Quality Assurance Plan for Field Activities at the Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research (NABIR) Field Research Center (FRC), Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Abstract

The Environmental Sciences Division (ESD) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has established a Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research (NABIR) program Field Research Center (FRC) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The FRC is located in Bear Creek Valley within the Y-12 Plant area of responsibility on DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. The NABIR program is a long-term effort designed to increase the understanding of fundamental biogeochemical processes that would allow the use of bioremediation approaches for cleaning up DOE's contaminated legacy waste sites. The FRC provides a site for investigators in the NABIR program to conduct research and obtain samples related to in situ bioremediation. The FRC is integrated with existing and future laboratory and field research and provides a means of examining the biogeochemical processes that influence bioremediation under controlled small-scale field conditions. This Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) documents the quality assurance protocols for field and laboratory activities performed by the FRC staff. It supplements the requirements in the ORNL Nuclear Quality Assurance Program and the ESD Quality Assurance Program. The QAP addresses the requirements in Title 10 CFR, Part 830 Subpart A, ''Quality Assurance Requirements'', using a graded approach appropriate for Research and Development projects based on guidance from ''Implementation Guide for Quality Assurance Programs for Basic and Applied Research'' (DOE-ER-STD-6001-92). It also supports the NABIR FRC Management Plan (Watson and Quarles 2000a) which outlines the overall procedures, roles and responsibilities for conducting research at the FRC. The QAP summarizes the organization, work activities, and qualify assurance and quality control protocols that will be used to generate scientifically defensible data at the FRC. The QAP pertains to field measurements and sample collection conducted by the FRC to characterize the site and in support of NABIR-funded investigations at the FRC. NABIR investigators who collect their own samples or measurements at the FRC will be responsible for developing their own data quality assurance protocol. Notably, this QAP will be of direct benefit to NABIR investigators who will be provided with and use the documented quality data about the FRC to support their investigations.