Acceptable Knowledge for Oak Ridge Waste Streams

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a research facility, and its transuranic wastes are more complex and varied than those from weapons-production sites. Each container of waste must be characterized before it can be transported to the waste repository in New Mexico, and the complexity of Oak Ridge wastes makes their characterization quite challenging. Before analysis can begin, Acceptable Knowledge experts glean as much information as possible from lab records and personnel interviews, and then work closely with measurement specialists to develop defensible methodologies for each waste stream. This paper describes several of the Oak Ridge waste streams, and summarizes some features of the acceptable knowledge that has been developed to aid in analyzing these wastes.