Environmental Surveillance of the Hanford Site and surrounding areas is conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Document contains CY03 schedules for the routine collection of samples for the Surface Environmental Surveillance Project (SESP) and Drinking Water Monitoring Project.

The U.S. steel industry has faced increasing difficulties since the late 1990s. More than 30 U.S. steel producers have gone into bankruptcy. While different companies and parts of the industry have been affected to different degrees, the two types of domestic producers of raw steel, integrated mills and minimills, have both supported restrictions on imports, which they say have undermined the ability of the U.S. industry to produce steel economically. This report reviews industry developments and the economic situation of the steel industry, including legacy cost aspects of its problems.

This report examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Plaintiffs/Petitioners challenged the constitutionality under the Copyright Clause of a law adding 20 years to the terms of existing and future copyrights. The law was upheld by both the U.S. district court and the court of appeals considering it. Among the questions before the Supreme Court was whether Congress may retrospectively extend the term of copyright for existing copyrights; and, what role and impact, if any, does the First Amendment have in determining the validity of a congressional extension of copyright terms.

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This report has documented the methodologies and the data used for developing rock property sets for three infiltration maps. Model calibration is necessary to obtain parameter values appropriate for the scale of the process being modeled. Although some hydrogeologic property data (prior information) are available, these data cannot be directly used to predict flow and transport processes because they were measured on scales smaller than those characterizing property distributions in models used for the prediction. Since model calibrations were done directly on the scales of interest, the upscaling issue was automatically considered. On the other hand, joint use of data and the prior information in inversions can further increase the reliability of the developed parameters compared with those for the prior information. Rock parameter sets were developed for both the mountain and drift scales because of the scale-dependent behavior of fracture permeability. Note that these parameter sets, except those for faults, were determined using the 1-D simulations. Therefore, they cannot be directly used for modeling lateral flow because of perched water in the unsaturated zone (UZ) of Yucca Mountain. Further calibration may be needed for two- and three-dimensional modeling studies. As discussed above in Section 6.4, uncertainties for these calibrated …

To comply with the applicable requirements of the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) Order 435.1 and its associated Manual and Implementation Guide (USDOE 1999, USDOE 1999a, USDOE 1999b), this closure plan has been developed for the E-Area Low-Level Waste Facility (LLWF). The plan is organized according to the specifications of the Format and Content Guide for U.S. Department of Energy Low-Level Waste Disposal Facility Closure Plans (USDOE 1999d). Section 2 provides a brief overview of the general facility description, closure approach, closure schedule, related activities, and key assumptions. Sections 3 and 4 provide specific details of facility characteristics and the technical approach to closure, respectively, as well as supporting information. Additional schedule details re provided in Section 5. Section 6 provides a list of recommended items for consideration in association with future revisions to the E-Area LLWF Closure Pan and Performance Assessment (PA).

This Special Analysis (SA) addresses disposal of high-concentration I-129 wastes in the Intermediate Level (IL) Vaults at the Savannah River Site E-Area Low-Level Waste Facility. This SA addresses both the existing activated carbon vessels already placed in the IL Vault and any type of future waste that contains a high concentration of I-129. An equation is developed that relates a wasteform's vault inventory limit of I-129 to the wasteform's measured Kd. This SA was prepared to meet the requirements of the U.S. Department of Energy Order 435.1 (DOE 1999a). The order specifies that a performance assessment or SA should provide reasonable assurance that a low-level waste disposal facility will comply with the performance objectives of the Order. In addition to the performance objectives, the Order requires, for purposes of establishing limits on the concentration of radionuclides that may be disposed of near-surface, an assessment of impacts on water resources and on hypothetical persons assumed to inadvertently intrude for a temporary period into the low-level waste disposal facility.

This report summarizes the results of a feasibility study that evaluated solidification as an alternative treatment for organic waste.

The effect of disposing of low-level waste consisting of vitrified sludge from M-Area in slit trenches is evaluated.

The objective of this project was to gain an insight into the modeling support needed for the understanding, design, and operation of trace metal/radionuclide bioremediation. To achieve this objective, a workshop was convened to discuss the elements such a model should contain. A ''protomodel'' was developed, based on the recommendations of the workshop, and was used to perform sensitivity analysis as well as some preliminary simulations in support for bioremediation test experiments at UMTRA sites. To simulate the numerous biogeochemical processes that will occur during the bioremediation of uranium contaminated aquifers, a time-dependent one-dimensional reactive transport model has been developed. The model consists of a set of coupled, steady state mass balance equations, accounting for advection, diffusion, dispersion, and a kinetic formulation of the transformations affecting an organic substrate, electron acceptors, corresponding reduced species, and uranium. This set of equations is solved numerically, using a finite element scheme. The redox conditions of the domain are characterized by estimating the pE, based on the concentrations of the dominant terminal electron acceptor and its corresponding reduced specie. This pE and the concentrations of relevant species are passed to a modified version of MINTEQA2, which calculates the speciation and solubilities of the species …

The Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) was requested to investigate the effects of the addition of Pu and Gd from H-Canyon to Sludge Batch 3 (SB3). The effects on Sludge Receipt and Adjustment Tank (SRAT) processing were discussed in WSRC-TR-2002-00322, which also addressed iron and gadolinium solubility criticality concerns in the presence of sodium oxalate. Since this work was completed, SRTC was requested to provide additional data for solubility testing at higher levels of sodium oxalate. This report supplements WSRC-TR-2002-00322 and addresses testing at higher level that are considered bounding for DWPF SB3 ''sludge-only'' processing, as well as ''SB3'' with Actinide Removal Product'' processing.

