A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses a two-phase process to identify industrial categories potentially needing new or revised effluent guidelines to help reduce their pollutant discharges. EPA’s 2002 draft Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations was the foundation for EPA’s process. In the first, or “screening,” phase, EPA uses data from two EPA databases to rank industrial categories according to the total toxicity of their wastewater. Using this ranking, public comments, and other considerations, EPA has identified relatively few industrial categories posing the highest hazard for the next, or “further review,” phase. In this further review phase, EPA evaluates the categories to identify those that are appropriate for new or revised guidelines because treatment technologies are available to reduce pollutant discharges. Since 2003, EPA has regularly screened the 58 categories for which it has issued effluent guidelines, as well as some potential new industrial categories, and it has identified 12 categories for its further review phase. Of these 12 categories, EPA selected 3 for updated or new effluent guidelines. EPA chose not to set new guidelines for the others."

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The West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) Annual Site Environmental Report (ASER) for Calendar Year 2011. The report, prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy West Valley Demonstration Project office (DOE-WVDP), summarizes the environmental protection program at the WVDP for calendar year (CY) 2011. Monitoring and surveillance of the facilities used by the DOE are conducted to verify protection of public health and safety and the environment. The report is a key component of DOE’s effort to keep the public informed of environmental conditions at the WVDP. The quality assurance protocols applied to the environmental monitoring program ensure the validity and accuracy of the monitoring data. In addition to demonstrating compliance with environmental laws, regulations, and directives, evaluation of data collected in 2011 continued to indicate that WVDP activities pose no threat to public health or safety, or to the environment.

Initiated in 2007 to examine the operational impact of up to 35% penetration of wind, photovoltaic (PV), and concentrating solar power (CSP) energy on the electric power system, the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study (WWSIS) is one of the largest regional wind and solar integration studies to date. The goal is to understand the effects of variability and uncertainty of wind, PV, and CSP on the grid. In the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study Phase 1, solar penetration was limited to 5%. Utility-scale PV was not included because of limited capability to model sub-hourly, utility-scale PV output . New techniques allow the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study Phase 2 to include high penetrations of solar - not only CSP and rooftop PV but also utility-scale PV plants.

The Western Wind and Solar Integration Study (WWSIS) investigates the impacts of high penetrations of wind and solar power into the Western Interconnection of the United States. WWSIS2 builds on the Phase 1 study but with far greater refinement in the level of data inputs and production simulation. It considers the differences between wind and solar power on systems operations. It considers mitigation options to accommodate wind and solar when full costs of wear-and-tear and full impacts of emissions rates are taken into account. It determines wear-and-tear costs and emissions impacts. New data sets were created for WWSIS2, and WWSIS1 data sets were refined to improve realism of plant output and forecasts. Four scenarios were defined for WWSIS2 that examine the differences between wind and solar and penetration level. Transmission was built out to bring resources to load. Statistical analysis was conducted to investigate wind and solar impacts at timescales ranging from seasonal down to 5 minutes.

This report provides an overview of key aspects of the 18 selected federal statutes applicable to individuals in certain private-sector industries. It focuses on the protections provided to employees who believe they have been subject to retaliation, rather than on how or where alleged misconduct should be disclosed. In addition, the report also includes an overview of the Whistleblower Protection Act. While state law may also provide whistleblower protections for employees, this report focuses only on the aforementioned federal statutory provisions.

As the xLPR project moves along, it is important to properly manage the knowledge generated by the different groups. We focus specifically on the knowledge and communications written in files, including general documents, source code and executable files. Data generated through the project are different in nature and, for this reason, need to be treated differently. To that end, ORNL put in place a series of tools that facilitate proper storage and management of project data, document and code changes, group collaboration, knowledge transfer, transparency, accountability and auditability. This paper describes the approaches/tools that we recommend for moving the project forward on knowledge management.

