Author Description

The Department of Energy is responsible for selecting a remediation technology to cleanup the Waste Area Group (WAG) 6 site at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) in Kentucky. WAG 6 is contaminated with an uncertain amount of trichloroethylene (TCE) and technetium-99 (Tc-99). Selecting a remediation technology involves a certain degree of risk because many of these technologies are new or proven only for a specific type of contaminant or a particular set of site conditions. Differences between contaminant type and site conditions are enough to make the performance of a remediation technology uncertain. This research identifies the technological risks of two remediation technologies: Dynamic Underground Stripping (DUS) and In Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO). Risk is defined as the likelihood of undesirable events occurring during the implementation of a technology at WAG 6.