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DOIT Committee Final ReportCollaborative Approaches that Save Time and Money
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Executive Summary
The recommendations in this report are based upon the findings of over five hundred dedicated individuals from different backgrounds who generously donated their time, creativity, and talent over the last three years to the efforts of the federal advisory committee to Develop On-site Innovative Technologies (DOIT). The reports of the DOIT Committee's fact finding site teams and working groups are an integral part of this report. The reader should consult those documents for a better understanding of the findings on which these recommendations are based for further ideas on how to implement them.
The principal findings of the DOIT Committee are that the barriers to broader deployment of more cost-effective technologies to clean up waste sites are primarily regulatory and institutional in nature. Despite the benefits, innovative technologies are often not chosen to clean up waste sites because of risk aversion by regulators, lack of comparable cost and performance data, insufficient signals from the top down to encourage the use of innovative solutions, and a lack of public trust.The federal technology development and cleanup effort is an $ 8 billion annual enterprise. As such, even marginal gains in efficiency and performance by eliminating barriers to more effective technologies can result in significant savings. To eliminate those barriers in order to save time and money the Committee recommends that state and federal agencies:
Improve Performance and Reduce CostsThrough Expanded Regulatory Options That Encourage Innovation
Entrepreneurial developers of environmental technologies are often stymied and cleanups delayed at federal sites by unwieldy regulatory structures and demonstration requirements. In addition, after successfully demonstrating a technology in one state, developers find they have to go through the time and expense to prove again the technology in the next state where they propose it be used. States are critical enablers of innovative technologies. Regulatory streamlining, specific policies encouraging innovation, and targeted regulatory reform should be pursued by state environmental agencies to reduce the review time and increase the selection rate of verified innovative technologies.
Recommendation: Cut regulatory and cleanup costs by expanding regulatory options and increasing inter- and intrastate regulatory cooperation. Build on the successful experience of the Interstate Technology Regulatory Cooperation (ITRC) Working Group and a four state memorandum of understanding on technology data reciprocity. Support new and existing collaboration by state environmental agencies to reduce regulatory uncertainty, establish regional and national markets for innovative environmental technologies, and multi-state verification of technology performance and costs.
Stimulate Economic Growth and Reduce Costs by Creating Regional and National Markets for Innovative Technologies
The reason innovative technologies often are not deployed is that there are disincentives to their use. These disincentives include: markets for technology vendors which are fragmented by differing agency and state requirements and mechanisms; liability concerns; lack of rewards for site personnel to consider innovative approaches; a lack of connection between successful demonstration of a technology and a contract to deploy it.
Recommendations: Agencies should reform procurement and contracting policies to support performance-based specifications. Agencies' procurement policies should link successful demonstrations of superior innovative technologies to the award of actual site environmental contracts. States should review and reform existing regulatory policies and regulations that impede the use of performance-based contracting.
Cut Costs and Expedite Cleanup through Collaborative Partnering among Regulators, Federal Agencies, Tribes, and Stakeholders
Traditional approaches to technology development, deployment, and remediation created adversarial and confrontational interest groups that would converge at site cleanup decision making time. This led to wasted time and money in court or going back to the drawing board because selected technologies were not acceptable. In addition, lack of communication among federal agencies often led to duplication and, in some instances, fragmented, inconsistent, and ineffective regulation.
Recommendations: All partners can leverage existing resources, improve decision making, and minimize total system costs through broader collaboration and early and effective tribal and stakeholder involvement in regulation development and selecting, developing, procuring, deploying, and evaluating cleanup technologies.
These three primary recommendations are interrelated. Implementing one and not the others will not solve the problem of an over reliance on more expensive and time consuming technologies and approaches. However, no one state or federal agency alone can implement all three. As a result, to ensure success each party must do its share in partnership with the others.All parties should do their share in a recommended collaborative approach to save time and money by building upon their aggregated strengths.
