DOE Environmental Management program awards first basic research grants The Department of Energy has taken a first step to include the nation's research community in efforts to clean up the department's sites, a monumental task projected to cost more than $200 billion and take 75 years. Research awards totaling $47 million for 1996 were announced by Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary on Aug. 20 as part of the Environmental Management (EM) Science ProQT9TT1 to foster basic research related to remediation problems. This year, the awards will fund 138 research projects at 52 universities and 11 DOE national labs. Three-year funding for these projects will be $112 million. The majority of the funds, about $67 million, goes to DOE laboratories. The grants range from a high of $2 million to the Idaho National Engineering Lab to study how organisms break down hazardous wastes underground to a low of $109 000 to Furman University in South Carolina to devise a new technique to monitor chemical processes used in the treatment of radioactive wastes The EM Science Program plans to tap basic research to generate new knowledge that will lead to less expensive, more innovative cleanup technologies, according to Office of Environmental Management Assistant Secretary Alvin Aim. "EM aims to clean most of the sites in a decade. To do this we need new breakthroughs and new technology" Aim said at die awards announcement press conference "It's about time for DOE to invest in research," said one scientist who is familiar with the program. "We've been expecting something since Environmental Management was formed in 1989. Frankly, we had just about given up hope. It's obvious to major corporations, and it should be obvious to DOE, that you need to do R&D to be ready to handle future problems." In November 1995, Congress, concerned by DOE's failure to invest in research, directed the department to develop a basic research program in 1996 using at least $50 million originally allocated to the EM program for
$47 million in 1996 The Department of Energy awarded 138 grants in the following disciplines in the first year of the congressionally mandated Environmental Management Science Program. Analytical chemistry 17 Bioremediation 15 Inorganic chemistry 15 Materials science 13 Geochemistry 12 Separations chemistry 11 Engineering sciences 10 Geophysics 9 Flow modeling 7 Fluid flow 7 Plant sciences 7 Health 6 Heavy elements 5 Catalysis 4
technology development. The program is jointly managed by the Offices of Environmental Management and Energy Research, a partnership described as one of "creative tension" by Energy Research Director Martha Krebs. To meet the tight deadline, DOE requested help from the National Research Council (NRC), which established the Committee on Building an Effective Environmental Management Science Program, chaired by physicist and public policy specialist John Ahearne, to advise the department. Its first report assessing the program was released in July. According to the NRC committee, for the basic research program to succeed, DOE must persuade scientists to redirect dieir research and graduate student training activities to the program's concerns. EM must also be clear about its research needs. The proposal evaluation process that was established marked a big step in the right direction, according to Kevin Crowley, an NRC staff member directing the committee's work. DOE announced the program in February 1996 and received more than 800 proposals, which were put through a two-step evaluation. First, the scientific merit of the proposals was
assessed through peer review organized according to discipline. Proposals receiving the highest scientific ratings were put forward for a second relevance review. The program can attract die best researchers, according to University of California-Berkeley geochemist Donald DePaolo, a consultant to the committee and a grant recipient. "Initially, applicants will come from closely related fields. But in die long run, tiiis is a pretty significant program that is likely to attract a lot of interest," he said. DePaolo predicted a significant research payoff. But transferring research results to practical cleanups may be die most difficult task facing the program, according to Crowley. "It's a big challenge diat the NRC committee is struggling widi right now." To make die program work, DePaolo said, "research scientists need to work hand-in-hand widi people working on the sites. We need to know detailed information." The research awards promote this partnership by providing funds to pay consultants or national lab scientists for the time mey spend assisting researchers The committee has also recommended tiiat die program delay the 1997 solicitation for research proposals so tiiat lessons learned from tiiis year's activities can be incorporated and to allow the committee "to think more carefully" about how the program should be structured and managed. The NRC committee noted that DOE's first-year investment, about 0.8% of EM's annual budget, is modest compared with private sector R&D spending, which ranges between 7 and 12% of net sales. DOE's current funding request of $38 million for 1997 is a cause for concern, according to the NRC committee. Level funding is a minimum requirement to establish a stable, long-term research program, according to the committee report. But Secretary O'Leary, speaking at the awards announcement, said that practical concerns dictated a funding level that is a "hard balance between die reality of what we would like to accomplish versus die difficulty of moving things dirough Congress " RENNER
REBECCA
VOL.30, NO. 10, 1996/ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY/NEWS " 4 3 1 A
