Preventing pollution using iso 14001 at a particle accelerator the relativisticheavy ion collider project

摘要

In early 1997 Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) discovered that the spent fuelpool of their High Flux Beam Reactor was leaking tritium into the groundwater. Community members, activist groups, politicians and regulators were outraged with the poor environmental management practices at BNL. The reactor was shut down and the Department of Energy (DOE) terminated the contract with the existing Management Company. At this same time, a major new scientific facility, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), was nearing the end of construction and readying for commissioning. Although environmental considerations had been incorporated into the design of the facility; some interested parties were skeptical that this new facility would not cause significant environmental impacts. RHIC management recognized that the future of its operation was dependent on preventing pollution and allaying concerns of its stakeholders. Although never done at a DOE National Laboratory before Brookhaven Science Associates, the new management firm, committed to implementing an Environmental Management System (EMS) and RHIC managers volunteered to deploy it within their facility on an extremely aggressive schedule. Several of these IS0 requirements contribute directly to preventing pollution, an area where particular emphasis was placed. This paper describes how Brookhaven used the following key IS0 14001 elements to institutionalize Pollution Prevention concepts: Environmental Policy, Aspects, Objectives and Targets, Environmental Management Program, Structure and Responsibility, Operational Controls, Training, and Management Review. In addition, examples of implementation at the RHIC Project illustrate how BNL's premiere facility was able to demonstrate to interested parties that care had been taken to implement technological and administrative controls to minimize environmental impacts, while at the same time reduce the applicability of regulatory requirements to their operations.