Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether committee chairs or committee members of the Texas Physical Therapy Association may be members of the Texas Board of Physical Examiners (RQ-1110)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a member of the Texas Board of Physical Therapy Examiners may simultaneously hold the office of county clerk (RQ-1094)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Effective date of amendments to subchapter T, chapter 65, title 31, Texas Administrative Code (RQ-1097)

Near-facility environmental monitoring provides a means to measure the impacts of operations, waste management, and remediation activities on the environment adjacent to facilities and ensure compliance with local, state, and federal environmental regulations. Specifically, near-facility environmental monitoring monitors new and existing sites, processes, and facilities for potential impacts and releases; fugitive emissions and diffuse sources associated with contaminated areas, facilities (both active and those undergoing surveillance and maintenance), and environmental restoration activities. External radiation, ambient air particulates, ground and surface water, soil, sediment, and biota (plants and animals) are sampled or monitored. Parameters include, as appropriate, radionuclides; radiation fields; chemical or physical constituents, such as nitrates; pH; and water temperature. All ambient air results were below the US Department of Energy (DOE) Derived Concentration Guides (DCGs). Groundwater concentrations at the two wells at the 107-N Facility were below both the DOE DCG and US Environmental Protection Agency Interim Drinking Water Standards for gamma emitting radionuclides. Soil and vegetation results were generally within historic ranges and mostly below the Accessible Soil Concentration limits (included in HNF-PRO-454, Inactive Waste Sites) with the exception of one soil sampling location at 1 00 N Area. External radiation fields continued an overall downward trend. Surface …

This report provides a summary of the radiological surveys performed in support of near-facility environmental monitoring at the Hanford Site. The Second Quarter 1998 survey results and the status of actions required are summarized. Eleven of the ninety two environmental radiological surveys scheduled during April, May, and June were performed as planned. Sixty seven of the surveys were conducted at Project Hanford Management Contractors (PHMC) sites and twenty five at Environmental Restoration Contractor (ERC) sites. Contamination above background levels was found at twenty one of the PHMC waste sites and two of the ERC waste sites. Contamination levels as high >1,000,000 disintegrations per minute (dpm) per 100 Cmz were reported. Of these contaminated surveys twelve were in Underground Radioactive Material (URM) areas, three were in unposted areas and eight were in contamination areas. The contamination found within six of the UFW and four of the CA areas was immediately cleaned up and no further action was required. The remaining six URM, four CA, and three unposted sites were posted and will require decontamination. Radiological Problem Reports (RPR`s) were issued and the sites were turned over to the Landlord for further action as required. During the second quarter of 1998, 1.2 …

The objective of this evaluation is to provide recommendations to ensure consistency between the technical baseline requirements, baseline design, and the as-constructed Access Roads. Recommendations for resolving discrepancies between the as-constructed system, the technical baseline requirements, and the baseline design are included in this report. Cost and Schedule estimates are provided for all recommended modifications. This report does not address items which do not meet current safety or code requirements. These items are identified to the CMO and immediate action is taken to correct the situation. The report does identify safety and code items for which the A/E is recommending improvements. The recommended improvements will exceed the minimum requirements of applicable code and safety guide lines. These recommendations are intended to improve and enhance the operation and maintenance of the facility.

The aluminum H-disk was instrumented with heaters (156 ohm on average) and 100 ohm platinum RTD's. Each heater supplies the heat of a double sided H-wedge. Since the flow splits into two flow directions at the inlet fitting, only half of the cooling channel is fully instrumented with RTD's. The other path has a single RTD to check for flow balancing. These items were installed after Greg Derylo petformed the first pressure drop tests. At the time of the test, the desired adhesive for gluing the two halves of the channel together was not available. Therefore, 5-minute epoxy was used on the inner and outer diameters of the halves. Tape was used to set the gap between the two halves. This form of attachment does not make a strong bond between the two halves so the differential pressure between the inside and the outside of the channel was limited to a couple of psi. Therefore, the tests were not conducted in a vacuum.

A thermoelectric module with a plurality of electricity generating units each having a first end and a second end, the units being arranged first end to second end along an-in-line axis. Each unit includes first and second elements each made of a thermoelectric material, an electrically conductive hot member arranged to heat one side of the first element, and an electrically conductive cold member arranged to cool another side of the first element and to cool one side of the second element. The hot member, the first element, the cold member and the second element are supported in a fixture, are electrically connected respectively to provide an electricity generating unit, and are arranged respectively in positions along the in-line axis. The individual components of each generating unit and the respective generating units are clamped in their in-line positions by a loading bolt at one end of the fixture and a stop wall at the other end of the fixture. The hot members may have a T-shape and the cold members an hourglass shape to facilitate heat transfer. The direction of heat transfer through the hot members may be perpendicular to the direction of heat transfer through the cold members, and …

The Department of Defense (DOD) operates six environmental programs that address cleanup of past contamination at military facilities, compliance with environmental laws and regulations that apply to current activities, cleanup at military bases being closed, pollution prevention, natural resource conservation, and environmental technology. In addition, the Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for managing defense nuclear waste generated from the past production of atomic materials used to construct nuclear weapons and for remediating contaminated sites. For FY1999, the Administration has requested a total of $10. 14 billion for DOD and DOE's defense-related environmental activities, which represents about 3.7% of the total request of $271.6 billion for national defense and is roughly 1.6% below the FY1998 funding level of $l0.30 billion.

This supporting document has been prepared to make the FDNW civil/structural calculations for Project W-320 readily retrievable.

