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Hazardous Waste Remediation: A 21st Century Problem |
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| Authors: | J.D. Bredehoeft |
| Affiliation: | Dr, John Bredehoeft has spent more than 30 years at the USGS involved in investigations of water resources, both as a researcher and a manager. His interests range broadly across the field of ground water hydrology. He has published approximately 100 refereed papers on diverse topics that range from the development of numerical models for flow and transport by moving ground water to the economics of ground water development. He is currently a senior research geologist with the USGS in Menlo Park, California;the editor of Ground Water;and a member of the A GWSE Board of Directors. |
| Abstract: | The United Stales, both the private and the public sector, is currently spending approximately $10 billion annually on environmental cleanup. In 1991. the Waste Management Research and Educational Institute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville completed an exhaustive study that estimated if we continue to pursue current policies the total cost of the cleanup will be approximately $750 billion — in 1990 dollars. This suggests that given current technology and the current rate of expenditure, cleanup will take 75 years - well into the latter half of the next century. The legacy of environmental problems associated with our weapons complex is enormous. The Tennessee group estimated that one-third of the total cost of cleanup — approximately $240 billion — will be borne by the Department of Energy (DOR). Currently, approximately one-half of the annual expenditures for cleanup conies from DOE —$5 billion, one-third of the DOE budget. In contrast, the amount of funds for basic research on environmental cleanup problems is small. The federal government spends less than $100 million annually for basic research — less than 1 percent of the total annual expenditure of $10 billion. This level of funding for basic research seems shortsighted given the current status of cleanup technologies and the expected long duration of the problem. |
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