Legacy Site Decontamination Experience as Applied to the Urban Radiological Dispersal Device

Pursuant to the National Response Plan, Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex [1], the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is assigned lead agency responsibility for decontamination and clean-up efforts following a domestic terrorist event involving a radiological dispersal device (RDD). An RDD incident in a modern city environment poses many of the same issues and problems traditionally faced at 'legacy' clean up projects being performed across our country. However there are also many aspects associated with an urban RDD clean-up that have never been faced in legacy site remediation. For example, the demolition and destructive technologies widely used in legacy remediation would be unacceptable in the case of historically or architecturally significant properties or those with prohibitively high replacement cost; contaminated properties will likely belong to numerous small private entities whose business interests are at stake; reducing the time required to decontaminate and return a city to normal use cannot be overemphasized due to its tremendous economic and political impact. The mission of the EPA's National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC) includes developing the best technology and tools needed for field personnel to achieve their goals should that event occur. To that end, NHSRC has been exploring how the vast experience within the legacy site remediation community could be tapped to help meet this need, and to identify gaps in decontamination technology. This paper articulates much of what has been learned over the past year as a result of efforts to identify these technology and procedural needs to address the urban RDD. This includes comparing and contrasting remediation techniques and methodologies currently used in nuclear facility and site cleanup with those that would be needed following an urban RDD event. Finally, this presentation includes an appeal to the radiological decontamination community to come forward with ideas and technologies for consideration to help meet this nationally significant need. (authors)