Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Approximately 6,600 miles of Alaska's coastline and many of the low-lying areas along the state's rivers are subject to severe flooding and erosion. Most of Alaska's Native villages are located on the coast or on riverbanks. In addition to the many federal and Alaska state agencies that respond to flooding and erosion, Congress established the Denali Commission in 1998 to, among other things, provide economic development services and meet infrastructure needs in rural Alaska communities. This testimony is based on GAO's report, Alaska Native Villages: Most Are Affected by Flooding and Erosion, but Few Qualify for Federal Assistance (GAO-04-142, December 12, 2003). Specifically, GAO identified (1) the number of Alaska Native villages affected by flooding and erosion, (2) the extent to which federal assistance has been provided to those villages, (3) the efforts of nine villages to respond to flooding and erosion, and (4) alternatives that Congress may wish to consider when providing assistance for flooding and erosion."

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

As was reported in our previous work, accurate, nondisturbing near-anode measurements of the plasma density, electron temperature, and plasma potential performed with biased and emissive probes allowed the first experimental identification of both electron-repelling (negative anode fall) and electron-attracting (positive anode fall) anode sheaths in Hall thrusters. An interesting new phenomenon revealed by the probe measurements is that the anode fall changes from positive to negative upon removal of the dielectric coating, which appears on the anode surface during the course of Hall thruster operation. As reported in the present work, energy dispersion spectroscopy analysis of the chemical composition of the anode dielectric coating indicates that the coating layer consists essentially of an oxide of the anode material (stainless steel). However, it is still unclear how oxygen gets into the thruster channel. Most importantly, possible mechanisms of anode fall formation in a Hall thruster with a clean and a coated anodes are analyzed in this work; practical implication of understanding the general structure of the electron-attracting anode sheath in the case of a coated anode is also discussed.

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

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO has long held the position that financial regulators can benefit from improved information sharing. As regulators are faced with the challenges of overseeing a myriad of financial products, along with the individuals and organizations that develop and sell them, information sharing among regulators serves as a key defense against fraud and market abuses. However, our system of financial regulation is fragmented and, in many cases, isolated among numerous federal and state financial regulators overseeing the securities, insurance, and banking industries. While there has been a greater effort to improve communication in recent years, the routine sharing of information between the regulators of the three major financial industries--securities, insurance, and banking--continues to be a source of concern. At Congress' request, we have issued reports and testimonies in recent years discussing the benefits of improved sharing of criminal and regulatory information and the consequences of failing to adequately share such information. This report focuses on three areas where greater attention is needed to improve information-sharing capabilities among financial services regulators. First, we highlight the need for insurance regulators to have more consistent access to the Federal Bureau of Investigation …

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Semiweekly newspaper from Brady, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Revised Certificate of Authority on June 29, 2004 at Dallas National Bank regarding the depository of the funds of Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus.

CIRCE (Coherent InfraRed CEnter) is a proposal for a new electron storage ring to be built at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The ring design is optimized for the generation of coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) in the terahertz frequency range. Among others, CIRCE operation includes three interesting CSR modes: ultra stable, femtosecond laser slicing and broadband bursting. CSR allows CIRCE to generate an extremely high flux in the terahertz frequency region. The many orders of magnitude increase in the intensity over that presently achievable by conventional sources, has the potential to enable new science experiments. The characteristics of CIRCE and of the different modes of operation are described in this paper.

BL 7.2 is a new beamline at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) dedicated to electron beam diagnostics. The system, which is basically a hard x-ray pinhole camera, was installed in the storage ring in August 2003 and commissioning with the ALS electron beam followed immediately after. In this paper the commissioning results are presented together with the description of the relevant measurements performed for the beamline characterization.

Muon accelerators contain beam lines and components which are unlike any found in existing accelerators. Production of the muons requires targets for beams with powers which are at or beyond what has currently been achieved. Many subsystems use solenoid focusing systems where at any given point, several magnets have a significant influence. The beams that are transported can have energy spreads of {+-}30% or more. The required emittances necessitate accurate tracking of particles with angles of tenths of a radian and which are positioned almost at the edge of the beam pipe. Tracking must be done not only in vacuum, but also in materials; therefore, statistical fluctuations must also be included. Design and simulation of muon accelerators requires software which can: accurately simulate the dynamics of solid and liquid targets under proton bombardment; predict the production of particles from these targets; accurately compute magnetic fields based on either a real magnet design or a model which includes end fields; and accurately design and simulate a beam line where the transported beam satisfies the above specifications and the beam line contains non-standard, overlapping elements. The requirements for computational tools will be discussed, the capabilities of existing tools will be described and …

This report discusses the Background, Issues, and Options for Congress on Defense Procurement. The full funding policy is a federal budgeting rule imposed on DOD by Congress in the 1950s that requires the entire procurement cost of a weapon of military equipment.