The focus should be on results -- through industry's strengths in developing and applying better solutions; federal efforts to verify and deploy new technologies and approaches that integrate procurement, contracting and regulatory issues; and tribal and stakeholder involvement and interagency collaboration.The good news is that many parts of this system are already in place or recently underway. What is needed is a strengthened commitment, stronger leadership, a little fine-tuning, and better integration of these various efforts.
IntroductionThe Federal Advisory Committee to Develop On-site Innovative Technologies (DOIT) was chartered in December 1992 to develop a cooperative approach for developing technical solutions to environmental restoration and waste management problems shared by states, commercial entities, and the Federal government. The committee consists of four western governors, the Secretaries of the Departments of Defense, the Interior, and Energy, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Representatives from the Office of Management and Budget and the Western Governors' Association are ex officio members.
The DOIT committee set out to address major barriers to the use of such innovative technologies including: 1) regulatory barriers to new technologies, 2) barriers to commercializing successfully demonstrated technologies, and 3) barriers created by not involving tribal and stakeholder representatives effectively in technology assessment.
In 1993 the Committee empaneled four working groups consisting of representatives from
industry, environmental groups, state, federal, and tribal agencies, academics, local
citizens, and others. These working groups addressed barriers to technology development
and cleanup for wastes related to:
1) mining,
2) mixed radioactive-hazardous contaminants,
3) military munitions,
and 4) generic hazardous wastes common at military bases.
A fifth working group, focusing on interstate regulatory cooperation, was created in
1995.The Committee also held three forums to gather additional information on the key
barriers to the use of innovative environmental technologies.
In 1994, the Committee recommended demonstrations of new approaches be developed at eleven federal sites. Because of funding constraints and other issues, seven sites eventually conducted demonstrations over the next two years involving nine different technologies.Through the DOIT work groups and roundtables, the DOIT partners identified workable new approaches that support technology development, cleanup, and environmental management in a balanced budget world. These approaches have been tested and evaluated on site with input from local people. This report outlines our findings, recommendations, and commitments to change government policies and procedures in order to adopt these new approaches.
RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Improve Performance and Reduce Costs Through Expanded Regulatory Options That Encourage Innovation
What are the benefits and costs?
** Benefits: Improved environmental performance. State and federal cleanup funds saved by the faster deployment of more cost effective innovative technologies. Private sector funds saved from reduced permit review time and the avoidance of redundant technology demonstrations in each state. State funds saved by leveraging technology reviews conducted by other states.
** Costs: State staff time to explore and recommend changes to state's regulatory programs. State and tribal staff time to participate in interstate technology and regulatory cooperation efforts. Federal funding for travel for state, tribal, and stakeholder members to participate in interstate cooperative efforts.
What did DOIT do?
** initiated collaborative state-led evaluation processes for environmental
technologies to reduce cost and regulatory uncertainty
-Regulatory requirements/technology protocols for four technologies jointly developed by
twenty-two states
-Four states signed an MOU to accept each other's data on performance of new technologies
** created an interstate working group of state and tribal regulators, federal
agencies, industry, and environmentalists to share innovative state regulatory approaches
and test mechanisms for interstate regulatory cooperation on environmental technologies.
-Stimulated similar interstate cooperative efforts on technologies in southern and New
England states.
** facilitated state regulators' discussions with technology developers, site managers, tribes, academics, and local citizens on five regional working groups and seven local site demonstrations regarding their concerns on the regulation of remediation technologies and site cleanups.
** identified the absence of, and initiated an interstate, interagency, and public dialogue on, rulemaking for environmental regulation of munitions.
** identified the need for a decision making tool to integrate risk issues related to explosive and health/environment threats from unexploded ordnance. conducted interstate, interagency, and public workshop on munitions risk assessment.
What did we learn?
** innovative state regulatory approaches for technology review and deployment reduce state resources needed for regulatory review time and save money by selectively encouraging the deployment of innovative technical solutions.
