A Strategic Vision for Department of Energy Environmental Quality Research and Development (2001) / Chapter Skim
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2. The Department of Energy's Environmental Quality Mission
2. The Department of Energy's Environmental Quality Mission
Pages 23-39
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24 o to C]
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. Managing DOE Wastes, Spent Nuclear Fuels, and Nuclear Materials EM is responsible for more than 36 million cubic meters (9.6 billion gallons)
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28 A Strategic Vision for DOE Environmental Quality R&D
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DOE's EQ Challenges The preceding discussion makes clear that the EQ business line is responsible for managing and controlling a large number of facilities and huge volumes of DOE wastes and contaminated media under a broad range of conditions. For brevity, the committee has developed the following summary statement of the scientific and technical challenges that face the EQ business line, hereafter referred to as DOE's "EQ challenges": .
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· Manage, stabilize, process, and dispose of a legacy of widely varying and often poorly understood DOE wastes (including spent nuclear fuels and nuclear materials treated as waste) that are potential threats to health, safety, and the environment.
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· Limit contamination and materials management problems, including the generation of wastes and contaminated media, in ongoing and future DOE operations. These EQ challenges drive the EQ R&D portfolio.
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is spent on R&D, which is distributed among the business lines as shown in (b)
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suggest that the scope of DOE's EQ mission may extend beyond DOE wastes and contaminated media. For example, the 1997 strategic plan states that one of the three primary areas of responsibility of the EQ business line is to "provide the technolo4 The committee believes that the most appropriate source for understanding what DOE means by its EQ mission is DOE's published strategic plans.
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34 A Strategic Vision for DOE Environmental Quality R&D
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. Parts of the 1997 strategic plan and the EQ R&D portfolio document therefore suggest that DOE's EQ mission includes, or should be broadened to include, a myriad of environmental issues beyond DOE wastes and contaminated media.
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The EQ strategic goal and objectives in DOE's two most recent strategic plans are quite clear that the topical breadth of DOE's EQ mission is restricted to problems directly related to DOE wastes and contaminated media. However, other parts of the 1997 strategic plan and some parts of the EQ R&D portfolio document suggest that the topical breadth of DOE's EQ mission should be much broader.
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Temporal Breadth of DOE's EQ Mission As discussed earlier, the EQ strategic goal and objectives in DOE's 1997 and 2000 strategic plans are not consistent about the importance of addressing long-term problems or in preventing the occurrence of future problems. Both the 1997 strategic plan (objective 7)
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Although the short-term focus of EM and RW has provided a means for making progress on some short-term elements of the EQ mission, it also may have been misinterpreted by some decision makers to mean that DOE's EQ mission will be essentially completed by 2006 or 2010, i.e., a "going out of business within the next decade" view of DOE's EQ mission. Here the committee needs to explain what it means by the phrase "going out of business within the next decade," because as indicated above, in some respects a going out of business attitude is appropriate for large parts of the EQ business line, and thus for a proportional part of its supporting R&D portfolio.
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It rather implies getting on with what can be done now, which here is long-term stewardship and R&D.To recapitulate, because DOE faces many serious risks to health and environment, and because some of the worst risks are now unsolvable, the agency must cultivate a balanced sense of urgency, proceeding with deliberate speed to mitigate those risks it can in the short term, and in parallel to initiate R&D on solutions for the currently intractable problems so that in the long term their risks also are addressed. Where this report refers to "going out of business within the next decade," the committee is referring to a mistaken attitude or belief that all EQ problems will be handled in the relatively near future, and the DOE EQ mission completed at that point.
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