Since 1937, a cooperative program between the federal and state governments has existed for wildlife restoration. This program provides federal grants-in-aid to state agencies for conservation through land and water management for wild birds and mammals. While up to 8% of the collected revenues from excise taxes dedicated to the program may be retained by the federal government for administration, all remaining funds are apportioned to the states and territories for use either in wildlife restoration or hunter safety and education programs. Wildlife restoration programs receive all funds generated from the excise tax on firearms other than pistols and revolvers and all funds collected from shells and cartridges. Additionally, one-half of the excise taxes collected from pistols, revolvers, and archery equipment goes for wildlife restoration purposes. Hunter safety and education programs are funded from the remaining half of excise taxes collected on pistols, revolvers, and archery equipment. The states have been authorized by law to use hunter safety and education funds for wildlife restoration projects.

Species found abundantly outside of their normal range can represent an ecological and economic hazard as great or greater than the most far-reaching efforts to protect an endangered species.

This report discusses fast-track negotiating authority, which provides that Congress will consider trade agreements within mandatory deadlines, with limited debate, and without amendment. Trade negotiating objectives have generally been included in fast-track legislation to establish priorities for trade negotiators.

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A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Document 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; Ad valorem taxation of equipment used to produce minerals on mineral leasehold estate, and related questions (RQ-918)

Document 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 community college district may charge and collection from its students a mandatory technology fee, and related questions.

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; Clarification of Letter of Opinion No. 97-31 (ID# 39633)

'Vitrification has been selected as a final waste form technology in the US for long-term storage of high-level radioactive wastes (HLW). However, a foreseeable problem during vitrification in some waste feed streams lies in the presence of elements (e.g., transition metals) in the HLW that may cause instabilities in the final glass product. The formation of spinel compounds, such as Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4} and FeCrO{sub 4}, results in glass phase separation and reduces vitrifier lifetime, and durability of the final waste form. A superconducting open gradient magnetic separation (OGMS) system maybe suitable for the removal of the deleterious transition elements (e.g. Fe, Co, and Ni) and other elements (lanthanides) from vitrification feed streams due to their ferromagnetic or paramagnetic nature. The OGMS systems are designed to deflect and collect paramagnetic minerals as they interact with a magnetic field gradient. This system has the potential to reduce the volume of HLW for vitrification and ensure a stable product. In order to design efficient OGMS and High gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) processes, a fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical properties of the waste feed streams is required. Using HLW simulant and radioactive fly ash and sludge samples from the Savannah River …

This map displays interpreted structural and stratigraphic relations among the Paleozoic and older rocks of the Nevada Test Site region beneath the Miocene volcanic rocks and younger alluvium in the Yucca Flat and northern Frenchman Flat basins. These interpretations are based on a comprehensive examination and review of data for more than 77 drillholes that penetrated part of the pre-Tertiary basement beneath these post-middle Miocene structural basins. Biostratigraphic data from conodont fossils were newly obtained for 31 of these holes, and a thorough review of all prior microfossil paleontologic data is incorporated in the analysis. Subsurface relationships are interpreted in light of a revised regional geologic framework synthesized from detailed geologic mapping in the ranges surrounding Yucca Flat, from comprehensive stratigraphic studies in the region, and from additional detailed field studies on and around the Nevada Test Site. All available data indicate the subsurface geology of Yucca Flat is considerably more complicated than previous interpretations have suggested. The western part of the basin, in particular, is underlain by relics of the eastward-vergent Belted Range thrust system that are folded back toward the west and thrust by local, west-vergent contractional structures of the CP thrust system. Field evidence from the ranges …

The testing of single shell tanks to determine breathing rates. Inert tracer gases helium, and sulfur hexafluoride will be injected into the tanks AX-103, BY-105, C-107 and U-103. Periodic samples will be taken over a three month interval to determine actual headspace breathing rates.

This document describes methods used, including sampling and analysis, to characterize hazardous chemical constituent in Tank Farms containerized solid waste.

No single methodology has been developed or universally accepted for determining the scope of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Most typically, the scope is determined by first identifying actions and facilities to be analyzed. Yet, agencies sometimes complete an EIS, only to discover that the scope does not adequately address decisions that need to be made. Such discrepancies can often be traced to disconnects between the scoping process and the actual decision making that follows. A new tool, for use in a value engineering setting, provides an effective methodology for improving the EIS scoping process. Application of this tool is not limited to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) scoping efforts. This tool, could in fact, be used to map potential decision points for a range of diverse planning applications and exercises.

Fission energy systems that significantly reduce the need for the user country to be involved in the nuclear operations and technology could simplify implementation and reduce the proliferation potential. Conceptual system designs with improved (relative to the once-through LWR fuel cycle) proliferation resistance for application in developing countries are being evaluated. The fission energy systems being studied include all activities and equipment necessary to produce energy, recycle selected materials, and dispose of the waste. The systems currently being studied are required to function with no refueling of the reactors on the user site. These requirements are being used to initiate the study, on the assumption that removal of these operations from within the developing countries will improve the proliferation resistance. Preliminary evaluations of a small fast reactor core cooled either by sodium or lead-bismuth are provided.