Since a theoretical mechanism to explain the change in dimensions of fuel elements during irradiation has not been proven to date, an empirical approach was evaluated. This report details results of a study, by multiple correlation techniques, of the dimensional behavior of 956 fuel elements that were divided into six different groups representing different heat treatments.

During the 2002 Fiscal year, funds from the DOE matching grant program, along with matching funds from the industrial sponsors, have been used to support research in the area of thermal-hydraulics. Both experimental and numerical research projects have been performed. Experimental research focused on two areas: (1) Identification of the root cause mechanism for axial offset anomaly in pressurized water reactors under prototypical reactor conditions, and (2) Fluid dynamic aspects of thin liquid film protection schemes for inertial fusion reactor chambers. Numerical research focused on two areas: (1) Multi-fluid modeling of both two-phase and two-component flows for steam conditioning and mist cooling applications, and (2) Modeling of bounded Rayleigh-Taylor instability with interfacial mass transfer and fluid injection through a porous wall simulating the ''wetted wall'' protection scheme in inertial fusion reactor chambers. Details of activities in these areas are given.

The purpose of this report is to present the results of a series of tests performed to determine the need for gamma compensation of the ion chambers used to monitor the neutron flux in the 100 Area reactors.

The baseline performance assessment slit trench model has become more important as more low-level waste streams are disposed in Slit Trenches and the Engineered Trench.

The objective of this project is to design, construct and field demonstrate a membrane system to recover natural gas liquids (NGL) and remove water from raw natural gas. An extended field test to demonstrate system performance under real-world conditions would convince industry users of the efficiency and reliability of the process. The system has been designed and fabricated by Membrane Technology and Research, Inc. (MTR) and will be installed and operated at British Petroleum (BP)-Amoco's Pascagoula, MS plant. The Gas Research Institute will partially support the field demonstration and BP-Amoco will help install the unit and provide onsite operators and utilities. The gas processed by the membrane system will meet pipeline specifications for dewpoint and Btu value and can be delivered without further treatment to the pipeline. Based on data from prior membrane module tests, the process is likely to be significantly less expensive than glycol dehydration followed by propane refrigeration, the principal competitive technology. At the end of this demonstration project the process will be ready for commercialization. The route to commercialization will be developed during this project and may involve collaboration with other companies already servicing the natural gas processing industry.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The events of September 11, 2001, have placed added emphasis on ensuring the security of the nation's food supply. GAO examined (1) whether FDA and USDA have sufficient authority under current statutes to require that food processors adopt security measures, (2) what security guidelines FDA and USDA have provided to industry, and (3) what security measures food processors have adopted."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Section 1203 of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 outlines conditions for firing IRS employees for any of 10 acts of misconduct covering taxpayer and employee rights and tax return filing requirements. Both IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) have responsibilities related to section 1203. Because of concerns that section 1203 may have a chilling effect on IRS enforcement staff's productivity, GAO (1) determined the number of section 1203 allegations, (2) surveyed IRS employee perceptions about section 1203, and (3) identified problems IRS and TIGTA face in processing section 1203 cases and the extent to which they have addressed them."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Although training for employed workers is largely the responsibility of employers and individuals, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) allowed state and local entities to use federal funds for training employed workers. Similarly, welfare reform legislation created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants and gave states greater flexibility to design training services for TANF clients to help them obtain and retain jobs. To better understand how the training needs of employed workers, including low-wage workers, is publicly supported, GAO was asked to determine (1) the extent to which local areas and states provide assistance to train employed workers, including funding training; (2) the focus of such training efforts and the kind of training provided; and (3) when targeting training to low-wage workers, the approaches state and local officials identified to address challenges in training this population."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "About 3,000 public housing authorities--state, county, and municipal agencies--develop and manage low-income housing in cooperation with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Since 1979, 15 housing authorities have been placed in the hands of receivers' outside parties designated to manage the authorities during a specific period of time, usually several years. GAO was asked to identify the circumstances that led to receiverships, any differences in the way they operate and in their results, and the factors that have influenced the termination of receiverships."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "During fiscal year 2002, an estimated 5.8 million people borrowed about $38 billion in federal student loans. Despite a dramatic reduction in annual default rates on those loans since fiscal year 1990 (from 22.4 to 5.9 percent), the total volume of dollars in default doubled to nearly $22 billion by fiscal year 2001 from about $11 billion in fiscal year 1990. During that same period, the total student loans outstanding grew from $54.1 billion to $233.2 billion. The Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) manages the nation's student financial assistance programs authorized under title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA). In 1998, Congress amended the HEA and established FSA as a performance-based organization. Among other requirements, the HEA called for FSA to annually develop 5-year plans, issue annual reports, and consult with stakeholders regarding their delivery system. GAO initiated a review to assess FSA's default management efforts and results."

This report provides a brief overview of the modified medical privacy rule, “Standards for the Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information”(“privacy rule”) published on August 14, 2002 by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The privacy regulation creates a new federal floor of privacy protections while leaving in place more protective state rules or practices. The rule establishes a set of basic consumer protections and a series of regulatory permissions for uses and disclosures of protected health information.

This report provides information about the Proposals for Change on Federal Deposit and Share Insurance since deposit insurance for holders of accounts at banks and thrift institutions are under scrutiny for the last several congresses.

This report discusses about background and issues on Homeland Security Coast Guard Operations which is led by a federal maritime homeland security including port security.