Yvette T. Collazo

Scientific Opportunities for Monitoring at Environmental Remediation Sites (SOMERS): Integrated Systems-Based Approaches to Monitoring

Through an inter-disciplinary effort, DOE is addressing a need to advance monitoring approaches from sole reliance on cost- and labor-intensive point-source monitoring to integrated systems-based approaches such as flux-based approaches and the use of early indicator parameters. Key objectives include identifying current scientific, technical and implementation opportunities and challenges, prioritizing science and technology strategies to meet current needs within the DOE complex for the most challenging environments, and developing an integrated and risk-informed monitoring framework.

ADVANCED SIMULATION CAPABILITY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT (ASCEM): AN OVERVIEW OF INITIAL RESULTS

ADVANCED SIMULATION CAPABILITY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT (ASCEM): AN OVERVIEW OF INITIAL RESULTS Mark Williamson,* Juan Meza,† David Moulton,‡ Ian Gorton,§ Mark Freshley,§ Paul Dixon,‡ Roger Seitz,¶ Carl Steefel,† Stefan Finsterle,† Susan Hubbard,† Ming Zhu,* Kurt Gerdes,* Russ Patterson,# and Yvette T. Collazo* *U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management, Washington, DC, USA †Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA ‡Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA §Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA ¶Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, SC, USA #U.S. Department of Energy, Carlsbad, NM, USA The US Department Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) determined that uni- form application of advanced modeling in the subsurface could potentially help reduce the cost and risk associated with its environmental cleanup mission. In response to this determination, the EM Office of Technology Innovation and Development (OTID), Groundwater and Soil Remediation (GWS Simulation; Model; Groundwater; ASCEM BACKGROUND: INTRODUCTION TO EM NEEDS Fifty years of nuclear weapons production and government-sponsored nuclear energy research in the US during the Cold War generated large amounts of radioactive wastes, spent fuel, excess plutonium and uranium, thousands of contaminated facilities, and contaminated groundwater and soil. During most of that half century, the nation did not have the environmental regulatory structure or nu- clear waste remediation technologies that exist to- day. The result was a legacy of nuclear waste that was stored and disposed of in ways now considered unacceptable (11). At the end of US Government Fiscal Year 2010 (FY10), EM had 18 funded sites. Estimates report these sites to contain 40 million m 3 of contami- nated soil and 6.4 trillion L of contaminated groundwater (7). Current groundwater and soil re- mediation challenges that will continue to be ad- dressed in the next decade include cost-effective characterization, remediation, and monitoring of contaminants in the vadose zone and groundwater.

Identification and Implementation of End-User Needs During Development of a State-of-the-Art Modeling Toolset

The U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE) Office of Environmental Management, Technology Innovation and Development is supporting a multi-National Laboratory effort to develop the Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management (ASCEM). ASCEM is an emerging state-of-the-art scientific approach and software infrastructure for understanding and predicting contaminant fate and transport in natural and engineered systems. These modular and open-source high performance computing tools and user interfaces will facilitate integrated approaches that enable standardized assessments of performance and risk for EM cleanup and closure decisions. The ASCEM team recognized that engaging end-users in the ASCEM development process would lead to enhanced development and implementation of the ASCEM toolsets in the user community. End-user involvement in ASCEM covers a broad spectrum of perspectives, including: performance assessment (PA) and risk assessment practitioners, research scientists, decision-makers, oversight personnel, and regulators engaged in the US DOE cleanup mission. End-users are primarily engaged in ASCEM via the ASCEM User Steering Committee (USC) and the ‘user needs interface’ task. Future plans also include user involvement in demonstrations of the ASCEM tools. This paper will describe the details of how end users have been engaged in the ASCEM program and will demonstrate how this involvement has strengthened both the tool development and community confidence. ASCEM tools requested by end-users specifically target modeling challenges associated with US DOE cleanup activities. The demonstration activities involve application of ASCEM tools and capabilities to representative problems at DOE sites. Selected results from the ASCEM Phase 1 demonstrations are discussed to illustrate how capabilities requested by end-users were implemented in prototype versions of the ASCEM tool.Copyright

Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management (ASCEM)

The United States Department Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) determined that uniform application of advanced modeling in the subsurface could help reduce the cost and risks associated with its environmental cleanup mission. In response to this determination, the EM Office of Technology Innovation and Development (OTID), Groundwater and Soil Remediation (GW&S) began the program Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management (ASCEM). ASCEM is a state-of-the-art scientific tool and approach for integrating data and scientific understanding to enable prediction of contaminant fate and transport in natural and engineered systems. This initiative supports the reduction of uncertainties and risks associated with EM’s environmental cleanup and closure programs through better understanding and quantifying the subsurface flow and contaminant transport behavior in complex geological systems. This involves the long-term performance of engineered components, including cementitious materials in nuclear waste disposal facilities that may be sources for future contamination of the subsurface. This paper describes the ASCEM tools and approach and the ASCEM programmatic accomplishments completed in 2010 including recent advances and technology transfer.Copyright

Tailoring Engineering Activities to D&D Projects

Engineering is an important element of Deactivation and Decommissioning (D&D) project technical planning, scheduling, estimating, and execution. Understanding the scope of engineering and related design, deciding when in a project’s schedule these activities should be conducted, and specifying the products to be generated from each engineering task are important management functions. These subjects are addressed in a guidance report developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) described in this paper.Copyright