works with focus areasDuring September, focus area managers of the decontamination and decommissioning, mixed waste, and subsurface contaminants focus areas met with their respective subgroups of the Community Leaders Network. CLN is a volunteer group of interested citizens providing feedback on technology development issues to DOE. Highlights of these working meetings are captured in the following article. The tanks focus area held a similar meeting with its subgroup in February.
On September 6 and 7, Paul Hart, program manager for the decontamination and decommissioning focus area, met with the Community Leaders Network's DDFA subgroup. Hart expressed his belief that CLN is invaluable to DDFA in bringing outside viewpoints and new perspectives of technologies under development in the focus area. CLN member Jane Wittke said CLN's DDFA subgroup is, in many respects, being asked to serve as a market focus group for the focus area. Hence, the information exchanged between CLN and the focus area needs to capture an appropriate blend of technology, public health and safety, and other important issues to enable CLN to help the focus area arrive at better technological solutions. Additionally, such dialogue is enhanced through case histories and anecdotal information.
The mixed waste focus area subgroup of CLN met with the MWFA program management team in Idaho Falls, Idaho on September 9Ð11. Julie Conner, leader of the MWFA, stated that the focus area is a federal servant to the taxpayers and, therefore, values the taxpayer perspective that CLN brings to the focus area. A proposed strategy to involve stakeholders was considered during this meeting, resulting in agreement on three core areas of activity for the CLN subgroup:
At the end of the meeting, the CLN subgroup and MWFA representatives toured the Plasma Hearth Process Technology at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. CLN member Betsy McBride felt the tour was useful. In her words, "there is no replacement for seeing the systemÑeven at bench scaleÑand this was a really big bench." She found it valuable to be able to "...merge technology and policy implications in a conversation with the folks with the wrenches."
Six CLN participants attended the subsurface contaminants focus area retreat on September 17 and 18 in Paducah, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee. The retreat was held in conjunction with a demonstration of the LASAGNA technology, an in situ electro-osmosis soil remediation technique, at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (see page 7). CLN subgroup participants met with Cindy Malencia, stakeholder coordinator for SCFA, to discuss how stakeholders can best participate in the issues facing the focus area. Other meeting outcomes were the following.
