The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has approximately 400 million liters (100 million gallons) of liquid high-level waste (HLW) stored in underground tanks and approximately 4,000 cubic meters of solid HLW stored in bins. The current DOE estimate of the cost of converting these liquid and solid wastes into stable forms for shipment to a geological repository exceeds $50 billion to be spent over several decades (DOE, 2000). The Committee on Long-Term Research Needs for Radioactive High-Level Waste at Department of Energy Sites was appointed by the National Research Council (NRC) to advise the Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) on a long-term research agenda addressing the above problems related to HLW stored in tanks and bins at DOE sites.

This book is a compendium of research efforts and findings on the sources, occurrences, hydrochemistry, and several operating variables that influence the presence of oxyanions in aqua system. The content of this book has been designed to provide an insightful account of an array of innovative technologies for the management of the impacts of oxyanions in water, the progress and drawbacks of these technologies and those that have been effectively deployed to transform oxyanions in water to beneficial species. This book further x-rays global laws and economic policies targeted at effectively curtailing the presence of harmful oxyanions in water, challenges facing these policies, and future perspectives on how best to reduce the level of these harmful oxyanions in water to safe limit. The book is relevant to water professionals, policy makers, academics, and research students.

Considers the scientific applications of atomic energy research.