** interstate cooperation on review of new technologies speeds regulatory acceptance of those technologies in individual states and facilitates permitting and deployment state-to-state, site-to-site, and agency-to-agency
** creation of common regulatory approaches for permitting and verifying innovative technologies helps create regional and national markets for those technologies.
** interagency coordination on rulemakings can result in greater clarity and avoid regulatory duplication.
** tribes with regulatory authority should be included in regulatory decision making efforts for new technologies.
What do we recommend?
** Governors should continue the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Cooperation Working Group as a forum for interstate cooperation on the demonstration, verification, regulation and permitting of innovative environmental technologies.
** States should expand regulatory options by:
-Better integrating the requirements and review timeframes of the different programs (air,
water, hazardous waste, etc.) that issue permits or other regulatory approvals.
-Allowing demonstrations of low impact technologies without incurring liability for
existing contamination.
-Adopting specific policies to encourage the use of cost-effective innovative technologies
such as establishing an innovative technology advocate function.
-Establishing an award to recognize and encourage the use of innovative technologies or
approaches.
** Federal agencies should increase interagency/interservice cooperation for technology development, demonstration and verification and should support interstate cooperative approaches to technology review and regulation.
** DoD should establish a multi-agency clearinghouse or executive agent to foster interservice and interagency collaboration and focus in developing requirements, criteria and expedited development, testing and utilization of advanced technologies for unexploded ordnance.
** DoD should expand the responsibilities of DoD Regional Environment Coordinators by giving them the authority, accountability, and resources to identify, assess and integrate technology and cleanup needs, elicit and integrate stakeholder perspectives and coordinate and transfer information on successful approaches and technologies among the Regional Environmental Offices (REO) organizations and external stakeholders.
** DoD should collaborate with EPA, states and tribes to develop a detailed, integrated model which incorporates both safety risks posed by military munitions and unexploded ordnance and the human health and environmental risks posed by ordnance contaminants to provide an overall framework for cleanup decision making.
Stimulate Economic Growth and Reduce Costs by Creating Regional and National Markets for Innovative Technologies
What are the benefits and costs?
Benefits: Money saved through selection of more cost-effective and/or acceptable technologies. Sites cleaned up and returned to productive civilian use faster. National and regional markets clarified for innovative environmental technologies. Environmental technology industry strengthened and competitiveness increased through reduced costs and leveled playing field.
Costs: One time cost for procurement policy review, ongoing costs for computer personnel and technology verification efforts.
What did DOIT do?
** created regional working groups which identified new mechanisms to encourage faster commercialization.
** explored regulatory, commercialization, and institutional barriers to new technologies through forums
** developed innovative technology procurement mechanism to integrate tribal, stakeholder and regulator concerns earlier into the technology investment screening process.
** state and federal agencies agreed to use of common cost and performance format for reporting results of state and federal technology demonstration results.
** helped identify unexpected gaps in technology for the identification and remediation of munitions.
What did we learn?
There was insufficient time to put in place, test, and evaluate innovative mechanisms to commercialize technologies at DOIT demonstration sites. However, site and regional working group members repeatedly indicated that the reason innovative technologies are not deployed is that there are disincentives to their use. These disincentives include: markets for technology vendors which are fragmented by differing agency and state requirements and mechanisms; lack of rewards for sites to use innovative approaches; a lack of connection between successful demonstration of a technology and a contract to deploy it.
What do we recommend?
** Through a collaborative process with communities and regulators, federal sites should move toward a performance-based procurement and contracting system that makes full use of superior environmental technologies available in the private sector marketplace.
Agencies should reform procurement practices so that successful demonstrations of more cost-effective, or otherwise clearly superior, technologies are linked to the award of actual site cleanup contracts.
Agencies should use emerging innovative site characterization tools and techniques to more quickly and accurately characterize sites and effectiveness of responses.
Agencies should publish an integrated assessment of cleanup needs to help clarify/define the potential public market for technology developers and implementors.
