A workshop to identify and prioritize key research and technology needs in developing long-term monitoring for groundwater contamination was held at Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) recently.
The event was attended by more than 75 personnel from EM, the DOE Office of Legacy Management (LM), Savannah River Site (SRS), three national laboratories, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), EM contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions and industry.
Once a framework for long-term monitoring of groundwater is developed, it can be used to expedite closure of DOE’s complex groundwater plumes.
The workshop included a summary of the accomplishments of the ongoing SRNL-led Advanced Long-Term Environmental Monitoring System (ALTEMIS) project, which is funded by the EM Technology Development Office. Read a past EM Update story about ALTEMIS here.
ALTEMIS is developing a new monitoring strategy that promises to provide significant cost reduction when compared to baseline methods. The project team installed an integrated sensor network that will improve monitoring of groundwater contamination stemming from a complex radiological groundwater plume at SRS’s F Area seepage basins.
The system will be monitored over the next two years and data will be evaluated using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and machine learning modeling, and other techniques.
Workshop participants from SRNL, SRS, EM and LM headquarters, EM's Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project, MIT, Geosyntec and Longenecker & Associates gave presentations covering a broad range of information about technical and regulatory processes associated with long-term monitoring of complex plumes, site transfer and site closure.
Breakout sessions were created to discuss monitoring tools and regulatory strategies in depth and how to apply ALTEMIS lessons learned to additional sites, particularly arid sites.
An implementation strategy for the Moab Project will be developed in the workshop write-up as an example approach for implementation at arid sites.
A report on the findings of the workshop is scheduled to be finalized March 1.
Original source can be found here.
