NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
Support for this study was provided by the U.S. Bureau of Mines.
Copies of this report are available from
Board on Earth Sciences and Resources
National Research Council
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20418
Cover: Stormy seas are depicted in this original sketch by Shelley Myers.
Copyright ©1994 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
Committee on Research Programs of the U.S. Bureau of Mines
ROBERT R. BEEBE, Chairman, Consultant,
Tucson, AZ
EARL H. BENNETT,
Idaho Geological Survey, Moscow
CORALE L. BRIERLEY, Consultant,
Salt Lake City, UT
MAURICE C. FUERSTENAU,
University of Nevada, Reno
DONALD W. GENTRY,
Colorado School of Mines, Golden
RHEA L. GRAHAM,*
Science Applications International, Inc., Albuquerque, NM
DONALD C. HANEY,
Kentucky Geological Survey, Lexington
FREDERICK C. JOHNSON,
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
MICHAEL E. KARMIS,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg
HAROLD W. PAXTON,
Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
ROBERT W. PULS,
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Ada, OK
DALE F. STEIN,
Michigan Technological University (retired), Tucson, AZ
NRC Staff
JONATHAN G. PRICE, Staff Director
THOMAS M. USSELMAN, Associate Staff Director
SHELLEY MYERS, Project Assistant
U.S. Bureau of Mines Liaison Representative
ROBERT S. KAPLAN
* |
Resigned October 1994. |
Board on Earth Sciences and Resources
FREEMAN GILBERT, Chair,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA
GAIL M. ASHLEY,
Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ
THURE CERLING,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City
MARK P. CLOOS,
University of Texas at Austin
NEVILLE G. W. COOK,
University of California, Berkeley
JOEL DARMSTADTER,
Resources for the Future, Washington, DC
DONALD J. DEPAOLO,
University of California, Berkeley
MARCO EINAUDI,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
NORMAN H. FOSTER, Independent Petroleum Geologist,
Denver, CO
CHARLES G. GROAT,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
DONALD C. HANEY,
Kentucky Geological Survey, Lexington
ANDREW H. KNOLL,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
PHILIP E. LAMOREAUX,
P. E. LaMoreaux and Associates, Inc., Tuscaloosa, AL
SUSAN LANDON,
Thomasson Partner Associates, Denver, CO
MARCIA K. MCNUTT,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
J. BERNARD MINSTER,
University of California, San Diego
JILL D. PASTERIS,
Washington University, St. Louis, MO
EDWARD C. ROY, JR.,
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX
NRC Staff
JONATHAN G. PRICE, Staff Director
THOMAS M. USSELMAN, Associate Staff Director
WILLIAM E. BENSON, Senior Program Officer
KEVIN CROWLEY, Senior Program Officer
ANNE LINN, Program Officer
LALLY A. ANDERSON, Staff Assistant
JUDITH L. ESTEP, Administrative Assistant
JENNIFER T. ESTEP, Administrative Assistant
SHELLEY MYERS, Project Assistant
Commission on Geosciences,Environment, and Resources
M. GORDON WOLMAN, Chairman,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
PATRICK R. ATKINS,
Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh, PA
EDITH BROWN WEISS,
Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC
JAMES P. BRUCE,
Canadian Climate Program Board, Ontario
WILLIAM L. FISHER,
University of Texas at Austin
EDWARD A. FRIEMAN,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA
GEORGE M. HORNBERGER,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
W. BARCLAY KAMB,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
PERRY L. MCCARTY,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
JUDY L. MEYER,
University of Georgia, Athens
RAYMOND A. PRICE,
Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
THOMAS C. SCHELLING,
University of Maryland, College Park
ELLEN K. SILBERGELD,
Environmental Defense Fund, Washington, DC
STEVEN M. STANLEY,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
VICTORIA J. TSCHINKEL,
Landers and Parson, Tallahassee, FL
WARREN WASHINGTON,
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
NRC Staff
STEPHEN RATTIEN, Executive Director
STEPHEN D. PARKER, Associate Executive Director
MORGAN GOPNIK, Assistant Executive Director
JEANETTE SPOON, Administrative Officer
SANDI FITZPATRICK, Administrative Associate
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Preface
The U.S. Bureau of Mines, in a letter dated July 12, 1993, from Dr. David R. Forshey, Associate Director of Research, requested that the National Research Council (NRC) consider establishing a committee for ongoing assessments of the bureau's research programs. The stated overall objective of the effort was to provide advice that would help to continuously improve the quality of the bureau's research programs. Within its research division, the Bureau pursues a spectrum of activities ranging from fundamental processes involving minerals and materials to applications of new and existing technologies in the mining and minerals industries. Programs in the bureau's Information and Analysis Division are not included in the NRC's charge. In part, the bureau was responding to a recommendation in Competitiveness of the U.S. Minerals and Metals Industry (National Materials Advisory Board, National Research Council, Washington, DC, 1990, 140 pp.), stating that the bureau “should ensure that organizations or groups of individuals will serve as visiting committees to review and evaluate the research programs of the bureau's in-house mining and metallurgical laboratories in terms of their scientific merit and research operations.”