ORNL was tasked by xLPR project management to propose a team calendar for use within the xLPR consortium. Among various options that were considered, the approach judged by ORNL to best fit the needs of the xLPR project is presented in this document. The Atlassian Team Calendars plug-in used with the Confluence collaboration tool was recommended for several reasons, including the advantage that it provides for a tight integration between Confluence (found at https://xlpr.ornl.gov/wiki ) and xLPR s JIRA issue tracking system (found at https://xlpr.ornl.gov/jira ). This document is divided into two parts. The first part (Sections 1-6) consists of the white paper, which highlights some of the ways that Team Calendars can improve com mun ication between xLPR project managers, group leads, and team members when JIRA is applied for both issue tracking and change-management activities. Specific points emphasized herein are as follows: The Team Calendar application greatly enhances the added value that the JIRA and Confluence tools bring to the xLPR Project. The Team Calendar can improve com mun ication between xLPR project managers, group leads, and team members when JIRA is applied for both issue tracking and change-management activities. The Team Calendar works across different email tools …

BSC has been working with Project Home Again since 2008 and has consulted on the design of around 100 affordable, energy efficient new construction homes for victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. This report details the effort on the final two phases of the project: Phases V and VI which resulted in a total of 25 homes constructed in 2011. The goal of this project was to develop and implement an energy efficiency package that will achieve at least 20% whole house source energy savings improvement over the B10 Benchmark.

Wind power forecasting is expected to be an important enabler for greater penetration of wind power into electricity systems. Because no wind forecasting system is perfect, a thorough understanding of the errors that do occur can be critical to system operation functions, such as the setting of operating reserve levels. This paper provides an international comparison of the distribution of wind power forecasting errors from operational systems, based on real forecast data. The paper concludes with an assessment of similarities and differences between the errors observed in different locations.

This NREL technical report utilizes a development framework originated by NREL and known by the acronym SROPTTC to assist the U.S. Virgin Islands in identifying and understanding concrete opportunities for wind power development in the territory. The report covers each of the seven components of the SROPTTC framework: Site, Resource, Off-take, Permitting, Technology, Team, and Capital as they apply to wind power in the USVI and specifically to a site in Bovoni, St. Thomas. The report concludes that Bovoni peninsula is a strong candidate for utility-scale wind generation in the territory. It represents a reasonable compromise in terms of wind resource, distance from residences, and developable terrain. Hurricane risk and variable terrain on the peninsula and on potential equipment transport routes add technical and logistical challenges but do not appear to represent insurmountable barriers. In addition, integration of wind power into the St. Thomas power system will present operational challenges, but based on experience in other islanded power systems, there are reasonable solutions for addressing these challenges.

Report that discusses the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act in brief, especially as related to Congress's renewed interest in the Act due to the current financial crises and recession.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The design of the United Nations (UN) World Food Program's (WFP) internal controls related to delivery and monitoring of food assistance generally reflects principles for internal controls and enterprise risk management developed by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). WFP has developed an internal control framework that has, like the COSO internal control framework, five components: internal environment, risk management, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring. However, the design of some of WFP's controls has weaknesses that could expose WFP to risks such as waste, fraud, and abuse. For example, WFP's Executive Board oversight is limited, and it does not fully utilize the WFP Audit Committee to assist in overseeing the effectiveness of WFP's risk management and internal control processes. Also, WFP has designed risk management policies but has not developed detailed guidance to instruct staff in addressing risks, especially at the country level where WFP is most vulnerable. Additionally, as recommended by COSO, WFP has established control activities that address risks to its objectives--for example, policies and procedures designed to help ensure tracking of food assistance from delivery at the …

The X-Band Test Area (XTA) is being assembled in the NLCTA tunnel at SLAC to serve as a test facility for new RF guns. The first gun to be tested will be an upgraded version of the 5.6 cell, 200 MV/m peak field X-band gun designed at SLAC in 2003 for the Compton Scattering experiment run in ASTA. This new version includes some features implemented in 2006 on the LCLS gun such as racetrack couplers, increased mode separation and elliptical irises. These upgrades were developed in collaboration with LLNL since the same gun will be used in an injector for a LLNL Gamma-ray Source. Our beamline includes an X-band acceleration section which takes the electron beam up to 100 MeV and an electron beam measurement station. Other X-Band guns such as the UCLA Hybrid gun will be characterized at our facility.

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This guide is intended to explain the basic regulations the TCEQ requires public water systems (PWSs) to follow.