OAK-B135 This paper is submitted in fulfillment of DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-015F22369 on the experience of western states/provinces with demand response (DR) in the electricity sector. Demand-side resources are often overlooked as a viable option for meeting load growth and addressing the challenges posed by the region's aging transmission system. Western states should work together with utilities and grid operators to facilitate the further deployment of DR programs which can provide benefits in the form of decreased grid congestion, improved system reliability, market efficiency, price stabilization, hedging against volatile fuel prices and reduced environmental impacts of energy production. This report describes the various types of DR programs; provides a survey of DR programs currently in place in the West; considers the benefits, drawbacks and barriers to DR; and presents lessons learned and recommendations for states/provinces.

Strontium isotope compositions (87Sr/86Sr) measured in groundwater samples from 273 wells in the Pasco Basin unconfined aquifer below the Hanford Site show large and systematic variations that provide constraints on groundwater recharge, weathering rates of the aquifer host rocks, communication between unconfined and deeper confined aquifers, and vadose zone-groundwater interaction. The impact of millions of cubic meters of wastewater discharged to the vadose zone (103-105 times higher than ambient drainage) shows up strikingly on maps of groundwater 87Sr/86Sr. Extensive access through the many groundwater monitoring wells at the site allows for an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate the strontium geochemistry of a major aquifer, hosted primarily in unconsolidated sediments, and relate it to both long term properties and recent disturbances. Groundwater 87Sr/86Sr increases systematically from 0.707 to 0.712 from west to east across the Hanford Site, in the general direction of groundwater flow, as a result of addition of Sr from the weathering of aquifer sediments and from diffuse drainage through the vadose zone. The lower 87Sr/86Sr groundwater reflects recharge waters that have acquired Sr from Columbia River Basalts. Based on a steady-state model of Sr reactive transport and drainage, there is an average natural drainage flux of 0-1.4 mm/yr near …

The aim of the proposed research is to use electroactive ion exchange materials to remove anionic contaminants from HLW wastes and process streams. An ion exchange process using electroactive materials sorbs contaminants selectively and then expels (elutes) them electrochemically by changing the charge balance through redox reactions in the sorbent as opposed to requiring the addition of a chemical eluent. Such processes can theoretically remove anions (e.g., pertechnetate, chromate, and perchorate) and concentrate them in a separate product stream while adding no process chemicals. A practical implementation in HLW process facilities would be a breakthrough in the ability of DOE to economically minimize waste and prevent pollution throughout the complex. To enable this, our work focuses on manipulating specific properties of redox polymers to control the hydrophobicity and ion-pair properties pertinent to the reversibility, selectivity, stability, intercalation/de-intercalation rates, and capacity of the polymers.

EOS7C is a TOUGH2 module for multicomponent gas mixtures in the systems methane carbon dioxide (CH4-CO2) or methane-nitrogen (CH4-N2) with or without an aqueous phase and H2O vapor. EOS7C uses a cubic equation of state and an accurate solubility formulation along with a multiphase Darcy s Law to model flow and transport of gas and aqueous phase mixtures over a wide range of pressures and temperatures appropriate to subsurface geologic carbon sequestration sites and natural gas reservoirs. EOS7C models supercritical CO2 and subcritical CO2 as a non-condensible gas, hence EOS7C does not model the transition to liquid or solid CO2 conditions. The components modeled in EOS7C are water, brine, non-condensible gas, gas tracer, methane, and optional heat. The non-condensible gas (NCG) can be selected by the user to be CO2 or N2. The real gas properties module has options for Peng-Robinson, Redlich-Kwong, or Soave-Redlich-Kwong equations of state to calculate gas mixture density, enthalpy departure, and viscosity. Partitioning of the NCG and CH4 between the aqueous and gas phases is calculated using a very accurate chemical equilibrium approach. Transport of the gaseous and dissolved components is by advection and Fickian molecular diffusion. We present instructions for use and example problems to …

