Long-Term Institutional Management of U.S. Department of Energy Legacy Waste Sites (2000) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
5 Stewardship Activities
5 Stewardship Activities
Pages 46-65
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 46... ...
Other stewardship activities that will be considered in this chapter include: · institutional controls (generally, use and access restrictions) ; · conducting oversight and, if necessary, enforcement; · gathering, storing, and retrieving information about residual contaminants and conditions on site, as well as about changing off-site conditions that may affect or be affected by residual contaminants; · disseminating information about the site and related use restrictions; · periodically reevaluating how well the total protective system is working; · evaluating new technological options to reduce or eliminate residual contaminants or to monitor and prevent migration of isolated contaminants; and · supporting research and development aimed at improving basic understanding of both the physical and sociopolitical character of site environments and the fate, transport, and effects of residual site contaminants.
|
From page 47... ...
In the present chapter, we focus on the stewardship activities themselves. COMPONENTS OF A COMPREHENSIVE STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM An adequate, comprehensive stewardship program for a residually contaminated site (including land, groundwater, surface water, and facilities)
|
From page 48... ...
Information should be directed to the people and organizations who have a need to know because (1) they are responsible for implementing or enforcing the site's institutional management plan, (2)
|
From page 49... ...
System-wide attention is necessary if basic limits in scientific understanding with the potential to undermine the effectiveness of institutional management programs at individual sites are to be addressed effectively. A broad, nation-wide stewardship program must provide support for scientific research, both for the physical and social sciences, and for technology development that is directed toward reducing the risk to the public and the environment posed by residually contaminated sites.
|
From page 50... ...
Conservation easements, a form of negative easement, allow the easement holder to dictate that the property can only be used for conservation-related purposes; they are recognized by almost every state (Korngold, 1984~. Conservation easements overcome problems associated with traditional easements, and therefore may be useful at some contaminated sites (U.S.
|
From page 51... ...
For example, at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP, a deep geologic repository for transuranic wastes in New Mexico) DOE intends to use both records and physical markers to warn future societies about the location and contents of WIPP in order to help deter inadvertent intrusion over the coming millennia (U.S.
|
From page 52... ...
CONSTRAINTS AND LIMITATIONS The above general descriptions of the components of a comprehensive stewardship program, as well as the somewhat more detailed descriptions of typical institutional controls, are meant to give a sense of the range of activities that could and often should take place in conducting long-term stewardship of a residually contaminated site. Nevertheless, the efficacy of these activities is by no means assured.
|
From page 53... ...
These examples vary; the first is the most egregious; the last is speculative. Moreover, the well water examples illustrate both the limitations of institutional controls and ways that oversight can compensate for their deficiencies.
|
From page 54... ...
they should be used nonetheless as an added measure of protection" (see Sidebar 5-3~. Oversight and Enforcement Oversight and enforcement activities, if carried out with continuous vigilance, should have the potential to help compensate for the deficiencies of other stewardship activities.
|
From page 55... ...
Everyone with a property interest needs to be involved in agreeing to the easement. Parties such as a mortgage, lien, or earlier easement holder need to be involved along with the property "owner" during easement negotiations, because they have a legal interest in the property (U.S.
|
From page 57... ...
reaches a similar conclusion, noting that land-use controls "for both legal and physical reasons, are very difficult to enforce." For a set of institutional management activities to remain effective, there should be both the means to detect impending or actual failure and also the authority and will to require those responsible to correct the problem. Unfortunately, as illustrated by the problems with use restrictions, oversight and enforcement activities can have important limitations, particularly if they are not conducted with a clear allocation of responsibility and authority as well as adequate training and funding.
|
From page 58... ...
The very long time frames over which institutional management must remain reliable at DOE sites presents special problems for the information storage and retrieval systems upon which DOE site stewards must depend. The durability beyond even a decade or so of some information storage media currently in heavy use (VHS recording tape and CD-ROMs)
|
From page 59... ...
Such gaps in understanding include knowledge of the behavior of residual contaminants in site environments, the removal efficiency of site remediation that has already been completed or is ongoing, and the performance of barrier technologies in use to contain residual site contamination. In commenting on recent drastic revisions in estimates of the travel time of subsurface contaminants at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL)
|
From page 60... ...
· Appropriate incentive structures. Given that different people and institutions respond to different incentives, attention needs to be devoted to assuring that site stewardship managers will be appropriately motivated for carrying out the needed tasks over time, not only in implementing and monitoring an institutional management plan, but also in the vigilant safeguarding of remaining hazardous and radioactive materials.
|
From page 61... ...
Activities of the entity might include all of those listed previously in this chapter under "Components of a Comprehensive Stewardship Program." The entity might take title to sites (public or private) , lease or transfer property for reuse and retain the proceeds, support research to advance stewardship activities as well as contaminant reduction and isolation, and train and use local citizens, organizations, and businesses to perform monitoring and maintenance.
|
From page 62... ...
DOE LEGACY WASTE SITES 1. Trusts are used in the RCRA program to ensure funding for post-closure care of non-federal hazardous waste management sites: Site owners and operators create the asset (money)
|
From page 64... ...
3000, could be assigned to "a State or other governmental entity that has the capability of effectively enforcing the easement over the period of time necessary to achieve the purposes of the easement." Insurance Another approach might be to require that recipients of previously contaminated federal property have insurance against contamination liability. As it now stands, if newly discovered contamination is shown to have been caused by the federal government in the past and the property recipient did not contribute to the contamination, the recipient can seek recourse against the federal government.
|
From page 65... ...
Such improvements, however, will not in themselves lead to reliable long-term site institutional management unless gaps in basic scientific understanding are also addressed. These gaps include, for example, deficiencies in our ability to make accurate estimates of subsurface contaminant behavior, especially in the conceptual understanding of this behavior to enable accurate and robust modeling.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.