20.5 Remediation Contractors and Oversight
255
expect the government to pay for remediation of streets, sidewalks, train stations,
and other public property, but should government also be responsible for decontaminating the private parking lot, the commercial building, and the individual shops
and offices inside the building if the cost of doing so is beyond the reach of the individual owners? It is likely that individual property and business owners will either be
responsible for the remediation of property that they own. This means that thousands
or tens of thousands of individual property owners (personal and commercial both)
might be the position of trying to find a contractor to remediate their property; from
the contractors’ viewpoint they can expect to be inundated with calls from a huge
number of people who might not even know what work needs to be done.
There will also be a need for regulatory oversight of remediation efforts to ensure
the remedial work is performed properly and to confirm that the affected locations
meet the agreed-upon cleanup criteria before they are released for reoccupancy and
unrestricted use. In particular, it will be necessary to ensure that decontamination
goals are met to avoid exposing workers, residents, visitors, and other members of
the public are not exposed to doses of radiation that might pose a long-term risk to
their health and to confirm that neither contractors nor owners attempt to save money
by doing substandard work, performing poor surveys, or falsifying survey results.
One challenge is that there are not many government regulators with experience
in radiological remediation, which might slow the progress of the remedial activities.
Picture a single office building with 10 business tenants per floor and 25 floors; if each
tenant employs an average of 10 workers then the livelihood of 2500 workers depends
on restoring access to the building (requiring remediation of the streets, sidewalks,
and mass transit), accessible public areas (lobby, elevators, stairwells, hallways,
and restrooms), and a place to work (offices, storage rooms, conference rooms,
and reception areas). Returning this building to full use will require overseeing the
cleanup of as many as 1000 different rooms in addition to 25 floors’ worth of hallways
and other public areas. The cleanup itself might require several months or even a few
years of work, all of which will require regulatory review of remediation plans,
progress reports, survey results, and a final closeout inspection. Simply to return to
operation a single building and 2500 workers will require the review and approval of a
few thousand plans and reports, thousands of survey results, and multiple inspections
and confirmatory surveys of 1000 different rooms (plus hallways, lobby, restrooms,
and other public areas). And as this graphic makes clear, an area of just 1 km
2 can
contain a great many buildings (Fig. 20.2).
This level of effort will need to be multiplied by the number of affected buildings,
not only in the Hot Zone, but in the downwind area contaminated by the contamination
plume. Few, if any regulatory bodies have sufficient staffing to perform this level of
work; it might be necessary to hire temporary workers with the appropriate skills,
to borrow workers from other agencies in unaffected cities and states, or to hire
contractors who can be trained to perform the work properly.
Looking at the above, it seems likely that contaminated properties will be owned
by people who will need to learn about contamination, remediation, and finding a
remediation contractor competent to perform the work. At the same time, there is
likely to be a shortage of such contractors, which can lead to either delays or the need
255
expect the government to pay for remediation of streets, sidewalks, train stations,
and other public property, but should government also be responsible for decontaminating the private parking lot, the commercial building, and the individual shops
and offices inside the building if the cost of doing so is beyond the reach of the individual owners? It is likely that individual property and business owners will either be
responsible for the remediation of property that they own. This means that thousands
or tens of thousands of individual property owners (personal and commercial both)
might be the position of trying to find a contractor to remediate their property; from
the contractors’ viewpoint they can expect to be inundated with calls from a huge
number of people who might not even know what work needs to be done.
There will also be a need for regulatory oversight of remediation efforts to ensure
the remedial work is performed properly and to confirm that the affected locations
meet the agreed-upon cleanup criteria before they are released for reoccupancy and
unrestricted use. In particular, it will be necessary to ensure that decontamination
goals are met to avoid exposing workers, residents, visitors, and other members of
the public are not exposed to doses of radiation that might pose a long-term risk to
their health and to confirm that neither contractors nor owners attempt to save money
by doing substandard work, performing poor surveys, or falsifying survey results.
One challenge is that there are not many government regulators with experience
in radiological remediation, which might slow the progress of the remedial activities.
Picture a single office building with 10 business tenants per floor and 25 floors; if each
tenant employs an average of 10 workers then the livelihood of 2500 workers depends
on restoring access to the building (requiring remediation of the streets, sidewalks,
and mass transit), accessible public areas (lobby, elevators, stairwells, hallways,
and restrooms), and a place to work (offices, storage rooms, conference rooms,
and reception areas). Returning this building to full use will require overseeing the
cleanup of as many as 1000 different rooms in addition to 25 floors’ worth of hallways
and other public areas. The cleanup itself might require several months or even a few
years of work, all of which will require regulatory review of remediation plans,
progress reports, survey results, and a final closeout inspection. Simply to return to
operation a single building and 2500 workers will require the review and approval of a
few thousand plans and reports, thousands of survey results, and multiple inspections
and confirmatory surveys of 1000 different rooms (plus hallways, lobby, restrooms,
and other public areas). And as this graphic makes clear, an area of just 1 km
2 can
contain a great many buildings (Fig. 20.2).
This level of effort will need to be multiplied by the number of affected buildings,
not only in the Hot Zone, but in the downwind area contaminated by the contamination
plume. Few, if any regulatory bodies have sufficient staffing to perform this level of
work; it might be necessary to hire temporary workers with the appropriate skills,
to borrow workers from other agencies in unaffected cities and states, or to hire
contractors who can be trained to perform the work properly.
Looking at the above, it seems likely that contaminated properties will be owned
by people who will need to learn about contamination, remediation, and finding a
remediation contractor competent to perform the work. At the same time, there is
likely to be a shortage of such contractors, which can lead to either delays or the need