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STRLNCTHENING THt RiD INFKASTRUCTURE 87 



advanced wasic treatment technologies; and the Pacific Northwest Labora- 

 tory has developed technologies to reduce toxicity of wastes. In 1990, Law- 

 rence Livermore National Laboratory established an Environmental Tech- 

 nology Program to develop and evaluate innovative technologies to aid in 

 environmental restoration and waste management. 



The national laboratories also have extensive computational facil- 

 ities and the ability to undenakc large-scale field research and to conduct 

 studies of nonlinear, complex systems. These capabilities can be applied 

 in several key environmental proteaion problem areas, panicularly the cleanup 

 of hazardous waste and the storage and analysis of environmental monitoring 

 data. A Task Force of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) has 

 examined these and other issues in the context of the future of the National 

 Laboratories and has made recommendations for programmatic changes in 

 a recent report.'" 



Chemjcal and Nuclear Waste Disposal 



The DoE and other federal agencies must address massive problems of chemi- 

 cal waste disposal. The department is also facing the daunting task of cleaning 

 up nuclear waste not only at nuclear facilities, but also at the national lab- 

 oratories themselves. The laboratories can contribute both to locating wastes 

 through advanced seismic and ciccuomagnetic techniques and to rendering 

 them less dangerous. Once waste has been located, a promising approach 

 to cleanup is bioremediation, which involves the development and deploy- 

 ment of microbes or bacteria that attack specific wastes, ingest them, and 

 convcn them to a less formidable threat. Although bioremediation is a uscfijl 

 mechanism to attack chemical wastes, it is of limited use in mitigating the 

 radioaaive waste problem, and novel methods to address this problem must 

 be devised. 



Successful implementation of bioremediation is closely coupled to 

 an understanding of the ecology of underground life. The ecology of the 

 large subterranean biomass is poorly understood, although some data have 

 been developed, primarily by the petroleum industry. The national labo- 

 ratories, through their experience in conducting drilling programs, coupled 

 with their substantial expenise in molecular biology and related sciences, 

 have the capability to analyze this imponant but largely unknown pan of 

 the biosphere and to conduct the research programs needed to implement 

 operational bioremediation. The activities of the DoE laboratories in this 

 area could do much to enhance the capabilities of other civilian and defense 

 agencies facing massive cleanup problems. 



