Mission
CRESP began operation in 1995 after receiving a
competitive cooperative agreement from the
Department of Energy. A key purpose of CRESP
is to test the viability of the 1994 National
Academy of Sciences's conclusion.........
the Environmental Management Office of DOE
needs an independent institutional mechanism
to develop data and methodology to make risk
a key part of its decision making.
CRESP works to fulfill its mission by
improving the scientific and technical basis of
environmental management decisions leading to
- advance protective and cost-effective
cleanup of the nation's nuclear weapons
- enhance stakeholder understanding of the
nation's nuclear weapons production
facility waste sites
CRESP pursues this mission through a unique
institutional model:
- its primary mode of operation is an
unprecedented program of
interdisciplinary university research;
- it is independent and its beneficiaries
are those who have a stake in effective
cleanup of federal facilities;
- it is organized to provide both guidance
to and peer review of the evolving effort
to utilize risk methods and evaluations
to shape cleanup decisions at DOE sites.
 CRESP:
Summary of Work
RESEARCH:
- Every CRESP research study is designed to
reduce a significant uncertainty about
risks at DOE sites which delays or
confuses the implementation of cleanup.
CRESP continues to assess the economic
and other trends around DOE sites to
clarify land use issues in risk
management.
- CRESP works to relate new toxicological
and epidemiological techniques to risk
tools that better target remedial
efforts.
- CRESP seeks to better connect
occupational surveillance and care to
worker risk evaluation.
- CRESP has formulated new approaches,
utilizing the tools of geographic
information systems (GIS), to generate
site-wide exposure assessments.
- CRESP scientists are linking findings
from research on site wildlife
contaminant burdens to criteria that
appraise both ecological vitality and
food chain effects.
- CRESP has undertaken research projects
that link scientific, technical,
occupational, engineering and behavioral
aspects of risk-based environmental
management of these sites. While actively
publishing in the peer-reviewed
literature, CRESP's eight
discipline-based task groups work
effectively across disciplines in
cutting-edge research activities which
cannot be addressed by any one discipline
alone.
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Mission
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Work
STAKEHOLDERS:
CRESP is committed to integrating risk
evaluation with the concerns and duties of
various stakeholders, including regulators, who
are affected by or are responsible for DOE
cleanup.
CRESP is seeking to understand the
perceptions, dynamics and interests among
stakeholders as it responds to their requests for
data and technical perspective:
- CRESP defines its research in response to
stakeholder questions;
- CRESP strives to explain clearly its own
research results and risk evaluation
results.
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Mission
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Work
GUIDANCE AND PEER REVIEW FOR GENERIC RISK
PROCESSES:
CRESP has also organized its diverse skills to
review, and make recommendations to improve, the
existing risk evaluation methods and processes
being developed by the Department of Energy.
CRESP is also asked either to assess or review
key documents or activities where risk evaluation
shapes decision-making
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Mission
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Work
CRESP'S RESEARCH AND OUTREACH GROUPS:
Eight separate but interdependent task groups
have been established to organize research and
operations for CRESP. Researchers are drawn from
faculty and staff from the Environmental and
Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI- a
program jointly sponsored by the University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood
Johnson Medical School and Rutgers University)
and the University of Washington, with research
goals and activities guided by the Management
Board.
Multiple projects are underway at each
university and within each task group. Scientific
interactions among the task groups and between
the universities are actively encouraged. Each
university is currently focusing on site-specific
research on issues and concerns raised primarily
at either the Hanford and Savannah River DOE
sites but with potential complex-wide
significance.
The eight task groups are:
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