Guidance for Conducting Risk Assessments and Related Risk ...

2. ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION
In U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Management Program Initial Accelerating Cleanup:
Paths to Closure, Oak Ridge Operations Office (DOE/OR/01-1746, DOE 1998b), the U.S. Department of
Energy, Oak Ridge Operations (DOE-ORO) set forth a life cycle cleanup strategy for completing the
Environmental Management (EM) Program’s mission. Two fundamental principles were adhered to
during the development of the cleanup strategy:
1. Accelerating cleanup must not compromise the health and safety of remediation workers or the public
or the achievement of appropriate cleanup standards.
2. Efficiencies must occur within the projects and the decision-making process.
Risk assessment will play a key role in ensuring that these two principles are upheld. The clean-up
strategy outlines a process that begins with prioritization of subprojects based on their overall risk-benefit
value (e.g., risk reduction) and the sequencing of subprojects (in time) to accommodate the budget
availability. The life cycle (shown below) continues with the actual implementation of these subprojects
followed by an evaluation of risk reduction associated with public health, site personnel safety, and
environmental protection.
Risk Ranking Sequencing Implementation Evaluation
The risk ranking and sequencing activities are the same for all DOE-ORO facilities; however, the
implementation and evaluation of environmental restoration at each facility must address the requirements
of all applicable regulatory and interagency agreements (Table 1). Thus, the risk assessment guidelines
vary to support environmental restoration efforts.
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