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected Uranium Disposition Services, LLC (UDS) to proceed with disposition of the inventory of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF{sub 6}) for which DOE has management responsibility. To accomplish this task, UDS will construct and operate facilities at two DOE-owned sites, one near Paducah, Kentucky, and another near Portsmouth, Ohio, to convert DUF{sub 6} to uranium oxide (principally U{sub 3}O{sub 8}). The off-gas treatment system for the conversion process will produce aqueous hydrogen fluoride (AqHF), also known as hydrofluoric acid, and a relatively small amount of calcium fluoride (CaF{sub 2}), each containing some residual radioactive material. As part of its contractual charge, UDS must identify and implement a disposition for all three products generated by the DUF{sub 6} conversion facilities: uranium oxide, AqHF, and CaF{sub 2}. The UDS DUF{sub 6} Conversion Product Management Plan (DUF{sub 6}-UDS-PLN-004, September 2003) concludes that a viable commercial market exists for AqHF, which, if not sold, would have to be neutralized, producing a relatively large quantity of additional CaF{sub 2}. Although CaF{sub 2} has very limited market potential, there is some possibility that it also could be sold. If these potential markets could be developed, DOE would save the costs …

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The River Protection Project-Waste Treatment Plant (RPP-WTP) requested Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to conduct small-scale foaming and antifoam testing using actual Hanford waste and simulants subjected to air sparging. The foaminess of Hanford tank waste solutions was previously demonstrated in SRNL during WTP evaporator foaming and ultrafiltration studies and commercial antifoam DOW Q2-3183A was recommended to mitigate the foam in the evaporators. Currently, WTP is planning to use air spargers in the HLW Lag Storage Vessels, HLW Concentrate Receipt Vessel, and the Ultrafiltration Vessels to assist the performance of the Jet Pulse Mixers (JPM). Sparging of air into WTP tanks will induce a foam layer within the process vessels. The air dispersion in the waste slurries and generated foams could present problems during plant operation. Foam in the tanks could also adversely impact hydrogen removal and mitigation. Antifoam (DOW Q2-3183A) will be used to control foaming in Hanford sparged waste processing tanks. These tanks will be mixed by a combination of pulse-jet mixers and air spargers. The percent allowable foaminess or freeboard in WTP tanks are shown in tables.

This report contains the federal pension and retirement benefits of the former presidents.

Handwritten notes about the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus.

This report gives an overview of Indonesian elections in 2004.

Continuing advancements in software and hardware technology are providing facilities the opportunity for improvements in the areas of safety, regulatory compliance, administrative control, data collection, and reporting. Implementing these changes to improve plant operating efficiency can also create many challenges which include but are not limited to: justifying cost, planning for scalability, implementing applications across varied platforms, integrating multitudes of proprietary vendor applications, and creating a common vision for diverse process improvement projects. The Defense Programs (DP) facility at the Savannah River Site meets these challenges on a daily basis. Like many other plants, DP, has room for improvement when it comes to effective and clear communication, data entry, data storage, and system integration. Specific examples of areas targeted for improvement include: shift turnover meetings using system status data one to two hours old, lockouts and alarm inhibits performed on points on the Distributed Control System (DCS) and tracked in a paper logbook, disconnected systems preventing preemptive correction of regulatory compliance issues, and countless examples of additional task and data duplication on independent systems. Investment of time, money, and careful planning addressing these issues are already providing returns in the form of increased efficiency, improved plant tracking and reduced cost …

The paper will employ the Integrated Safeguards and Security Management (ISSM) methodology to analyze previous MCA issues. Each of the core functions of ISSM: Define the Scope of Work, Analyze the Risks, Develop and Implement Safeguards and Security Measures, Perform Work within Measures, Provide Feedback and Continuous Improvement will be discussed in the context of the MCA requirements in a plutonium processing facility. The two processes that will be explored are measurement of metal ingots and characterization of scrap for the proper disposition path. Recent self assessments and Surveys by the DOE have resulted in Satisfactory ratings and identification of Best Business Practices. The remediation of the MCA program into its current state of success will also be discussed in the framework of the ISSM methodology.