Fused silica windows were artificially contaminated to estimate the resistance of target chamber debris shields against laser damage during NIF operation. Uniform contamination thin films (1 to 5 nm thick) were prepared by sputtering various materials (Au, Al, Cu, and B₄C). The loss of transmission of the samples was first measured. They were then tested at 355 nm in air with an 8-ns Nd:YAG laser. The damage morphologies were characterized by Nomarski optical microscopy and SEM. Both theory and experiments showed that metal contamination for films as thin as 1 nm leads to a substantial loss of transmission. The laser damage resistance dropped very uniformly across the entire surface (e.g. 6 J/cm² for 5 nm of Cu). The damage morphology characterization showed that contrary to clean silica, metal coated samples did not produce pits on the surface. B₄C coated silica, on the other hand, led to a higher density of such damage pits. A model for light absorption in the thin film was coupled with a simple heat deposition and diffusion model to perform preliminary theoretical estimates of damage thresholds. The estimates of the loss due to light absorption and reflection pointed out significant .differences between metals (e.g. Al and …

Cleanliness measurements made on AMPLAB prototype National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser amplifiers during assembly, cassette transfer, and amplifier operation are summarized. These measurements include particle counts from surface cleanliness assessments using filter swipe techniques and from airborne particle monitoring. Results are compared with similar measurements made on the Beamlet and Nova lasers and in flashlamp test fixtures. Observations of Class 100,000 aerosols after flashlamp firings are discussed. Comparisons are made between typical damage densities on laser amplifier optics from Novette, NOVA, Beamlet, and AMPLAB.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), now under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will be the largest laser fusion facility ever built. The NIF laser architecture is based on a multi-pass power amplifier to reduce cost and maximize performance. A key component in this laser design is an optical switch that closes to trap the optical pulse in the cavity for four gain passes and then opens to divert the optical pulse out of the amplifier cavity. The switch is comprised of a Pockels cell and a polarizer and is unique because it handles a beam that is 40 cm x 40 cm square and allows close horizontal and vertical beam spacing. Conventional Pockels cells do not scale to such large apertures or the square shape required for close packing. Our switch is based on a Plasma-Electrode Pockels Cell (PEPC). In a PEPC, low-pressure helium discharges (1-2 kA) are formed on both sides of a thin slab of electro-optic material. Typically, we use KH{sub 2}PO{sub 4 } crystals (KDP). The discharges form highly conductive, transparent sheets that allow uniform application of a high-voltage pulse (17 kV) across the crystal. A 37 cm x 37 cm PEPC has been in routine …

The TREAT Facility was designed and built in the late 1950s at Argonne National Laboratory to provide a transient reactor for safety experiments on samples of reactor fuels. It first operated in 1959. Throughout its history, experiments conducted in TREAT have been important in establishing the behavior of a wide variety of reactor fuel elements under conditions predicted to occur in reactor accidents ranging from mild off normal transients to hypothetical core disruptive accidents. For much of its history, TREAT was used primarily to test liquid-metal reactor fuel elements, initially for the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II), then for the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant (CRBRP), the British Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR), and finally, for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). Both oxide and metal elements were tested in dry capsules and in flowing sodium loops. The data obtained were instrumental in establishing the behavior of the fuel under off-normal and accident conditions, a necessary part of the safety analysis of the various reactors. In addition, TREAT was used to test light-water reactor (LWR) elements in a steam environment to obtain fission-product release data under meltdown conditions. Studies are now under way on applications of TREAT …

The TREAT facility was designed and built in the 1950s to provide a transient reactor for conducting safety experiments on reactor fuels. Throughout its almost 40-year history, it has proven to be a safe, reliable, and versatile facility, compiling a distinguished record of successful experiments. Several major improvements to the facility have been made, including an expansion of the building and of equipment handling capability, and enlargement of the access hole above the core, rearrangement of the reactor's control rods to provide more-uniform flux profiles, installation of improved reactor computer-control systems, a feedback system that safely allows real-time changes in power transients depending upon events occurring in the experiment, and several upgrades in the fast neutron hodoscope for improved experiment-fuel-motion diagnostics. The original TREAT fuel is still in use, however, since it appears to have no degradation from its many years of service.

A remote adjustable focus Raman spectroscopy probe allows for analyzing Raman scattered light from a point of interest external to the probe. An environmental barrier including at least one window separates the probe from the point of interest. An optical tube is disposed adjacent to the environmental barrier and includes along working length compound lens objective next to the window. A beam splitter and a mirror are at the other end. A mechanical means is used to translate the probe body in the X, Y, and Z directions resulting in a variable focus optical apparatus. Laser light is reflected by the beam splitter and directed toward the compound lens objective, then through the window and focused on the point of interest. Raman scattered light is then collected by the compound lens objective and directed through the beam splitter to a mirror. A device for analyzing the light, such as a monochrometer, is coupled to the mirror.

Under the Hanford Site Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS) privatization strategy, the US Department of Energy (DOE) requires the Project Hanford Management Contract (PHMC) Team to supply tank wastes to the Privatization Contractor for separation, treatment and immobilization (verification). Three low-activity waste (LAW) envelopes represent the range of the liquid wastes in the large underground waste-storage tank at the Hanford Site. The PHMC Team also is expected to supply high-level waste (HLW) to the Privatization Contractor. The LAW envelope is an aqueous slurry of insoluble suspended solids (sludge). The Phase 1 demonstration period will extend over 10-plus years. Wastes processed during this period will result in 6% to 13% of the total Hanford Site tank waste being treated. The purpose of this document is to provide a strategy and top-level implementation plan for the demonstration and deployment of an alternative sampling technology as an improvement to the current grab sampling approach to support the TWRS privatization. Included in this work is the addition of the capability for some at-tank analysis to enhance the use of this technology for meeting the PHMC Team`s needs. The first application of this technology is to LAW feed staging, then to HLW feed staging, and …