Grand Junction Projects Office

Grand Junction Projects Office Waste Management Operations/ Waste Minimization and Pollution Prevention Program

The scope of the Grand Junction Projects Office Waste Management Operations Program includes technical and administrative support for the management of several waste types. Costs for this program include hazardous waste, low-level radioactive waste, low-level mixed waste, polychlorinated biphenyl waste, polychlorinated biphenyl-mixed waste, and solid nonhazardous waste and sanitary waste.

The primary source of waste generated by the Grand Junction Projects Office Operations is the analytical laboratory. Secondary sources of operational waste are the facility maintenance and office support functions. The cumulative quantities of regulated waste from these sources are extremely low compared to other Department sites. The 1993 Annual Waste Management Report lists the Grand Junction Projects Office's Resource Conservation and Recovery Act-regulated, State-regulated, Toxic Substances Control Act-regulated, and mixed-Toxic Substances Control Act-regulated waste generation rate as less than one metric ton each (1.1 tons).

The Department uses commercial treatment, storage, and disposal facilities for hazardous waste. It evaluates candidate waste streams individually for offsite shipment determination. Sanitary waste is discharged to the local publicly-owned treatment works. Mixed waste generated from onsite environmental restoration activities is managed as operationally-generated waste.

The Waste Minimization Pollution Prevention Program focuses on efforts that result in reducing overall costs, liabilities, and risks through material substitution and recycling of various materials as well as through waste minimization and pollution prevention training.

GRAND JUNCTION PROJECTS OFFICE MIXED WASTE TREATMENT FACILITY

The scope of the Grand Junction Projects Office Mixed Waste Treatment Facility project is to construct a treatment test facility to house mixed waste treatment units and associated operations in support of the Waste Management-funded Grand Junction Projects Office Mixed Waste Treatment Program. The Mixed Waste Treatment Program is tasked with developing mixed waste treatment capacities and technologies in accordance with the Federal Facility Compliance Act (Public Law 102-386). The Waste Management section that follows contains additional information on the program.

Major activities in the Grand Junction Projects Office mixed waste treatment facility project include design, construction, and final acceptance testing of the facility. The facility will be used for acceptance and treatability testing, mobile treatment unit operations, and waste feed preparation and residuals handling operations. It will be constructed in compliance with local building codes and with Department of Energy Order 6430.1a, General Criteria Design. The detailed design for the treatment and test facility is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of FY 1996. Construction of the facility is scheduled to be completed by the end of FY 1996 to permit acceptance testing of mobile treatment units to start in early FY 1997.

Direct Program Management/Support

The Grand Junction Projects Office provides program management support for all projects within its mission although these activities are not funded separately through a Program Management account. Specifically, program management is provided for the Grand Junction Projects Office Major Project, and beginning in October 1995, for the Uranium Mill Tailing Remedial Action Ground Water Major Project. Program management includes developing, managing, and reporting the cost and schedule; developing and implementing project plans; and tracking completion of the project tasks in accordance with applicable regulations, Department of Energy Orders, and program objectives. Program support includes: facility management, personnel management and training, health/safety/security oversight, engineering support, administrative support, site-wide environmental data and compliance reporting, stakeholder support/public participation, permitting, and contract management. Program management/support activities are tracked and charged to the individual program budgets. However, this report identifies these management costs as 11 percent of the total environmental restoration budget.

The Grand Junction Projects Office stakeholder and public participation activities include monthly city, county, and regulatory agency information and discussion meetings and Site-specific Advisory Board meetings. The Department maintains ongoing communication and interaction with the communities in which the Grand Junction Projects Office is managing environmental restoration programs through an active speakers bureau, site tours, educational outreach programs that concentrate on the sciences and environmental topics, and the issuance of regular press releases with updates on project progress and future work schedules.

Stakeholders include, but are not limited to regulators, federal, state, and local elected officials; Native Americans; local communities; property owners; several departments within the State of Colorado; the U.S. Forest Service; the Bureau of Land Management; environmental groups; and recreational groups.

URANIUM LEASING PROJECT

The Uranium Leasing Project comprises two separate functions: Department of Energy Uranium Lease Management and Test Pit Maintenance Program. The Grand Junction Projects Office provides the necessary managerial and administrative support for both functions.