This document is a preliminary Tank Characterization Report (TCR). It only contains the current best-basis inventory (Appendix D) for single-shell tank 241-TX-101. No TCRs have been previously issued for this tank, and current core sample analyses are not available. The best-basis inventory, therefore, is based on an engineering assessment of waste type, process flowsheet data, early sample data, and/or other available information. The Standard Inventories of Chemicals and Radionuclides in Hanford Site Tank Wastes describes standard methodology used to derive the tank-by-tank best-basis inventories. This preliminary TCR will be updated using this same methodology when additional data on tank contents become available.

This report evaluates the effects of enhanced sludge washing and sludge washing without caustic leaching during the preparation of the Phase 1 high-level waste feeds. The pretreatment processing alternatives are evaluated against their ability to satisfy contractual, cost minimization, and other criteria. The information contained in this report is consistent with, and supplemental to, the Tank Waste Remediation System Operation and Utilization Plan (Kirkbride et al. 1997).

This report contains tables of the analytical results from sampling Tank 241-A-101 for the following: fluorides, chlorides, nitrites, bromides, nitrates, phosphates, sulfates, and oxalates. This tank is listed on the Hydrogen Watch List.

Turnaround time for this project was 60 days, as required in Reference 2. The analyses were to be performed using SW-846 procedures whenever possible to meet analytical requirements as a Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA) protocol project. Except for the preparation and analyses of polychlorinated biphenyl hydrocarbons (PCB) and Nickel-63, which the program deleted as a required analyte for 222-S Laboratory, all preparative and analytical work was performed at the 222-S Laboratory. Quanterra Environmental Services of Earth City, Missouri, performed the PCB analyses. During work on this project, two events occurred nearly simultaneously, which negatively impacted the 60 day deliverable schedule: an analytical hold due to waste handling issues at the 222-S Laboratory, and the discovery of PCBs at concentrations of regulatory significance in the 105-N Basin samples. Due to findings of regulatory non-compliance by the Washington State, Department of Ecology, the 222-S Laboratory placed a temporary administrative hold on its analytical work until all waste handling, designation and segregation issues were resolved. During the hold of approximately three weeks, all analytical and waste.handling procedures were rewritten to comply with the legal regulations, and all staff were retrained in the designation, segregation and disposal of RCRA liquid and solid wastes.

Gas-filled hohlraums are presently the base line ignition target design for the National Ignition Facility. Initial Nova experiments on gas-filled hohlraums showed that radiation temperature was reduced due to SBS and SRS scattering losses and that implosion symmetry had shifted compared with vacuum hohlraums and calculations. Subsequent single beam experiments imaging thermal x-ray emission showed the shift is due to laser-plasma heating dynamics and filarnentation in a flowing plasma. Experiments using a single beam have shown that scattering losses and effects of filamentation are reduced when the beam is smoothed with an random phase plate (RPP) or kinoform phase plate (KPP). Scattering is further reduced to less than 5% of the incident laser energy when SSD is added.

Supernova (SN) 1987A focused attention on the critical role of hydrodynamic instabilities in the evolution of supernovae. To test the modeling of these instabilities, we are developing laboratory experiments of hydrodynamic mixing under conditions relevant to supernovae. Initial results were reported in [l]. The Nova laser is used to generate a 10-15 Mbar shock at the interface of a two-layer planar target, which triggers perturbation growth, due to the Richtmyer-Meshkov and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities as the interface decelerates. This resembles the hydrodynamics of the He-H interface of a Type II supernova at intermediate times, up to a few x10{sup 3} s. The experiment is modeled using the hydrodynamics codes HYADES and CALE, and the supernova code PROMETHEUS. Results of the experiments and simulations are presented. New analysis of the bubble velocity is presented, as well as a study of 2D vs. 3D difference in growth at the He-H interface of SN 1987A.

A proposed method for measuring the chemical reaction rate (power) of breached N-Reactor fuel elements with water in a Multi-canister overpack (MCO) based on hydrogen release rate is evaluated. The reaction rate is measured at 50 C in an oxygen free water by applying a vacuum to boil the water and adding a low, measured flow of helium. The ratio of helium to hydrogen is used to infer the reaction rate. A test duration of less than 8 hours was found to provide sufficient accuracy for confidence in the measurement results. A more rigorous treatment of system measurement accuracy, which may yield shorter test durations, should be performed if this reactivity measurement is to be employed.

This document contains review comment records for the CVDF 90% design review. Spent fuels retrieved from the K Basins will be dried at the CVDF. It has also been recommended that the Multi-Conister Overpacks be welded, inspected, and repaired at the CVD Facility before transport to dry storage.