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At least 307 records · Page 17

Hanford Site Freshwater Mussel Monitoring Report for Calendar Year 2024

The U.S. Department of Energy, Hanford Field Office (HFO) conducts ecological monitoring at the Hanford Site to collect and maintain data to ensure compliance with an array of environmental laws, regulations, and policies governing HFO activities. Ecological monitoring data provides baseline information about the plants, animals, and habitats under HFO stewardship at the Hanford Site that is required for decision making under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980. In addition, ecological monitoring helps ensure that HFO, its contractors, and other entities conducting activities at the Hanford Site are in compliance with DOE/EIS-0222-F, Final Hanford Comprehensive Land-Use Plan Environmental Impact Statement. HFO places priority on monitoring those plant and animal species or habitats with specific regulatory protections or requirements that are rare and/or declining (i.e., federal or state listed endangered, threatened, or sensitive species) or are of significant interest to federal, state, or tribal governments or the public.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Hanford Site Freshwater Mussel Monitoring Report for Calendar Year 2022

The U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (DOE-RL) conducts ecological monitoring on the Hanford Site to collect and maintain data needed to ensure compliance with an array of environmental laws, regulations, and policies governing DOE-RL activities. Ecological monitoring data provides baseline information about the plants, animals, and habitats under DOE-RL stewardship at the Hanford Site that is required for decision making under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980. In addition, ecological monitoring helps ensure that DOE-RL, its contractors, and other entities conducting activities on the Hanford Site are in compliance with the Hanford Site Comprehensive Land Use Plan (DOE/EIS-0222-F). DOE-RL places priority on monitoring those plant and animal species or habitats with specific regulatory protections or requirements that are rare and/or declining (federal or state listed endangered, threatened, or sensitive species) or are of significant interest to federal, state, or tribal governments or the public.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Hanford Site Mule Deer Monitoring Report for Fiscal Year 2019

The U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (DOE-RL) conducts ecological monitoring on the Hanford Site to collect and track data needed to ensure compliance with environmental laws, regulations, and policies governing Department of Energy activities. Ecological monitoring data provide baseline information about the plants, animals, and habitats under DOE-RL stewardship at the Hanford Site required for decision-making under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980. The Hanford Site Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP, DOE 1999), which is the Environmental Impact Statement that evaluates the potential environmental impacts associated with implementing a comprehensive land-use plan for the Hanford Site, ensures that DOE-RL, its contractors, and other entities conduct activities on the Hanford Site in compliance with NEPA.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Townsend’s Ground Squirrel Conservation on the Hanford Site for Calendar Year 2023: Translocation to Support At-Risk Ground Squirrel Populations

The U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (RL) conducts ecological monitoring on the Hanford Site to collect and track data needed to ensure compliance with an array of environmental laws, regulations, and policies governing RL activities. Ecological monitoring data provide baseline information about the plants, animals, and habitat under RL stewardship at the Hanford Site, which is required for accurate ecological impact assessment decision making under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. In addition, ecological monitoring helps ensure that RL, its contractors, and other entities conducting activities on the Hanford Site are in compliance with DOE/EIS-0222-F, Final Hanford Comprehensive Land Use Plan Environmental Impact Statement. RL places priority on monitoring those plant and animal species or habitats with specific regulatory protections or requirements; or that are rare and/or declining (federal or state listed endangered, threatened, or sensitive species) or of significant interest to federal, state, or tribal governments or the public.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Townsend’s Ground Squirrel Conservation on the Hanford Site for Calendar Year 2022: Translocation to Support At-Risk Ground Squirrel Populations

The U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (DOE-RL) conducts ecological monitoring on the Hanford Site to collect and track data needed to ensure compliance with an array of environmental laws, regulations, and policies governing DOE-RL activities. Ecological monitoring data provide baseline information about the plants, animals, and habitat under DOE-RL stewardship at the Hanford Site required for accurate ecological impact assessment decision-making under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). In addition, ecological monitoring helps ensure that DOE-RL, its contractors and other entities conducting activities on the Hanford Site are in compliance with the Hanford Site Comprehensive Land Use Plan (DOE/EIS-0222-F). DOE-RL places priority on monitoring those plant and animal species or habitats with specific regulatory protections or requirements; or that are rare and/or declining (federal or state listed endangered, threatened, or sensitive species); or of significant interest to federal, state, or tribal governments or the public.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Hanford Site Ground Squirrel Monitoring Report for Calendar Year 2021

