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OCR for page 18
2
Clarify the Role and Mission of OST
In 1998, DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) published its
Strategic Plan for Science and Technology,is which includes He following
mission statement for its science and technology efforts (DOE, 1998b, p. 3~:
Provide He full range of science and technology resources and
capabilities, from basic research to development, to demonstration
and deployment to technical assistance, Mat are needed to deliver and
support fully developed, deployable scientific and technological
solutions to EM cleanup and long-te~m environmental stewardship
problems.
However, an overarching issue raised in the six reports is how He role and
mission of EM's Office of Science and Technology (OST) should be deemed,
and how OST's role and mission relate to those of over parts of DOE-EM.
There are several possibilities, which are not mutually exclusive:
develop new technologies,
hmd applicable technologies,
adapt existing technologies to address DOE-EM problems,
communicate or negotiate with users and other Interested and affected
parties, and
|5 DOE-EM also released a Research and Development Program plan in late 1998
(DOE, 1998a). Due to the limited time available to prepare this report, the extensive
study that would be required to evaluate the efficacy of these two new plans, and the
board's task (i.e., to summarize and synthesize recent NRC reports), the board did not
conduct a detailed evaluation of these documents or their possible impacts.
18
OCR for page 19
CLARIFY THE ROLE AND MISSION OF OST
.
market OST-developed technologies.
19
Several of the committees have provided insights on this issue. The Subsurface
Contaminants Committee recommended that DOE-EM continue to invest in
developing groundwater and soil remediation technologies because existing
technologies are not adequate for cleaning up large quantities of contaminated
groundwater and soil, as required by federal law (Subsurface report, p. 13~.
The Mixed Waste Committee recommended that waste formic development no
longer be the primary focus of the Mixed Waste Focus Area (MWFA) because
currently available waste forms are sufficiently developed to enable proper
disposal of DOE's lcnown and expected mixed waste inventory. Instead the
committee recommended that the MWFA emphasize engineering design,
integration, and scale-up of its proposed treatment processes and Weir
demonstration and deployment at the DOE sites (Mixed Waste report, p. 984.
The D&D Committee questioned whether simply testing and providing
information about commercially developed technologies is a suitable role for the
DDFA (D&D report, p. 25~. The board did not attempt to settle the matter, but
believes that to be effective, OST's role should be clear, and it has not been. It
is also not clear how the OST mission relates to that of EM, DOE, and the
sites.
The board concludes that there is a role for centralized research,
development, and demonstration (RD&D) activities in providing
economical, effective, acceptable, and practicable technologies for use in
DOE-EM site cleanups. Although OST accounts for only a small part of the
DOE-EM budget, its work can have substantial beneficial impact in
reducing the cost (and risk) associated with environmental remediation
activities, which are estimated to be over $100 billion (Decision Making
report, p. 74, 86~.~7
To realize this potential role, the committees offered a number of findings
and recommendations to improve OST's strategic planning and prioritization
processes (including ways to enhance participation by the sites) and to target its
mission to short-term and long-term objectives.
{6 A "waste form" is a solid material that is the product of one or more treatment
processes (Mixed Waste report, p. 21.
t7 The Decision Making Committee did not consider other possible organizational
structures to accomplish the RD&D needed in DOE-EM. Therefore this conclusion from
the Decision Making report (and others) are specific to the context and associated
challenges provided by the DOE-EM organizational structure examined in the course of
this study (Decision Making report, p. 10~.
OCR for page 20
20
TECHNOLOGIES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIC PLANNING AND PRIORITIZATION
A consistent theme in the six reports is Me lack of well-defined strategic
goals for OST. ~8 Program implementation has suffered because Were existed no
formal strategic plan on which to base discussions, select alternatives, and
manage the program, and because strategic goals developed by OST have not
been sharply focused in the past. i9 Such criticisms were not universal, however.
For example, He Mixed Waste Committee complimented the Mixed Waste
Focus Area (MWFA) and recommended continuing Be practice of identifying,
prioritizing, and responding to technology deficiencies (Mixed Waste report, p.
99~. The committee also recommended that OST integrate treatment
technologies into a mixed waste treatment strategy (Mixed Waste report, p.
102~. In addition, as pointed out by He Decision Making Committee, this issue
is not solely an OST problem, because the strategic goals for OST must be
guided and constrained by priorities established by other DOE-EM offices
priorities that also have varied over the years (Decision Making report, p. 80~.
The committee also found that OST's strategic goals do not provide an adequate
level of guidance for program managers as they attempt, in collaboration with
users, to assign priorities to technology needs (Decision Making report, p. 79~.
The board recommends the following actions to address this issue:
.
OST managers, in conjunction with other top-level EM managers,
should produce strategic goals and plans that define explicitly the
technical problems that OST program units will and will not
address (Decision Making report, p. 6~.
Any top-level strategic goals developed by OST should be
consistent with the EM mission and be derived in concert with
technology user plans and needs (Decision Making report, p. 80~.
'8 "OST's strategic goals do not provide an adequate level of guidance for program
managers as they attempt, in collaboration with users, to assign priorities to technology
needs" (Decision Making report, p. 79~.
"The overall goals of SCFA's [Subsurface Contaminants Focus Area] technology
development program have to be better defined in order to evaluate success" (Subsurface
report, p. 214~.
]9 "There is a lack of top-down evaluation and prioritization of DDFA activities."
(D&D report, p. 2)
"SCFA should identify key technical gaps and prepare a national plan for
developing technologies to fill these gaps" (Subsurface report, p. 2141.
OCR for page 21
CLARIFY THE ROLE AND MISSION OF OST
LONG-TERM OBJECTIVES
21
Due to the time generally required to research, develop, and deploy new
technologies, it is unrealistic to expect unproven, truly innovative technologies
to affect major cleanup tasks by 2006 (D&D report, p. 221. Ten years or more
is a realistic time frame for development, demonstration, and deployment
of truly innovative technologies. Such long-term efforts should target both
site-specific and complex-wide problems that are either intractable or very
difficult (e.g., expensive) with current technologies (D&D report, p. 22~.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
strategic goals
