SUPPLEMENTAL COLUMBIA RIVER PROTECTION ACTIVITIES AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY HANFORD SITE: 2006 TECHNICAL PEER REVIEW

摘要

Prompted by a $10 million Congressional allocation to identify supplemental actions to protect the Columbia River from groundwater contamination beneath the Hanford Reservation, the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) Office of Clean-up Technology identified twenty-three potential technical projects and then down-selected ten of these for further evaluation. An independent expert peer review was conducted for the ten down-selected proposals. The review panel consisted of twenty-three recognized subject matter experts that broadly represented academia, industry, and federal laboratories. Of the initial ten proposals reviewed, one was given unconditional support, six were given conditional support, and three were not supported as proposed. Three additional proposals were then submitted by DOE for review--these proposals were structured, in part, to respond to the initial round of technical peer review comments. Peer reviews of these additional proposals provided conditional support. For those proposals that received conditional support, DOE requested specific implementation and work plans and assessed whether the plans adequately addressed the technical conditions identified by the review panel. The final list of technology proposals receiving support, or conditional support, primarily focused on understanding and reducing the potential impacts of uranium, chromium, and strontium from facilities adjacent to the Columbia River, with a secondary focus on understanding and limiting the future Columbia River impacts from the large carbon tetrachloride groundwater plume underlying and downgradient of the Hanford Central Plateau facilities. The results and recommendations of the peer reviews informed the final DOE project selections and supported implementation of the selected projects to protect the Columbia River and address groundwater contamination at Hanford.