Chicago Operations Office

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FACILITY MISSION

The Chicago Operations Office's primary mission remains energy, nuclear, basic, fusion and high energy physics research. The Chicago Operations Office is charged through its Environmental Management programs with responsibility for the safe and efficient cleanup of national laboratories and other sites within its jurisdiction.

The Office of Energy Research is the landlord at the Chicago Operations Office and is responsible for all infrastructure costs. The only other Environmental Management costs at this site are associated with personnel requirements to fulfill the program management needs of environmental restoration, waste management, site operations, and technology development activities.

FUTURE USE

This report assumes that Environmental Management program management activities will remain at the Argonne National Laboratory-East, site of the Chicago Operations Office, for the life cycle of this estimate. Refer to the Argonne National Laboratory-East site summary for this location's future-use assumptions.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION

The main function of the Chicago Operations Office Environmental Programs Group is to plan, coordinate, and implement the Environmental Restoration program, including remedial actions and decommissioning activities to restore the environment to a state of compliance and low risk.

Direct Program Management/Support

The environmental restoration activities include program management of the sites listed above. This encompasses assessment, site characterization and cleanup, closure, and site compliance monitoring. This office, in conjunction with the partners in the Chicago Operations Office area groups, ensures development of environmental restoration policy, provides specific guidance to laboratories, performs reviews, and ensures that performance improvements are identified and implemented. This office also ensures that: (1) activities comply with federal and state environmental laws and regulations; (2) new and innovative technologies are used in the Environmental Restoration program to promote program efficiency at minimum cost; (3) progress is achieved by monitoring cost, schedule, and technical baselines; and (4) all activities include effective stakeholder interaction.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

The main waste management function at the Chicago Operations Office, Environmental Programs Group is to ensure that all waste generated at the national laboratories under Chicago jurisdiction are managed in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and orders. This office also provides programmatic direction for waste operations, and external interface on waste issues, as appropriate. Technical waste management activities include continuity of operations activities, such as program management, training, documentation, and safety analysis; treatment; storage; disposal; waste minimization and pollution prevention; and corrective activities. Guidance and oversight of managerial areas include program formulation, execution, evaluation, and integration; funds management; and assurance that sites implement effective public participation programs.

Direct Program Management/Support

Challenges result from the diverse missions of the sites under the purview of the Chicago Operations Office Environmental Management program. The mix of national laboratories, area groups, offsites and project offices presents Chicago Operations Office generators from the Environmental Management, as well as other Department of Energy secretarial-level offices (Defense Programs, Nuclear Energy and Energy Research). The Waste Management program to provides consistency for program and schedule integration, cost estimation and funding allocation to ensure program efficiency, and continuation of mission goals.

The Chicago Operations Office's approach to managing the Waste Management program involves an approved program baseline that provides a standard against which accomplishments, progress, and expenditures are measured. Elements of the management approach include program formulation, execution, evaluation, and integration.

The Office of Pollution Prevention funds pollution prevention activities at the Chicago Operations Office. Site projects accomplish specific activities. In the past, they have included bench marking studies, chemical exchange programs, and cross-complex technical assistance. In FY 1996, this funding will be directed specifically at projects that show a high return investment to the Department, many of which require the purchase of capital equipment to reduce waste generation.

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

The Chicago Operations Office provides support to the Environmental Management program's Office of Science and Technology through administrative and technical tasks and activities required by the five technology development focus areas and for Headquarters directed activities. The Chicago Operations Office has implemented an approach to technology development that encourages the application of innovative technologies during ongoing clean up projects. Specifically, the Operations Office manages the Large Scale Demonstration Project, which is the clean up of the CP-5 Reactor using Department of Energy and commercially developed technologies to decontaminate and decommission the full scale nuclear reactor facility. This project is a two-year initiative which will be completed in 1997, and is anticipated to demonstrate between 20 and 40 technologies. In addition, the Chicago Operations Office is focusing on the application of innovative site remediation technologies for clean up of contaminated plumes and landfills at both the Argonne and Brookhaven sites.

DESCRIPTION OF PERSONNEL

Current Composition

The current FY 1996 federal allocation of Full-Time Equivalents consists of managers, general administrators, engineers, scientists, and administrative personnel. The table below depicts the work force skill mix over the next three years. These numbers are expected to decline slightly over the next two years. A support services contract provides technical and managerial support to the Department of Energy. Technical expertise is related to resolving financial issues and directly impacts the compliance of related programs.

Site Management Structure

Management activities at Chicago include managing the Environmental Management program at the various Chicago sites. Responsibilities of the Environmental Programs Group Manager include managing environmental restoration and waste management activities, projects, and facilities. The Group Manager reports to the Manager, Chicago Operations Office.

Technical Service Support Contracts at Chicago provide specialized technical engineering and cost estimation capability, and program management support and project control analysis to the various programs. The size of the contracts has recently decreased.

Program management oversight is provided to the Chicago Operations Office facilities to ensure that environmental management activities are conducted within a framework of managerial and financial control. Guidance is developed and updated routinely to help the facilities under the Chicago Operations Office establish and maintain management and project control systems that facilitate efficient work and provide useful information about progress. Personnel annually review and refine work scopes, as well as construction and schedule estimates contained in the baseline documents of the Chicago Operations Office sites.

Operations Office personnel analyze technical work plans and health and safety plans. The office also conducts environmental compliance planning and oversight to ensure consistency with the objectives and goals of the Environmental Management program and compliance during implementation. In addition, Operations Office personnel provide support in the areas of public participation, preparing environmental documents such as Environmental Impact Statements, developing performance measures, and establishing risk-based priorities for facility environmental management activities. These initiatives support effective outreach programs, institutionalize effective total-cost management practices, and ensure that activities to reduce risks to the environment and the public are performed in a timely manner.

Cross-functional teams address integration issues between the various Environmental Management programs. Because of the complexity of programs, missions, and funding sources at Chicago, close cooperation between programs allows dissimilar sites to capitalize on the successes of other Chicago sites.

Future Full-Time Equivalent Needs

This report assumes that the level and mix of Full-Time Equivalents at the Chicago Operations Office will remain relatively static during the near term. Outyear changes to the mix of Full-Time Equivalents may be related to a decrease in Environmental Restoration activities as work is completed.

FUNDING ESTIMATE

The following tables present estimated funding information for the Chicago Operations Office.

COMPARISON WITH PREVIOUS ESTIMATE

Estimated costs for the Chicago Operations Office were not discretely identified in the FY 1995 Baseline Environmental Management Report. Costs were apportioned to Chicago Operations Office sites.