The U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (DOE-RL) conducts ecological monitoring on the Hanford Site to collect and track data needed to ensure compliance with an array of environmental laws, regulations, and policies governing U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) activities. Ecological monitoring data provide baseline information about the plants, animals, and habitat under DOE-RL stewardship at the Hanford Site required for accurate ecological impact assessment decision making under the National Environmental Policy Act and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. In addition, ecological monitoring helps ensure that DOE-RL, its contractors, and other entities conducting activities on the Hanford Site are in compliance with DOE/EIS- 0222-F, Hanford Site Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP). DOE-RL places priority on monitoring those plant and animal species or habitats with specific regulatory protections or requirements; that are rare and/or declining (federal or state listed endangered, threatened, or sensitive species); or of significant interest to federal, state, or Tribal governments or the public.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Townsend's Ground Squirrel Conservation on the Hanford Site for Calendar Year 2025

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Hanford Field Office (HFO) conducts ecological monitoring on the DOE-managed portion of Hanford Site (hereby referred to as Central Hanford) to collect and track data needed to ensure compliance with an array of environmental laws, regulations, and policies governing HFO activities. Ecological monitoring data provides baseline information about the plants, animals, and habitat under HFO stewardship on the Hanford Site, which is required for accurate ecological impact assessment decision making under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. In addition, ecological monitoring helps ensure that HFO, its contractors, and other entities conducting activities on the Hanford Site are in compliance with DOE/EIS-0222-F, Final Hanford Comprehensive Land Use Plan Environmental Impact Statement. HFO places priority on monitoring plant and animal species or habitats that have specific regulatory protections or requirements; that are rare and/or declining (federal or state listed endangered, threatened, or sensitive species); or are of significant interest to federal, state, or tribal governments or to the public.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

AI-Ready Data Pilot Project Report

The proliferation of artificial intelligence in scientific research has created an urgent need to define "AI-ready data" for researchers and, more importantly, provide resources to help them produce AI-ready data. At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, we conducted a pilot study with three data scientists evaluating three CSV datasets from different scientific domains, followed by semi-structured interviews capturing assessment practices. Our findings reveal that AI-readiness evaluation is intuition-based, with practitioners asking "How fast can I go from raw data to my machine learning pipeline?" Data scientists consistently prioritized workflow efficiency, human interpretability, and quality stewardship signals. From these insights, we developed a practical evaluation framework comprising data requirements, metadata standards, and validation tests that provides actionable criteria for producing and curating AI-ready datasets, addressing the gap between theoretical understanding and practical implementation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Completion document for MRT 8824 - Upgrade NIF’s gaseous radiochemistry diagnostics (RAGS) to support weapons science

This milestone highlights the successful upgrade and deployment of the Radiochemical Analysis of Gaseous Samples (RAGS) system, which delivers high-quality measurements (<20% uncertainty) of activated gaseous species from NIF implosions. These measurements are critical for supporting Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) relevant platforms, including LANL’s Double Shell and LLNL’s Pushered Single Shell campaigns. The RAGS diagnostic technique enables analysis of short-range mixing in implosions using high-Z shells, which are otherwise inaccessible to conventional x-ray diagnostic methods. By facilitating the investigation of high-Z material mixing into fusion burn, this system provides essential data for quantifying and interpreting results in high-energy density (HED) experiments. This report details the physics motivation, diagnostic fundamentals, planned and enacted upgrade work, and the quantification of uncertainty for the upgraded system.