** Congress and agencies should limit mandates to spend current year cleanup funds which result in deployment of less effective technologies simply because funds will expire at fiscal year end.
** DoD, DOE, DOI, and EPA should make available on the world wide web, other electronic sources, and in paper form independently validated cost and performance data for new technologies. This should be coordinated through the Federal Technologies Remediation Roundtable. A web site with links to each agency's technology web pages should be developed.
** The Federal Technologies Remediation Roundtable consensus cost and performance guidelines should be used by all local, state, federal, industry, and tribal and public entities involved in technology demonstration and verification. The guidelines should be revised to include life-cycle costs to allow for more accurate comparisons between technologies.
** EPA should continue its new policy of agreements to fund backup remedies at non-federal facilities if recommended innovative technology fails to perform as expected.
** Federal agencies should continue efforts to verify cost and performance of innovative technologies. These efforts should be linked across agencies and with the private sector to avoid duplication. Data generated should be verifiable independent of the technology developer's own data.
** DoD, DOE, DOI, EPA and states should provide rewards to Remedial Project Managers and site teams for innovation, either in the form of recognition (annual award) or, for DoD and DOE through mechanisms that allow the base or site to keep a percentage of the dollars saved over traditional methods or technologies.
Cut Costs and Expedite Cleanup through Collaborative Partnering among Regulators, Federal Agencies, Tribes, and Stakeholders
What are the benefits and costs?
Benefits:
** more confidence in the process and better decisions resulting in better investment of
federal cleanup resources.
** time and money saved by incorporating tribal and stakeholder involvement in technology
decision making as part of the management and systems cost structure.
** technology deployment accelerated through identification of tribal and stakeholder
concerns early in the technology development process, rather than after federal resources
are fully committed to specific technologies.
** leveraging experience and cleanup resources through broad-based tribal and stakeholder
involvement can make a positive contribution to technology development and deployment and
identify a broader range of choices.
** reduced time required for regulators, tribes and stakeholders to participate in
technology decision-making if they are provided easy access to technology development and
verification information.
** time and money saved through collaborative vs litigious decision making.
Costs: Longer decision making timeframe to involve tribes and public and to incorporate their concerns. Staff time for tribal and stakeholder outreach and management of process.
What Did DOIT Do?
** Designed and tested tribal/stakeholder involvement models which:
- identify performance-based and other technology development criteria to be used in
national technology investment decision-making;
- chart the path for integration of tribal and public involvement partnership activities
into project management work packages;
- create a viable network for developing and sharing improved technology assessment and
deployment approaches; and
- provide guidelines for earlier and more meaningful tribal and public involvement in
regulatory permitting activities.
** Developed increased trust and confidence in technology development decisions through a variety of tribal and public forums, working groups and networking opportunities.
** Created a technology procurement model which incorporates developer performance-based criteria, regulatory cooperation opportunities, and early tribal and stakeholder involvement into a comprehensive process to demonstrate and implement innovative technologies.
** Stimulated creative approaches to involving tribal nations and the public at earlier stages of federal rulemaking.
** Provided a forum for discussion of complex jurisdictional problems.
** Developed and distributed a wide range of resource documents for tribal and stakeholder involvement.
** Stimulated development of a DOE systems review of over two-hundred non-thermal waste treatment technologies.
** Played a integral role in establishing a new Restoration Advisory Board at a formerly used defense site and developed tool to evaluate effectiveness of stakeholder involvement activities for RABs.
** Completed a broad-based evaluation of DOIT regional and local tribal and stakeholder participation program.
What Did We Learn?
** Tribal and public collaboration in decision-making related to technology development activities should be a value-added, rather than risk-aversion, activity. Such involvement focused at the time technology performance criteria are being developed increases the credibility of the demonstration process and leads to expedited deployment of the technology.
** Tribal and public involvement must be endorsed and supported by top level field and site management personnel to be effectively implemented. When key decision makers are not involved, the credibility and effectiveness of the effort is compromised.