The Competitiveness report also provided a brief summary of a debate over U.S. minerals and metals policy and pointed out three consistent themes. These were (1) international free markets; (2) interdependence of the United States and its trading partners, backed up by stockpiles of strategic materials; and (3) a national minerals and materials policy mandated by Congress and implemented by the executive branch. Embedded in this last item was a general belief that cross-cutting management was needed to coordinate research, regulation, and other activities involved in the production, use, and recycling of minerals and metals and in the disposal of their waste products.
The Committee on Research Programs of the Bureau of Mines was established by the NRC in early 1994. The committee operates under the aegis of the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources within the NRC's Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources. With the help of panels, the main committee oversees assessment of the bureau's research and research infrastructure. A panel was established to assess facilities and research at the bureau's research centers through a series of intensive center visits. Three of the bureau's centers (those in Salt Lake City, Reno, and Albany, Oregon) were visited in 1994. In addition, the committee established a panel to conduct an in-depth review of the bureau's occupational health program.
The committee intends to provide its input to the bureau through annual reports, of which this is the first. The present report incorporates the committee's overall findings and assessment of the bureau's research organization and the quality of its products, along with findings of the specific panels. The report contains recommendations that the committee believes will improve the quality of the bureau 's research programs. The appendixes contain panel reports prepared for the committee to use in the preparation of this report. Many of the findings and conclusions in the appendixes have been incorporated into the main report. However, the committee did not attempt to reach a consensus on the entire content of the appendixes, particularly some of the highly detailed material on the bureau's occupational health program in Appendix A.
During 1994 the U.S. Bureau of Mines was in the process of reorganizing much of its operations, following government-wide recommendations within the National Performance Review prepared under the direction of Vice President Gore. Because of this reorganization, questions were raised concerning the bureau's structure and how its research programs are managed. While this caused some difficulty, the committee trusts and expects that future annual reports will be able to deal with an established organizational structure for the bureau. The committee will have to replace one of its members: Rhea Lydia Graham was confirmed as the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in October 1994 and resigned from the committee. Prior to her nomination in August 1994, she participated at the first meeting of the committee and meetings of the Occupational Health Panel and the Salt Lake City Panel; however, she did not participate in revision of the draft panel reports or in the preparation of this report.
1994 Committee Activities
The committee held three meetings in 1994: March 17-18 in Washington, D.C.; June 27-29 in Salt Lake City; and September 25-27 at the NRC 's Beckman Center in Irvine, California. The first meeting involved discussion of the charge to the committee, a discussion with bureau staff about expectations, and a series of briefings on the bureau 's organizational structure and highlights of the three research divisions —(1) Health, Safety, and Mining Technology, (2) Minerals and Materials Sciences; and (3) Environmental Technology. The committee's second meeting was primarily devoted to the first center visit (at the Salt Lake City Research Center). The third meeting was devoted to consideration of the committee's findings and overall recommendations. Input to this meeting included information provided by the bureau (e.g., program descriptions, staff profiles, budget documents) and reports from the Occupational Health Panel and the three panels that visited the research centers.
Occupational Health Panel
This panel (three members of the committee and three guest panelists) was established to conduct an in-depth technical review of the occupational health program of the bureau. The panel held two formal meetings, one at the Pittsburgh Research Center (May 1994) and one at the Twin Cities Research Center (June 1994). During these meetings, the research center directors described their programs and several investigators summarized their individual research projects. The panel visited the research facilities and laboratories; met with user groups in Pittsburgh (regulatory agencies, mine operators, and labor unions were represented); reviewed research reports, documents on project selection, and memoranda of agreement; and examined publication and technology transfer activities. The panel report is contained in Appendix A.
Panels on Facilities and Research
Panels (comprised of several committee members and invited guests) visited three of the bureau's research centers to assess their facilities and research programs. The Salt Lake City Research Center was visited first (June 27-29, 1994), and all 12 members of the committee participated as the panel. This was followed by visits to the Reno Research Center (July 18-20, 1994) and the Albany (Oregon) Research Center (August 18-19, 1994). All three visits included briefings and discussions on the operations of the individual centers, highlights of their research projects, their research staffs, and technology transfer activities. Each visit involved also tours of the facilities and laboratories, where selected individual researchers provided short summaries of their research. The panels held closed discussions (without bureau supervisors and managers) with center employees; similar discussions were also held with bureau cooperators (e.g., industry, universities, and other government agencies). Final discussions were held with the respective center directors. The reports of the panels appear in Appendix B, Appendix C, and Appendix D.
Future Committee Activities
The committee will continue operations through at least 1996, focusing on visits to the remaining bureau research centers, additional in-depth reviews of specific research programs, and assessments of the broader program areas. These program areas will probably be Health and Safety, Environmental Remediation, Pollution Prevention and Control, and Materials Partnerships. The three in-depth program reviews by the committee tentatively scheduled for 1995 include research on ground control, biotechnology, and in situ mining.