Plans for disposing of the high-level radioactive wastes at the Hanford Site call for retrieving, pretreating, and finally immobilizing the wastes in a glass matrix. Since the cost for vitrifying and disposing of high-level wastes will be very great, pretreatment processes are being developed to reduce their volume. The baseline method for pretreating Hanford tank sludges is caustic leaching. Earlier studies with Hanford tank-sludge simulants and with actual Hanford tank sludges have indicated that treating water-washed and caustic-leached solids with oxidants can significantly increase the removal of Cr. Permanganate and ozone have been shown to be generally the most rapid and effective chemical agents for this purpose. The work described in this report continues to examine the effectiveness of solubilizing additional Cr from Hanford tank wastes by oxidation of the water-insoluble solids from tanks U-108, U-109, and SX-108 under alkaline conditions. The current study confirms that permanganate is highly effective at removing chromium from water solids under alkaline conditions, with Cr removals of up to 99+%. Elemental oxygen can also be highly effective, with removals up to 97+%.

Annual report for the Sabine River Compact Administration for 1998, including a summary of the meetings and work of the administration, reports from the hydrologic stations, fiscal revenues and expenditures, and accompanying notes.

The Tanks Focus Area (TFA) serves as the DOE`s Office of Environmental Management`s national technology and solution development program for radioactive waste tank remediation. Its technical scope covers the major functions that comprise a complete tank remediation system: waste retrieval, waste pretreatment, waste immobilization, tank closure, and characterization of both the waste and tank with safety integrated into all the functions. In total, 17 technologies and technical solutions were selected for review. The purpose of each review was to understand the state of development of each technology selected for review and to identify issues to be resolved before the technology or technical solution progressed to the next level of maturity. The reviewers provided detailed technical and programmatic recommendations and comments. The disposition of these recommendations and comments and their impact on the program is documented in this report.

During fiscal year 1998, the level of success achieved by the Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS) shall be determined by specific performance measures. These measures take the form of significant deliverables, one of which is the completion of Tank Characterization Reports (TCRs). In order to achieve success regarding the TCR performance deliverable, multiple organizations across TWRS must work together. Therefore, the requirements and expectations needed from each of these TWRS organizations were examined in order to gain an understanding of the performance necessary from each organization to achieve the end deliverable. This memorandum of understanding (MOU) documents the results of this review and establishes the performance criteria by which TWRS will assess its progress and success. These criteria have been determined based upon a TWRS Characterization Project budget of $47.5 million for fiscal year 1998; if this budget is changed or the currently identified work scope is modified, this MOU will need to be revised accordingly. This MOU is subdivided into six sections, where sections three through six each identify individual interfaces between TWRS organizations. The specific performance criteria related to each TWRS organizational interface are then delineated in the section, along with any additional goals or issues pertaining to …

This report provides an overview of federal pay Salary adjustments for Fiscal Year 1998

This report provides an overview of federal pay Salary adjustments for the Fiscal Year 1998

Annual report of the Star of the Republic Museum describing goals, activities, and accomplishments during fiscal year 1997-1998.

Annual financial report of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas documenting income, expenditures, and other relevant financial information for fiscal year 1998. Also includes descriptions of different departments at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and drawings of historic schoolhouses in Texas at the beginning of sections.