The Uranium Leasing Management Program is responsible for administering 43 Department of Energy uranium lease tracts covering 9600 hectares (24,000 acres) in Colorado (38 sites) and Utah (5 sites). The program direction is to continue leasing 22 of the 43 lease tracts for a 10-year period. The remaining 21 lease tracts will be reclaimed and returned to the public domain at the earliest possible time. The program activities include 1) evaluation and approval of leaseholder's exploration, mining, and reclamation plans; 2) evaluation of lease-ore weighing, sampling, and assaying measurements to ensure accurate calculation and timely collection of royalties; 3) monitoring surface disturbances of leasing activities for compliance with environmental stipulations and reclamation requirements of the leases; 4) annual inspections of lease tracts to identify potential safety hazards and either correct hazards on inactive sites or direct the leaseholder to correct hazards on active sites; and 5) reclamation of environmental disturbances of sites where the disturbances are not the result of the leaseholder's activities. Production to date has totaled about 2.9 million kilograms (6.5 million pounds) of uranium and about 15 million kilograms (33 million pounds) of vanadium, yielding $52.8 million in royalties to the Federal Government.

The Test Pit Maintenance Program is responsible for administering and maintaining radiometric calibration facilities that support exploration and assessment activities associated with fuel and weapons uranium mineralization, and the cleanup of legacy defense waste. The Department of Energy, other federal agencies, and industry use these facilities designed to simulate field conditions to standardize field measurements. The facilities, traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, are located in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Wyoming.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Mixed Waste Treatment Program

The Grand Junction Projects Office has been assigned overall management responsibility for the Albuquerque Operations Office Mixed Waste Treatment Program. The mixed waste treatment program is tasked with developing waste treatment capacities and technologies in accordance with the Federal Facility Compliance Act (Public Law 102-386). The primary objective of this program is to achieve significant reductions of mixed waste inventories existing at the eight sites managed by the Albuquerque Operations Office, and the Mound Plant in Miamisburg, Ohio. The Mixed Waste Treatment Program's approach includes: 1) effective use of offsite commercial and the Department of Energy treatment capacity where such capacity exists; 2) sorting, surveying, and decontaminating "suspect" mixed waste to eliminate waste that is verifiably nonradioactive; and 3) designing and fabricating portable treatment units, including a unit for special case waste, for deployment to multiple sites with common treatment technology needs. The Albuquerque Operations Office has assigned specific sites the responsibility for designing and fabricating one or more portable treatment systems. In addition to its programmatic responsibilities, the Grand Junction Projects Office has been assigned three portable treatment technology projects: evaporative oxidation, thermal desorption, and treated wastewater evaporation, as well as the sort, survey, and decontamination project. The Grand Junction Projects Office is responsible for field implementation of the sort, survey, and decontamination project at sites including, but not necessarily limited to, the Grand Junction Projects Office, the Inhalation Toxicology Research Institute, the Mound Plant, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Pantex Plant.

As part of their programmatic responsibilities, the Grand Junction Projects Office will also develop and maintain the integrated program schedule to accurately reflect treatment technology development, portable treatment unit availability, and Federal Facility Compliance Act Site Treatment Plan enforceable milestones arising from the state-issued compliance orders. The integrated schedule must take into account timely authorization/appropriation of funds by the U.S. Congress; cooperative permitting efforts between the Albuquerque Operations Office, the sites, and affected state regulatory agencies; site completion of required National Environmental Policy Act documentation; and efficient work performance throughout the treatment technology design, fabrication, and acceptance testing process. Frequent status updates will ensure the program remains responsive to improved technologies and the availability of new or expanding offsite treatment capacity that might increase cost and performance efficiency.

This report assumes the Grand Junction Projects Office will be responsible for deploying, operating, and maintaining the portable treatment units as they become available through the individual site technology projects, and will assist the Albuquerque Operations Office in determining the feasibility of various privatization initiatives involving the design and/or maintenance and operation of selected mixed waste treatment technologies. As it completes its evaluation of private industry interest and the potential cost and performance benefit that might be realized through privatization, the Albuquerque Operations Office will determine the final scope of the Grand Junction Project Office's responsibility for portable unit operation and maintenance.

Direct Program Management/Support

The Grand Junction Projects Office provides program management and support for the Mixed Waste Treatment Program, although these activities are not funded separately through a Program Management account. Program management includes developing, managing, and reporting the cost and schedule; developing and implementing project plans; and tracking completion of the project tasks in accordance with applicable regulations, Department of Energy orders, and program objectives. Program support includes: facility management, personnel management and training, health/safety/security oversight, engineering support, administrative support, progress tracking, financial management, site-wide environmental data and compliance reporting, stakeholder support/public participation, permitting, and contract management.

