TECHNICAL INFORMATION FOR LONG TERM SURVEILLANCE AND MONITORING

Even after the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environment Management cleanup program has ended, there will be areas that will need to be monitored and maintained for the foreseeable future. This need reflects a fundamental obligation on the part of the DOE and the Federal Government to protect future generations from any residual hazards at these locations. Such a monitoring program must be designed to be cost-effective and to enjoy the highest level of trust of the general public. Thus, not only will the monitoring data need to be gathered efficiently, but also these will need to be presented in a manner that is both easily accessible and understandable to the general public. The program certainly must have a rigorous and visible QA Program with oversight at the national level to insure that the data, as well as the decisions and actions made using these data, are reliable. The experience gained by DOE in this enterprise will be widely applicable, since many other governmental and private sector organizations have similar, if less widely publicized, issues to address. The technical information needed for long term surveillance and monitoring (LTSM) includes monitoring data, QA, data quality objectives, and decision criteria. Proper development, collection, visualization, and management of these technical data are critical to LTSM success. Planning for LTSM involves identification of the technologies needed to make the measurements, development of data collection networks, planning for data transmission and storage, and protocols for data review and validation. Once collected, the data need to be converted into information for the user and integrated with other LTSM systems to provide timely and transparent access to federal managers, stakeholders, and regulators. Finally, record retention policies and data management must be planned.