A New Risk Tool Developed for PMs to Visually Identify Risk at Sites to Make Cleanup Decisions - 21080

Site remediation at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) led to the development of a risk tool to improve remediation decision-making, field implementation efficiency, and overall effectiveness. This risk tool creates 2D and 3D visualizations of site risk results to show the impact of various risk-driven remediation options. Site-specific investigation environmental data and risk thresholds for both human health and ecological risk were incorporated into a Microsoft Access database that calculated risk for both human health and ecological exposure scenarios using pre-remediation and various remedial option site data sets. The risk results were then imported into Voxler^R4 software for generation of both 2D maps and 3D models showing non-carcinogenic risk levels for a residential exposure scenario. Comparisons were made between both 3D and 2D visualizations of pre-remediation and various remediation options for a recent Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) remediation site at LANL. The results support identification of the remedial options that are both cost effective and efficient while still meeting risk-driven clean up goals. This risk tool supports improved remediation decision making for the hundreds of sites requiring evaluation at LANL by allowing project risk managers to assess which areas at a site are driving the exceedance of risk thresholds and focus field activities accordingly. Using this approach, the time and cost needed to remediate a site to regulatory levels should be minimized. (authors)