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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Public participation in the evaluation of innovative environmental cleanup technology

Conference ·
OSTI ID:10179301
;  [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Battelle Seattle Research Center, WA (United States)
  2. Environmental Issues Management, Inc., Seattle, WA (United States)
Technologies for remediation of contamination are urgently needed to clean up US Department of Energy (DOE) sites across the country. DOE is managing a national program to develop, demonstrate, and deploy new technologies with promise to expedite this cleanup. The Integrated Demonstration for Cleanup of Volatile Organic Compounds at Arid Sites (VOC-Arid ID) is one such effort. Time and resources, however, are too limited to be invested in methods of remediation that will never be deployed because they have not been rigorously evaluated or because they face the withering opposition of stakeholders. Therefore the VOC-Arid ID is assessing technology both in terms of its technical effectiveness and its stakeholder acceptability. Only if a technology performs as required and is acceptable to regulators, users of technology, and the public will the VOC-Arid ID recommend its use. What distinguishes public involvement in the VOC-Arid ID is the direct influence stakeholders have on the design of technology demonstrations by working directly with technology developers. Stakeholders participated in defining the criteria with which innovative environmental cleanup technology is being evaluated. The integrated demonstration is committed to providing stakeholders with the information they`ve indicated they need to reach reasoned judgments about the use of specific cleanup technologies. A guiding principle of the VOC-Arid ID is that stakeholder participation improves the technologies being developed, enhances the acceptance of the technologies, and will lead to the broad and timely deployment of appropriate and effective methods of environmental remediation. The VOC-Arid ID has involved stakeholders from the host demonstration site, Hanford, Washington, and from other and sites where the ID technologies may be deployed.
Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC06-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
10179301
Report Number(s):
PNL-SA--24438; CONF-940815--90; ON: DE94017798
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English