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗

Summary of Developing a Hanford Grout Modeling Framework Initial Workshop

The “Development of the Hanford Grout Modeling Framework” project as part of the Network of National Laboratories for Environmental Management and Stewardship (NNLEMS) funding program is underway. An initial project team workshop was held in Richland, WA on June 4 and 5, 2024 with participants from PNNL, SRNL, SNL, WRPS and CRESP (VU and UCF). The workshop covered an overview of the current state of the art in grout modeling tools provided by the team. Based on a focus on liquid waste immobilization grout and encapsulation grout for solid wastes and tank closure grout at Hanford, the team identified preliminary conceptual models for these three applications which will be used to form the basis of the Hanford Grout Modeling Framework. The key processes that can drive mechanisms impacting the grout performance were identified for each test case. The programmatic plan was also identified with five core Themes being selected that will form the focus of the project. Within each theme, individual tasks for Year 1 were planned in support of the development of an updated Hanford Grout Modeling Framework. This report presents a summary of the information presented during the workshop.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Scalable Fabrication of a Fibrous Amine-functionalized Matrix (FAM) Sorbent for Critical Mineral Recovery

We report a novel flat sheet Fibrous Amine-functionalized Matrix (FAM) sorbent platform designed for efficient and selective capture of CM from dilute solutions. The FAM sorbent features crosslinked amine microfilms coated onto/within a glass fiber matrix, providing fast mass transfer and excellent mechanical stability. Systematic batch and flow-through tests with FAM revealed rapid metal uptake kinetics and high capacity for representative species, achieving ~90 mg/g of Gallium, ~100 mg/g of Cobalt, and ~90 mg/g for Neodymium. Moreover, multiple eluents, including mineral acids and complexing agents, enabled highly effective desorption of adsorbed metals, demonstrating the feasibility of regenerating FAM sorbents. Importantly, tests with authentic coal ash leachate demonstrated strong selectivity toward U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-listed CM and rare earth elements over abundant base cations, confirming the robustness of FAM in realistic complex solutions. The flat sheet geometry was amenable to scaling into durable spiral wound modules, highlighting the potential for future regeneration and reuse. This work establishes FAM sorbents as a promising platform for the recovery of CM from wastewaters, advancing both resource sustainability and environmental stewardship.

critical mineral recovery↗

DOE Repository Metadata Profile (DRMP): A Metadata Framework for Advancing Interoperability and AI Readiness Across Scientific Repositories

The Department of Energy (DOE) funds a diverse and distributed ecosystem of repositories that steward scientific data, publications, and software across its research programs, user facilities, and national laboratories. While significant progress has been made in standardizing dataset-level metadata, the metadata describing repositories themselves (their identity, governance, access interfaces, policies, and technical capabilities) remains inconsistent and fragmented across DOE-funded systems. This variability limits discoverability, interoperability, automated validation, and AI-driven analysis, all of which are increasingly essential for modern scientific workflows. To address this gap, the DOE Data Curation Working Group (DCWG) developed the DOE Repository Metadata Profile (DRMP). The DRMP is a practical, community-driven framework that defines how repositories can describe themselves in a consistent, machine-actionable, and scalable manner. The DRMP is not a new metadata schema. Instead, it is a mapping profile and structured element set capturing the essential characteristics of DOE repositories. It harmonizes repository-level metadata across six widely adopted community schemas: RE3Data; DCAT-US v3; Schema.org; Dublin Core; DataCite 4.6; and PREMIS 3.0. This harmonization eliminates reinvention and enables interoperability within DOE and across the broader scientific ecosystem. A core objective of the DRMP is to reduce burden on repositories by allowing them to reuse their existing metadata through a Rosetta-style crosswalk rather than redesigning local implementations. The profile introduces a three-level conformance model that supports incremental adoption: • Level 1 – Minimum Viable Record (MVR): foundational identification elements required for workflows, project registration, and basic repository presence. • Level 2 – Interoperable: structured metadata enabling alignment with national and international discovery systems. • Level 3 – AI-Ready: enhanced provenance, policy transparency, fixity, semantic context, and capabilities that support automated reasoning, model training governance, and machine-assisted curation. To support implementation, the DRMP includes JSON Schema definitions, OpenAPI patterns, and MCP templates that allow repositories to publish machine-readable metadata directly within existing platforms. These resources are modular and lightweight, enabling adoption without major architectural change. Adopting the DRMP enables repositories to: • Enhance discoverability and interoperability by aligning identifiers, classifications, and descriptive elements across widely used schema standards. • Support federated discovery and cross-registration across DOE systems, Data.gov, and international catalogs. • Enable AI agents and workflow orchestration systems to interpret repository-level metadata within the American Science Cloud (AmSC) through Model Context Protocol (MCP)-based context publication. • Demonstrate alignment with DOE’s open science, stewardship, and FAIR data priorities. This guidance represents a community-driven step forward. Through voluntary adoption and continued feedback, the DRMP advances a cohesive, machine-actionable description of DOE repositories that supports FAIR data practices, preparing the infrastructure for AI-enabled research, and strengthening the discoverability and reuse of DOE’s scientific outputs.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

