FUSRAP Site Characterization and Remediation Support

Specialized web sites facilitate the characterization and remediation of FUSRAP sites by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

Need/Opportunity

• Enhance stakeholder involvement
• Facilitate real-time characterization support
• Minimize remedial action waste streams;

The USACE manages the Formerly Utilized Site Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), which remediates privately held sites contaminated with radionuclides by weapons-related work. From a community and regulatory agency perspective, these sites are typically high profile. Remediation is expensive and contaminated material requires off-site disposal. Waste streams must be tracked until their final disposition. A variety of real-time data collection techniques support FUSRAP site characterization and remediation; however, their use requires that technical staff and regulatory agencies have access to the information that is generated daily. Access is particularly important since the majority of decision-makers associated with a site are often geographically dispersed.

Approach

• Password-protected web sites for information organization and dissemination
• Web-enabled database systems for data management and access
• Integrated GIS tools for data display
• Electronic document repository
• E-mail services for user notification

Secure web sites are clearing houses for information generated by FUSRAP site characterization and remediation activities. They are intended to meet the needs of project staff and regulatory agencies involved with the facility. Logins and passwords control access to secure web sites. Using login and password information, ColdFusion identifies who is using the site, which portions of the site are being used, and provides dynamic Web access to databases that contain results of data collection at a particular facility. Via EVS's MaD browser, dynamic maps of facilities with sampling information are accessible to users. Because large amounts of spatial data can be generated daily, GIS and database systems are an essential component of the web sites. E-mail list servers keep project and agency staff appraised of new information and analyses as they become available on the web site.

Results

• Many facilities supported by this type of site
• Heavy use of sites by regulatory agencies and project staff
• DOE Pollution Prevention Award

EVS has developed specialized web sites to support characterization and remediation efforts at many FUSRAP facilities. Examples include the Painesville, Luckey, Ashland 1, Ashland 2, Linde, and Colonie sites. The Painesville web site was first implemented in 1996, and later awarded a DOE Pollution Prevention Award for the positive impact it had on the course of characterization work at the facility. The information flowing through these sites can easily surpass 1,000,000 data points, and daily data production can exceed several thousand individual measurements. These sites experience relatively heavy use by regulatory agencies, contractors, and USACE during characterization and remediation work at individual facilities.

Benefits

• Ensures open lines of communication
• Enables flexible responses to real-time information
• Improves data quality

Secure web sites ensure open lines of communication among contractors, regulatory agencies, and USACE project staff. These specialized web sites provide a window to daily site activities, even when personnel are geographically dispersed. The accessibility to current information facilitates implementation of more flexible and focused characterization and remediation activities, such as adaptive sampling and analysis programs (ASAP) and precise excavation techniques, with decisions made on a daily basis in response to data collected. These web sites also have a dramatic impact on the quality of data collection, since immediate exposure of information to regulatory agencies and project staff guarantees that problems or concerns with data quality are quickly identified and addressed.