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Decontamination & Decommissioning

We are helping our customers prevent schedule inefficiencies and overspending by carefully planning and designing site characterization and final status surveys.

With a team of health physics experts who have extensive field experience, ORAU knows the support your decontamination and decommissioning project needs—from the characterization phase to the final status survey. We understand the risk of cost overruns, the necessity of high quality characterization, the difficulty of collecting accurate data and all other obstacles contractors and government agencies face on-site during the decontamination and decommissioning process.

In order to provide your remediation project with the support you need, ORAU’s team of health physicists and radiological experts have the necessary experience, procedures and instrumentation to design and implement characterization and final status surveys. Our experts customize these surveys to achieve high-quality, defensible data, and reduce risk for efficient and cost-effective cleanup. With high quality standards, ORAU survey results instill trust and confidence that public health and safety is protected following your site’s cleanup.

After years of proven expertise, ORAU has become a trusted partner to regulators and DOE affiliates in the environmental management community, including federal, state and local governments. ORAU also serves as the primary independent verification contractor and property release technical expert for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Health physicist conducting survey on decommissioning project

What we do

ORAU works to support an efficient, cost-effective and thorough D&D process with the following capabilities:

Qualifications

As a leader in the health physics industry, ORAU’s has been instrumental in developing new environmental assessment standards. ORAU health physics experts were involved with writing the Multi-Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual (MARSSIM), now the nationally recognized standard for planning and executing radiological surveys. Other manuals and standards ORAU has helped develop include:

Medical Radiation Safety Training Officer Course instructor and students

Training the D&D workforce

For more than 70 years, ORAU has specialized in health physics and radiation training for scientists, physicians, engineers, educators, emergency responders and other professionals. ORAU’s Professional Training Programs offer courses on a range of topics and skill levels, such as Air Sampling for Radioactive Materials, MARSSIM, Applied Health Physics and Gamma Spectroscopy.

See our course schedule

Our Expert

Sarah Roberts

Sarah Roberts, CHP

Vice President, Health, Energy and Environment

Expertise: Independent assessments of environmental cleanup, decommissioning, license termination and property release activities at DOE- and NRC-licensed sites

  • Past Recipient: Elda E. Anderson Award for excellence in health physics
  • Presenter: “Independent Verification Role in Environmental Cleanup,” Argonne National Laboratory Facility Decommissioning Course, February 2017
  • Member: Information System on Occupational Exposure Working Group on Radiological Protection Aspects of Decommissioning Activities at Nuclear Power Plants, 2017
  • Member: Health Physics Society; previous board member and president of the Decommissioning Section

Contact us

For more information about ORAU's environmental assessment services, contact Sarah Roberts at 865.241.8893 or sarah.roberts@orau.org.

For more information about contracting with ORAU, contact Kathy Rollow at 865.574.4390 or kathy.rollow@orau.org.