LANDLORD PROGRAM

The Landlord Program function is to provide a safe, secure, and environmentally sound work place for personnel assigned to various Grand Junction Projects Office programs. Effective compliance with regulations and orders applicable to operating a federal facility provides the main drivers in establishing levels of necessary support. Full Landlord Program support will provide for the facility management and planning operation; energy management program; general site maintenance; major maintenance improvements; site engineering support; safeguards and security; medical services; environmental monitoring; and nonprogrammatic support services at the Grand Junction Projects Office.

Historically, maintenance activities for the Grand Junction Projects Office were funded from an indirect burden applied to the direct labor hours of assigned programs. Because of the transitory nature of this funding, no long-range facility management actions were accomplished. Landlord activities for maintenance, safety, and environmental issues were spread among the functional organizations of the Grand Junction Projects Office with no overall coordination of requirements. Major maintenance requirements were deferred, and no strategic planning for future use was performed.

In FY 1994, the Office of Environmental Management provided direct funding to establish a landlord program at the Grand Junction Projects Office. Funding was provided to accomplish routine and major maintenance projects to correct past deficiencies, provide strategic and tactical planning for facility related requirements to support programs, and begin a coordinated facility management effort. In FY 1995, efforts were expanded to include overall safety, health, and environmental support on a limited basis to improve safety and facility environment. FY 1996 funding (totaling $8.4 million) added security to the covered functions. The long-term funding needs will be based on mission requirements, peaking in FY 1998 and then gradually diminishing through FY 2035. These funding levels do not represent new building construction activities; they represent only maintenance of the current facilities.

Funding for the landlord requirements is identified from a bottom-up estimate of the support required using a graded approach. Major maintenance requirements are identified from the Capital Asset Management Process Condition Assessment Survey data and prioritized accordingly. Routine facility activities are compared against historical actuals using Department of Energy audits and surveillance to benchmark compliance and performance. Landlord program costs have been shown separately in the estimates but this program is funded by the Environmental Restoration program.
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DESCRIPTION OF PERSONNEL

Current Composition

Eliminates for the Full-Time Equivalent needs for the next three years are provided below for the federal, contractor, and subcontractor work force. The federal mix includes managers, administrative support, and professionals. The contractor and subcontractor mix is mostly engineers, scientists, professionals, and labor personnel involved in planning and conducting the day-to-day activities of the site.

* The Projections for Full-Time Equivalent employees are based on FY 1996 planning baselines (see Reader's Guide).

Site Management Structure

The Department of Energy currently has a Federal Acquisition Requirements-based contract to provide management, engineering, and scientific services to the Grand Junction Projects Office in support of the Department programs. Two new small-business, performance-based contracts, which will be awarded by July 1, 1996, will replace the current contract. These contracts will have a three-year base period and two one-year options. The Environmental Management program has determined the Grand Junction Projects Office will be assigned additional projects based on successful pursuit and completion of ongoing assignments. Options for future use of the office will be evaluated as these new contracts progress.

Future Full-Time Equivalent Needs

With respect to the Albuquerque Grand Junction Projects Office Major Project, the Mixed Waste Treatment Facility Project will be completed in FY 1996 and the Grand Junction Projects Office Remedial Action Project will be completed in FY 1998. The Full-Time Equivalent levels for the remaining projects (Long-term Surveillance and Maintenance, Uranium Lease Program, Waste Management Operations, Waste Minimization/Pollution Prevention, and the Mixed Waste Treatment Program) and the Landlord Program will total approximately 140 for FY 1999, with continual declines through FY 2035. The mix will be modified to include scientists, administrators, and other professionals and crafts people.

FUNDING ESTIMATE

The following table presents estimated funding information for the Grand Junction Projects Office.

COMPARISON WITH PREVIOUS ESTIMATE

Since the publication of the 1995 Baseline Environmental Management Report, it has been determined that the Uranium Lease Management program will be completed in FY 2007 instead of 2030; the Long-Term Surveillance and Monitoring program, administered by the Grand Junction Projects Office, will extend beyond 2000; and the Landlord and Waste Management Operations/Pollution Prevention programs will continue to be funded at decreasing levels through FY 2035 to support the overall site mission.

Although the Mixed Waste Treatment program was discussed in the 1995 Baseline Environmental Management Report, associated costs were not included. Since the 1995 Baseline Environmental Management Report, the evaluation of private industry interest in this program has been initiated and direct program management/support has been included in the costs. These revisions have reduced the total site estimate by approximately 21 percent.