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 competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by the Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The work was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Contract No. DE-FC01-94EW54069/R. All opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Energy.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 96-72353
International Standard Book Number 0-309-05685-3
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Cover art by Y. David Chung. Mr. Chung is a graduate of the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. He has exhibited widely throughout the country, including the Whitney Museum in New York, the Washington Project for the Arts in Washington, D.C., and the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Copyright 1997 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
COMMITTEE ON REMEDIATION OF BURIED AND TANK WASTES
THOMAS M. LESCHINE*, Chair,
University of Washington, Seattle
DENISE BIERLEY,
Roy F. Weston, Inc., Albuquerque, New Mexico
ROBERT J. BUDNITZ† ,
Future Resources Associates, Berkeley, California
THOMAS A. BURKE,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
ROBERT J. CATLIN,
University of Texas (ret.), Houston
GREGORY R. CHOPPIN,
Florida State University, Tallahassee
JAMES H. CLARKE,
ECKENFELDER INC., Nashville, Tennessee
THOMAS A. COTTON,
JK Research Associates, Inc., Arlington, Virginia
ALLEN G. CROFF,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee
RODNEY C. EWING‡,
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
DONALD R. GIBSON, JR.,
TRW Environmental Safety Systems, Vienna, Virginia
JAMES H. JOHNSON, JR.,
Howard University, Washington, D.C.
W. HUGH O'RIORDAN,
Givens Pursley & Huntley, Boise, Idaho
GLENN PAULSON,
Paulson and Cooper, Inc., Jackson Hole, Wyoming
BENJAMIN ROSS,
Disposal Safety Incorporated, Washington, D.C.
PAUL A. WITHERSPOON,
University of California, Berkeley
RAYMOND G. WYMER,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ret.), Tennessee
Staff
ROBERT S. ANDREWS, Senior Staff Officer
DENNIS L. DUPREE, Senior Project Assistant
PATRICIA A. JONES, Senior Project Assistant
BOARD ON RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
MICHAEL C. KAVANAUGH, Chair,
Malcolm Pirnie, Oakland, California
B. JOHN GARRICK, Vice-Chair,
PLG, Inc., Newport Beach, California
JOHN F. AHEARNE,
Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, and Duke University, Research Triangle Park and Durham, North Carolina
JEAN M. BAHR,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
SOL BURSTEIN,
Wisconsin Electric Power (ret.), Milwaukee
ANDREW P. CAPUTO,
Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, D.C.
MELVIN W. CARTER,
Georgia Institute of Technology (emeritus), Atlanta
PAUL P. CRAIG,
University of California (emeritus), Davis
MARY R. ENGLISH,
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
DARLEANE C. HOFFMAN,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
JAMES H. JOHNSON, JR.,
Howard University, Washington, D.C.
H. ROBERT MEYER,
Keystone Scientific, Inc., Fort Collins, Colorado
CHARLES McCOMBIE,
National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste, Wettingen, Switzerland
D. WARNER NORTH,
Decision Focus, Inc., Mountain View, California
PAUL SLOVIC,
Decision Research, Eugene, Oregon
BENJAMIN L. SMITH, Independent Consultant,
Columbia, Tennessee
Staff
KEVIN D. CROWLEY, Director
ROBERT S. ANDREWS, Senior Staff Officer
KARYANIL T. THOMAS, Senior Staff Officer
THOMAS E. KIESS, Staff Officer
SUSAN B. MOCKLER, Research Associate
LISA J. CLENDENING, Administrative Associate
ROBIN L. ALLEN, Senior Project Assistant
REBECCA BURKA, Senior Project Assistant
DENNIS L. DuPREE, Senior Project Assistant
PATRICIA A. JONES, Senior Project Assistant
ANGELA R. TAYLOR, Project Assistant
ERICA L. WILLIAMS, Research Assistant
COMMISSION ON GEOSCIENCES, ENVIRONMENT, AND RESOURCES
GEORGE M. HORNBERGER, Chairman,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
PATRICK R. ATKINS,
Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
JAMES P. BRUCE,
Canadian Climate Program Board, Ottawa, Ontario
WILLIAM L. FISHER,
University of Texas, Austin
JERRY F. FRANKLIN,
University of Washington, Seattle
DEBRA KNOPMAN,
Progressive Foundation, Washington, D.C.
PERRY L. MCCARTY,
Stanford University, California
JUDITH E. MCDOWELL,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
S. GEORGE PHILANDER,
Princeton University, New Jersey
RAYMOND A. PRICE,
Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario
THOMAS C. SCHELLING,
University of Maryland, College Park
ELLEN SILBERGELD,
University of Maryland Medical School, Baltimore
VICTORIA J. TSCHINKEL,
Landers and Parsons, Tallahassee, Florida
Staff
STEPHEN RATTIEN, Executive Director
STEPHEN D. PARKER, Associate Executive Director
MORGAN GOPNIK, Assistant Executive Director
GREGORY SYMMES, Reports Officer
JAMES MALLORY, Administrative Officer
SANDI FITZPATRICK, Administrative Associate
MARQUITA SMITH, PC Analyst & Project Assistant
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Acknowledgments
Many people assisted in the design and conduct of the Workshop on Barriers for Long-Term Isolation. The Committee on Remediation of Buried and Tank Wastes thanks John Lehr, Office of Environmental Restoration of the U.S. Department of Energy, for his support and participation as a general chair of the workshop. Other general chairs for the workshop were committee members James Clarke of ECKENFELDER INC. and Paul Witherspoon of the University of California at Berkeley. The committee also thanks Julie D'Ambrosia of EnviroTech Associates, Inc., for her assistance with the planning and conduct of the workshop, and for providing notes on the workshop to the committee. In addition, the committee thanks Glendon Gee of Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, David Daniel of the University of Texas (now at the University of Illinois), Robert Mutch of ECKENFELDER INC., and Paul Witherspoon, all of whom served as session chairs at the workshop.
Committee members James Clarke and Paul Witherspoon, along with committee staff officer Robert Andrews and DOE contractor Julie D'Ambrosia, formed a steering group to develop the concept and structure of the workshop. Susan Mockler, research associate for the Board on Radioactive Waste Management, assisted with preparation and editing of the report and the articles prepared by the presenters. Dennis DuPree and Patricia Jones, senior project assistants for the board, assisted in workshop logistics and registration and in preparation of this report. Although this report is the product of the committee, we acknowledge initiatives of the steering group to organize and conduct the workshop and to help prepare an early draft of the report.
The committee also acknowledges the contribution of the speakers at this workshop for providing their papers for inclusion in this report.
Thomas Leschine, Chair
Committee on Remediation of Buried and Tank Wastes