DOE Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation Planning: Three Relevant Case Studies - 16056

Conference · Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016

OSTI ID:22837963

Moore, Beth; Silverman, Josh; Bradley, Eric ^[1]; Rotterman, Yoel ^[2]

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1. U.S. Department of Energy, Headquarters, Washington DC, 20585 (United States)
2. Florida International University, Miami, Florida, 33199 (United States)

Executive Order 13653, Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change, was issued in 2013. The President emphasized the importance for federal agencies to take action to enhance climate preparedness and resilience. The U.S. Department of Energy released the DOE Climate Change Adaptation Plan in 2014 to build resilience and mitigation across the Department, and to assure inclusion of climate change adaptation as part of its planning and operations. DOE's Office of Environmental Management has an important mission to manage safe cleanup of environmental legacy contamination brought about from five decades of nuclear weapons development and government sponsored nuclear energy research. Specifically, Environmental Management is responsible for remediation of soil and groundwater, deactivation and decommissioning of facilities, and disposal of hazardous and radioactive waste. Three case studies are discussed in this paper that demonstrate the cost benefit and importance for Environmental Management to assess climate change vulnerability and implement planning procedures: 1. Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has experienced $0.5 billion in unanticipated costs as a result of climate-related events including: extreme drought, wildfires, deluge rains, and historic flooding over the past 15 years. 2. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency American Cyanamid Superfund Site, situated on the New Jersey coast was hit by Hurricane Irene in 2011. Three major contaminated, solvent impoundment berms were breached within the 100-year flood plain, causing major damage to the facility. 3. For radioactive waste disposal facilities in low-lying areas in proximity to groundwater, climate change vulnerability and assessment is prudent for operational management. One such Superfund hazardous and radioactive waste disposal facility, the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility located at the DOE Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, has documented surface and ground water management challenges since construction began in 2001, driven by changing regional weather patterns. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22837963
• Report Number(s): INIS-US-19-WM-16056; TRN: US19V1156083318
• Resource Relation: Conference: WM2016: 42. Annual Waste Management Symposium, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 6-10 Mar 2016; Other Information: Country of input: France; 10 refs.; available online at: http://archive.wmsym.org/2016/index.html
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
CLIMATIC CHANGE
CONSTRUCTION
CONTAMINATION
COST
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
DAMAGE
DEACTIVATION
DECOMMISSIONING
EXECUTIVE ORDERS
GROUND WATER
LOS ALAMOS
MITIGATION
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
OAK RIDGE RESERVATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
RAIN
REMEDIAL ACTION
US SUPERFUND
VULNERABILITY