** Efficient and thorough communication among state and federal agencies, "mail stops," and departments, increases the potential for successful tribal and public involvement and leads to efficiency and cost savings. Communication and coordination among tribes, public and agencies can lead to greater efficiency and cost savings.
What Do We Recommend?
** Identify problems and affected/interested parties at a local and regional, rather than national level;
** Implement collaborative decision-making approaches to develop a common understanding of problems and priorities; and
** Appropriate sufficient funding to carry out tribal and stakeholder involvement as well as technology development. (Funding should include budget for invitational travel, technical assistance, communication tools, and other resources to increase the ability of tribes and stakeholders to participate.)
DEVELOP:
** Create and support a coalition to develop and implement a National Action Plan to focus and coordinate responses to the full range of abandoned mine land problems.
- The coalition should be led by governors and DOI and should involve the Forest
Service, other land management agencies, EPA, DOE, tribal leaders, citizens, industry, and
other affected and interested parties.
- The National Action Plan developed by the coalition should build on, integrate, and
leverage, existing efforts.
** Create and use incentives for mid-and-upper-level management personnel to encourage development of partnership-based decision making among tribes, citizens, industry and other affected and interested parties.
** Incorporate involvement of tribes, citizens, industry and other affected and interested parties as part of the management and systems engineering approach to doing business.
** Continue development and implementation of the Model Procurement Process as defined by the DOIT Mixed Waste Working Group, Solicitation Subgroup.
COMMUNICATE:
** Continue collaborative decision making, tribal participation, and networking efforts begun by DOIT.
** Convene tribal and stakeholder forums modeled on the DOIT Tribal and Stakeholder Forum Technology Acceptance to gather new ideas and share information.
** Use communications networks (interstate, intrastate, inter-agency) to ensure initiatives are moving forward without duplication of effort and to share resources.
** Implement technology communication and information sharing that provides easy access to information for regulators, tribes and stakeholders.
CREATE LOCAL TEAMS:
** Continue funding for DoD Restoration Advisory Boards, DOE Site Specific Advisory Boards, Citizen Advisory Boards, and Site Technology Coordination Groups. Provide funding for independent technical assistance to those groups as needed.
** At sites where none exist, convene local site demonstration teams composed of interested and affected parties to collaborate in development of site technology demonstration criteria, plans, deployment and evaluation.
EDUCATE:
** Provide resources and professional assistance for communications training for personnel involved in all aspects of technology development and cleanup. Communications training and tribal and stakeholder participation training, as well as training in collaborative decision making, should be integrated into current project management systems and training courses.
** Provide independent technical support and related technology training opportunities for tribal representatives, stakeholders and technology users.
** Provide education and information programs to increase tribal and public exposure to technology information and access to technology development activities, at strategic points of opportunity.
IMPLEMENTATION
To implement the recommendations contained in this report, the DOIT Committee members agree to transmit this report and the appropriate working group and site team reports to all federal site and facility managers, headquarters managers, regional administrators, state environmental directors, and other personnel as appropriate for action. Instructions with the transmittal will request a written response on how the recommendations will be translated into action. In addition, the report will be transmitted to the President and Vice President and Congressional committees of jurisdiction.
By the Western Governors' Association annual meeting in June 1997, each federal agency and the states collectively through the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Cooperation Working Group will report on the results of the implementation of the recommendations in this report. Specific issues to be included will be how much money has been spent on developing and verifying new technologies, how many technologies have been verified in the last year, how many have been used or are planned for use at a site cleanup, and what the estimated cost savings are anticipated to be from using these technologies.
In addition, DOE agrees to:
** Report on the number of performance-based procurements and contracts issued and impact on technology deployment and cost savings.
** By the end of the Fiscal Year 1996, convert Mixed Waste Working Group (MWWG) and Site Team experiences in establishing effective communications among all technology development stakeholders into a Communication Plan.
