U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management's Tribal Interactions - 12513

Conference · Sun Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2012

OSTI ID:22293727

Gil, April; Shafer, David ^[1]; Elmer, John ^[2]

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1. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management, Grand Junction, Colorado 81503 (United States)
2. S.M. Stoller Corporation, Grand Junction, Colorado 81503 (United States)

Effective government-to-government interactions with tribal nations and maintaining stakeholder relations with members of tribes are increasingly important to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Legacy Management (LM). As of October 2011, LM was responsible for long-term surveillance and maintenance of 87 sites and facilities in the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico, including some sites on tribal lands. The sites on tribal lands can affect natural resources that are managed or used by tribes, or the sites can potentially affect areas of cultural significance to tribal nations in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Tribes are separate sovereign governments recognized in the U.S. Constitution and are significant stakeholders for LM sites. The tribes are individual nations with diverse histories, cultures, customs, religions, and laws. LM has regular communication with the affected tribes to inform members of issues, to allow the tribe to participate in decision making, to provide technical reviews, and to ensure tribal concerns are addressed. Four LM sites are in the Navajo Nation. Three of those sites contain uranium mill tailings disposal cells regulated under long-term surveillance and maintenance programs that require monitoring and annual inspections. The fourth site was remediated but still has a groundwater plume that LM is responsible for. DOE and LM have worked with the Navajo Nation for almost 30 years on technical issues and to ensure tribal concerns are addressed. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9-332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22293727
• Report Number(s): INIS-US--14-WM-12513
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
DECISION MAKING
GROUND WATER
INTERACTIONS
MANAGEMENT
MONITORING
PUERTO RICO