Micro-Hydropower and Aquatic Restoration on Lands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Rural and Tribal communities in Southern Appalachia face persistent challenges in energy access owing to rugged terrain, dense forest cover, and limited infrastructure. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) is a federally recognized Tribe whose ancestral homelands include much of Southern Appalachia. The Tribe’s present-day homeland, termed the Qualla Boundary, lies in the heart of the region, where the extreme ruggedness of the Blue Ridge Mountains exacerbates challenges to energy access. For the EBCI, these challenges also intersect with a deep cultural commitment to stewardship of land and water. The Tribe has explored multiple energy solutions, with hydropower serving as an existing and realized source of energy for the region’s communities. However, the EBCI’s commitment to protecting aquatic systems has led not only to a historical lack of endorsement of new conventional hydropower on Tribal lands but also to ongoing efforts to remove the area’s only existing hydropower facility at Ela Dam.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

FAIR Data Meets FAIR Software

Modern scientific research is increasingly defined by the interplay between data, software, and the workflows that connect them. Yet while the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles have become foundational for scientific data stewardship, the same level of structure and expectation has only recently begun to extend to research software. This talk covers why and how FAIR principles are being applied to data and software to support data reuse. It outlines the gaps in current sharing norms, the growing federal emphasis on persistent identifiers and public access, and the opportunities created when datasets, computational workflows, code, and models are linked through rich, standardized metadata. Practical implementation pathways for the EIC and JLab communities are described, including datacards for structured dataset documentation and provenance-aware workflows. By aligning data lifecycle management with FAIR-aligned software practices, the scientific community can advance toward autonomous knowledge graphs, generative workflows, and high-quality, AI-ready scientific datasets.

McSpadden, Diana [Thomas Jefferson National Accele↗

PNNL Sequim Campus Radionuclide Air Emissions Report for Calendar Year 2025 : Department of Energy – Office of Science Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Pacific Northwest Site Office has oversight and stewardship duties associated with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Sequim Campus. Facility operations include radiological operations with the potential-to-emit low levels of radioactive materials. This report is prepared to document compliance with the 40 CFR Part 61, National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, Subpart H, “National Emission Standards for Emissions of Radionuclides Other than Radon from Department of Energy Facilities,” and Washington Administrative Code Chapter 246-247, Radiation Protection–Air Emissions. The PNNL Sequim Campus is in compliance with the federal and state 10 mrem/yr standard for 2025 operations.

40 CFR 61 Subpart H↗

Data Cards for Standardized Metadata Across DOE-Aligned Data Initiatives: Toward Transparent, Interoperable, and Governed Dataset Documentation

As data-intensive research, advanced computing, and artificial intelligence become increasingly central to scientific and operational workflows, the need for consistent, transparent, and machine-actionable documentation has grown correspondingly. Multiple DOE-aligned communities—including Office of Science, Genesis Mission, American Science Cloud (AmSC), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) stewardship and governance, and related cross-laboratory collaborations—have independently developed metadata practices to support discovery, access, reuse, repository deposit, and compliance.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

Cooperative Support of the Fermilab Site’s Natural Areas and Related Programs (CRADA Final Report)

Under the prime contract with the Department of Energy, Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA) is responsible for effective stewardship of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) 6,800-acre site, to assure that Fermilab is renewed and enhanced to meet future mission needs. As the steward of the Fermilab site, FRA is responsible for maintaining the natural areas for the site (e.g., prairie restoration sites, woodlands, etc.), which are essential for protecting the health and safety of personnel working on or visiting the site, while supporting the scientific and educational missions of Fermilab. Fermilab Natural Areas (FNA) is a not-for-profit corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Illinois. FNA was founded in 2006 and incorporated in 2008 for the purposes of studying, conserving, and restoring the Fermilab Site’s natural areas in a manner consistent with the science mission of Fermilab and enhancing the awareness and visibility of the natural amenities of Fermilab to neighboring communities.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