Appendix B
Statement of Task
An ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will review the analysis carried out by the Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) selected by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management on approaches for supplemental treatment of low-activity waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The review will evaluate the technical quality and completeness of the following:
- Does the FFRDC’s report clearly lay out a framework of decisions to be made among the treatment technologies, waste forms, and disposal locations?
- Does the FFRDC’s report consider in its analysis all the elements, criteria, and factors specified in Section 3125 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021?
- Does the FFRDC’s report provide additional analysis for the grout treatment approach as identified in the FFRDC report for Section 3134 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017?
The review will be carried out concurrently with the FFRDC’s analysis with opportunities for input from the Washington State Department of Ecology, other principal Hanford stakeholders, and members of the public. The study will produce three consensus reports containing findings and recommendations. The first report will focus on study charges 1 and 2. It will be produced after the FFRDC briefs the committee on its plans for carrying out the mandated assessments and delivers to the committee a draft of the framework as described in Section 3125 of the NDAA of 2021. The second report will focus on study charges 1, 2, and 3. It will be produced after the FFRDC presents and delivers to the committee its next-to-final draft framework document. This report will also provide a summary of public comments, including comments from the Washington State Department of Ecology, received during a minimum 60-day comment period, on the committee’s review and the next-to-final draft of the FFRDC report. The third report will review the FFRDC’s final assessment results.