** By the end of Fiscal Year 1996, develop an Education Plan to provide adequate resources, professional assistance, and training in meaningful tribal and public involvement, collaborative decision making and other related issues both technical and non-technical personnel, including technology development project managers.
** Monitor and evaluate the implementation of the pilot procurement to test the model solicitation for non-thermal technologies, approved by the DOIT Committee designees on December 12, 1995. Provide assistance to the DOE Mixed Waste Focus Area solicitation implementation team, gather lessons learned and identify broader applications of the model principles and processes.
** Establish a Transition Team comprising representatives from the MWWG Steering Committee, the MWWG Solicitation Subgroup, and additional stakeholders from the MWWG and Site Teams. The Team's purpose would be to develop the Communications and Education Plans and funding requirements, and to serve in a consultative capacity to DOE as it implements the pilot procurement to test the Model Solicitation process. The Transition Team would monitor the solicitation and help assess its effectiveness.
DoD agrees to:
** continue a collaborative Munitions Working Group to facilitate state, tribal and community collaboration with EPA and DoD on the munitions rulemaking targeted for completion by December 1996.
** Continue the Black Hills Army Depot Restoration Advisory Board studies to obtain second year data on the effectiveness of stakeholder participation. Also, broaden the study to include at least one additional Restoration Advisory Board to develop compare data.
** pilot test a regional stakeholder forum on cleanup issues and technology development needs to determine if information generated can be used effectively in the DoD Environmental Quality Strategic Plan updates and the annual SERDP and ESTCP proposals. Invitees to the forum will include Restoration Advisory Board representatives, other community members, industry professionals, regulators, project managers, and academic researchers.
EPA agrees to:
** Report on the accomplishments of its new Initiatives to Promote Innovative Technology in Waste Management Programs.
** EPA's Federal Facilities Enforcement Office (FFEO) will work in partnership with other groups, such as the Interstate Technology Regulatory Cooperation Work Group and other appropriate federal agencies, on EPA's initiative to explore methods of incorporating provisions into federal facility compliance and cleanup agreements for encouraging innovative technologies.
DOI agrees to:
** Develop strategies for restoration of western watersheds impacted by mine drainage through a collaborative process with federal, state, local, public, tribal and industry representatives.
Governors agree to:
** direct their regulatory agencies to review the DOIT Committee reports for ideas on how to improve state regulatory approaches for demonstrating and deploying innovative technologies in order to reduce costs and expedite cleanups.
** direct their regulatory agencies to review the ITRC technology and regulatory protocols and, as appropriate, adopt them.
** continue and support the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Cooperation Working Group and direct it to:
- facilitate implementation of the ITRC's protocols
- continue efforts to develop technology and regulatory protocols for additional
innovative technologies in cooperation with federal, tribal, and stakeholder
representatives
- coordinate efforts with related interstate efforts in the southern and New England
states and any other regional interstate efforts which are initiated.
** direct their regulatory staff to continue participation with DoD, EPA, and other affected interests on the development of regulations to guide the cleanup of munitions waste.
CONCLUSION
The conclusions and recommendations embodied in this report mark more than the completion of the DOIT Committee's efforts. If properly implemented, the recommended changes will create a new way of "doing" the business of developing innovative technologies for cleanup of federal waste sites. This new way of doing business will be characterized by a collaborative team approach to decision making, early involvement of tribes and stakeholders, multi-state cooperation in the permitting of new technologies, and a market driven approach to the cleanup of sites and the commercialization of technologies.
The DOIT initiative has provided strong evidence that these approaches work to speed up the technology development process and reduce its costs without sacrificing safety. Ultimately, it will increase public confidence in resulting technologies, effectively removing one of the most significant barriers to cleanup.
With this report, the Committee to Develop On-site Innovative Technologies will officially sunset. However, its work will go on. The Committee members recognize we must continue to work together as a team to see that these recommendations are implemented. Only when the recommendations are completely integrated into fabric of the participating states and federal agencies will the effort pay dividends. It is then we will have fully realized Governor Mickelson's vision.