DOE Tank Waste: How clean is clean enough? The U.S. Congress asked the National Academies to evaluate the Department of Energy's (DOE's) plans for cleaning up defense-related radioactive wastes stored in underground tanks at three sites: the Hanford Site in Washington State, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Idaho National Laboratory. DOE plans to remove the waste from the tanks, separate out high-level radioactive waste to be shipped to an off-site geological repository, and dispose of the remaining lower-activity waste onsite. The report concludes that DOE's overall plan is workable, but some important challenges must be overcomeâ€"including the removal of residual waste from some tanks, especially at Hanford and Savannah River. The report recommends that DOE pursue a more risk-informed, consistent, participatory, and transparent for making decisions about how much waste to retrieve from tanks and how much to dispose of onsite. The report offers several other detailed recommendations to improve the technical soundness of DOE's tank cleanup plans.

This monograph consists of manuscripts submitted by invited speakers who participated in the symposium "Industrial Environmental Chemistry: Waste Minimization in Industrial Processes and Remediation of Hazardous Waste," held March 24-26, 1992, at Texas A&M University. This meeting was the tenth annual international symposium sponsored by the Texas A&M Industry-University Cooperative Chemistry Program (IUCCP). The program was developed by an academic-industrial steering committee consisting of the co-chairmen, Professors Donald T. Sawyer and Arthur E. Martell of the Texas A&M University Chemistry Department, and members appointed by the sponsoring companies: Bernie A. Allen, Jr., Dow Chemical USA; Kirk W. Brown, Texas A&M University; Abraham Clearfield, Texas A&M University; Greg Leyes, Monsanto Company; Jay Warner, Hoechst-Celanese Corporation; Paul M. Zakriski, BF Goodrich Company; and Emile A. Schweikert, Texas A&M University (IUCCP Coordinator). The subject of this conference reflects the interest that has developed in academic institutions and industry for technological solutions to environmental contamination by industrial wastes. Progress is most likely with strategies that minimize waste production from industrial processes. Clearly the key to the protection and preservation of the environment will be through R&D that optimizes chemical processes to minimize or eliminate waste streams. Eleven of the papers are directed to waste minimization. An additional ten papers discuss chemical and biological remediation strategies for hazardous wastes that contaminate soils, sludges, and water.