Stewardship Principles “[S]tewardship is a pervasive concept and not simply a set of measures to be implemented once remediation is complete.... “Today’s waste management actions should become an integral part of stewardship planning.” -Long-Term Institutional Management of DOE Legacy Waste Sites

Long-Term Institutional Management (LTIM)— Seeks to deploy multiple measures in a balanced, integrative, systematic way Is phased and iterative through time Is active in its search for better remedies Aims to be self-correcting, self- improving (i.e., adaptive) through (long) time NRC Report on Long-Term Management of DOE Legacy Sites

The “Three-Legged Stool” of Long-Term Institutional Management NRC Report on Long-Term Management of DOE Legacy Sites

Adopt a “pessimistic” planning basis that assumes:  Institutional controls will eventually fail;  Engineered barriers have more limited lives than contaminants they contain;  Assumptions about contaminant migration may prove wrong. NRC Report on Long-Term Management of DOE Legacy Sites LTIM Study Recommendations

Current LTS Issues & Themes Scientific and technical uncertainties –(Responses to, implications of) Social and institutional vulnerabilities –(As mediators of vulnerabilities assoc. w/ biophysical and engineered environment) Stakeholder roles –(Approaches to ensuring decision transparency)

Scientific & Technical Uncertainties (and implications for life-cycle costs)

Plutonium travel time and the conceptual model problem: Changing understanding of contaminant transport at the Idaho site NRC Report on Research Needs in Subsurface Science

Aerial view looking East Columbia River is to the left

Process Effluent Trench After Remediation Groundwater Excavated Trench 5 m 8 m Residual Contamination Side Wall Floor Surface Side Wall

Cleanup Verification Package Process Effluent Trench RESRAD Model Environmental Transport Exposure and dose Risk Soil Concentrations at time of Remediation Dose and Risk Projections for 1000 years Most of the dose and risk is from the side wall Side Wall

Burrell, Pennsylvania Stewardship Cost* Drivers Risk to environment and public health Stakeholder concerns Ongoing routine operations –Environmental monitoring –Water treatment –Security Maintenance –Vegetation control –Vandalism repair –Institutional controls * Costs meant to be low, as DOE envisions little human interaction at “stabilized” sites.

Today Annual Cost to DOE $6 billion/yr $150 million/yr Two Approaches to Long-Term Stewardship Cost Accounting

Today Total Social Cost Potential Social Cost of Long-Term Stewardship: Alternative Models -- $ $$$ ** * *** $$ ( function of discovery date and scope of LTS failure, should one occur.)

Thinking “Outside the Box” about Vulnerability (Social and Institutional Vulnerabilities)

Source: The Integrator Operable Unit at SRS: Regulatory Compliance Focused on Problem Identification, Risk Reduction and Site Resolution; Charles W. Powers, CRESP; June 2000

NRC Report on Research Needs in Subsurface Science Radionuclide plumes at Hanford

Central Plateau buffer zone, as proposed by “extended HAB” + Tri-Party Agencies (approximate)

Proposed Hanford Reach National Monument

From Cleanup to Stewardship, DOE 1999 Demographic change near Rocky Flats, Colorado

More than 2 million people live within 50 miles of the Rocky Flats Site (arrow at upper center).

How should we select institutional controls and monitor their performance? Using the concept of vulnerability in remedy selection ERDF Columbia River circa 1950s

Conceptual Model of Vulnerability SOCIETY- ENVIRONMEN T REMEDY Vulnerability: How could the remedy fail due to threats from the social – environmental system? HAZARD Risk: What might be the harm done to society and the environment given failure? HARM THREAT “High reliability” institutional management

“Risk is a complex phenomenon that involves both biophysical attributes and social dimensions. Existing assessment and management approaches often fail to consider risk in its full complexity and its social context.” R. Kasperson and J. Kasperson, The social amplification and attenuation of risk, 1996.

Decision Transparency (Decision Mapping System as Institutional Control?)

URL:

Policy Forum: Nuclear Waste Yucca Mountain Rodney C. Ewing and Allison Macfarlane Science April 2002 “The…decision should be based on a compelling and transparent analysis of…safety. … “The necessary science…requires an analysis that couples atomic-scale processes…to crustal- scale processes…that extend over temporal scales of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years. …

Policy Forum: Nuclear Waste Yucca Mountain Rodney C. Ewing and Allison Macfarlane Science April 2002 “… We can never know whether the repository ‘worked’ as designed. Even with an operating period lasting for hundreds of years and the possibility of an engineered ‘fix’ for problems, we cannot know whether the predicted behavior … matches its actual performance. This would be an unreasonable expectation … ”

Map of 129 Sites that May Require Long-term Stewardship