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Pacific Northwest Laboratory's Input to Fairbanks Hearing 



Senator Murkowski, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am 

 Bill Shipp, Manager of the Reactor Technology Center at the Pacific Northwest 

 Laboratory. 



The Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) is a multi-program national laboratory 

 operated for the Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial Institute. Most of the 

 facilities are located in Richland, Washington, but a smaller Marine Sciences 

 Laboratory is situated at Sequim, Washington on the Puget Sound. PNL represents 

 an inter-disciplinary resource that consists of 4,000 scientists, engineers and support 

 staff serving principally the Department of Energy, but also a myriad of other Federal 

 agencies and several hundred clients in the industrial sector. Over the course of the 

 25 years, PNL has conducted research that has a whole array of environmental 

 applications. Of significance to the Arctic contamination problem is PNL's unique 

 radio-chemistry capability to analyze air and water samples for quantities of 

 radionuclides. PNL has participated in many programs of this type in the past for a 

 variety of clients and owns a G3 aircraft as well as chemical laboratories at the Marine 

 Sciences Laboratory in Sequim. 



PNL also has a large capability in health physics and nuclear engineering that has 

 been brought to bear on several reactor safety-related questions for the Department of 

 Energy, the utilities, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The responsibility for 

 oversight and monitoring of the Hanford site belongs to PNL as well as the technology 

 development program for decontamination and decommissioning of excess nuclear 

 facilities at the Hanford site. The combination of PNL's research capabilities and 

 experience in a variety of projects, combined with the University of Alaska's inter- 

 disciplinary capabilities and the Institute of Nuclear Safety of the Russian Academy of 

 Sciences makes for a successful combination of resources. In addition, the 

 opportunity for a national laboratory, university and our international counterparts to 



