Noted Speaker J.M. Juran will speak on "Quality: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" on Thursday, Oct. 10, from noon to 2:30 p.m. in Building 201, Room 3A. The live, interactive satellite broadcast lecture is sponsored by DOE's Chicago Area Office in honor of National Quality Month.
* Business & Industry Day, Tuesday, Sept. 17, brought more than 250 Midwest businessmen and industry executives to Argonne-East to learn about the laboratory's research.
* On Wednesday, Sept. 18, six of the world's most respected scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners, spoke at "Research Challenges: The Next 50 Years," an all-day symposium.
* On Friday, Sept. 20, more than 1,000 high school students toured the laboratory for "Education Day." Also that morning, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary met for a roundtable discussion with 40 educators, students, local public officials, facility users, business and community leaders. The roundtable was moderated by Martha Krebs, DOE's director of energy research and hosted by Argonne Director Dean Eastman.
In the evening, representatives from two dozen area communities and local colleges came for the Community Leaders Dinner, which featured a talk by Eastman.
* An "open house" on Saturday, Sept. 21, brought an estimated 22,000 visitors Argonne-East. Those who came were able to tour many of the laboratory's major facilities and see dozens of exhibits on Argonne research.
The session will be held from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th Street in Chicago. Speaker will be Ted O'Neill, Dean of Admissions.
Employees or family members interested in the University of Chicago/Argonne Scholarship Program should attend.
For more information, or to make a reservation, call LaVonia Ousley-Hyatt (DEP) at ext. 2-7784 by Wednesday, Oct. 9. Leave name and the number of persons attending.
Since 1980, the lab has stored and treated such wastes under an interim, "part A" permit under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
In September, the IEPA plans to issue a draft permit on Argonne's and DOE's application for part B of the RCRA permit and to seek public comment.
The part B application covers only wastes that RCRA classifies as "hazardous." At Argonne-East, this refers to small amounts of chemical wastes generated by research, including the "hazardous" chemical components of some wastes that also contain radioactive components.
The part B application also includes a section on corrective actions, which include investigations of possibly contaminated areas on site and plans for remediation of areas known to be contaminated.
The part B portion of the application is more detailed than part A, which was designed so that organizations already in existence when the RCRA was passed could continue to treat and store wastes while the part B application was being prepared and approved.
The part B permit is available for viewing in the Leadership Library, on the first floor of Building 201. IEPA will decide if public meetings are necessary based on responses during the public comment period.
"This site is an ugly waste," Illinois Governor Dan Walker said 20 years ago Sept. 21 as he surveyed a barren wasteland of coal refuse in downstate Macoupin County.
"But it will be restored and put to good use," he continued. And with that proclamation, Walker and other state and county officials broke ground for an Argonne-supervised reclamation project to turn a 53-year-old refuse heap into a recreation area and wildlife refuge.
The refuse heap was located at an abandoned deep coal mine near Staunton in southwest Illinois. Dominating its 35-acre site was an 80-foot-high, 600-foot-long refuse pile -- an eyesore of rocks, sand, clay and small coal particles left over after coal was processed for delivery to the mine's customers.
Acidic water and sediment runoff from the mound had scoured erosion channels up to 10 feet deep on the site and was polluting nearby Cahokia Creek.
A year later, however, the transformation was well underway. The mound of refuse had been regraded to a gentle 14-foot slope, and a 12-foot-deep man-made pond had replaced the erosion channels. After the site had been regraded agricultural limestone was applied to neutralize the acid in the soil. The limestone also acted as a buffer between soil from the refuse mound and the foot of cover soil that was added next. The final treatment before seeding was to fertilize the new cover soil with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
Indeed, by the summer of 1977, green shoots of grasses and legumes could be seen popping up throughout the 35-acre site. Seeds from cattails, cut from a nearby stream and shaken over the pond, had also taken root, their new stalks jutting several inches above the water. Wind-carried seeds took root along the pond's edge, and small brown toads began to appear there.
The project was also an opportunity for Argonne scientists to systematically study reclamation techniques and determine which ones produced the best results at the lowest cost. Researchers conducted a three-year monitoring effort at the site as changes were made. Overall, the project was deemed a success, and many of the reclamation techniques implemented at the Staunton site are still being used today.
The Staunton project was unique because it was the first time the federal government and a state government had combined their efforts in an abandoned mine land reclamation project.
Today, Argonne scientists continue to research ways to improve environmental cleanup and restoration techniques . For example, environmental scientists are investigating bioremediation -- the use of micro-organisms and green plants to remediate sites contaminated with hazardous waste -- to clean up sites contaminated with diesel fuel and soil contaminated by explosives.
Another Argonne study has shown that two common perennial plants can naturally reduce the volume of wastewater created in natural gas production. This biological process, called phytoremediation, uses plants to store, remove, degrade and metabolize environmental contaminants, including metals, hydrocarbons and other toxic organic compounds.
Methods of rapidly assessing and characterizing sites have also been developed at Argonne. The laboratory was one of the first organizations to develop expedited site characterization processes and methodologies that lead to significant cost and time savings.
Argonne will continue addressing environmental problems well into the future. Last month, several Argonne environmental research projects received more than $9.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The grants are part of DOE's Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) Initiative which will develop long-term basic research solutions to environmental problems. Research under these grants will include a project to study new techniques for sensing toxic substances during cleanup of contaminated sites and a project to evaluate a new technique for treating and removing underground contaminants.
Representatives will be on site according to the schedule below.
| Vendor | Day | Time | Appointments |
| Prudential | Thurs., Oct. 10 | 1 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. | Wanda, ext. 2-2989 |
| Prudential | Fri., Oct. 11 | 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. | Wanda, ext. 2-2989 |
| TIAA/CREF | Thurs., Oct 24 | 9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. | 1-800-842-2005 |
| TIAA/CREF | Thurs., Oct 24 | 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. | 1-800-842-2005 |
| TIAA/CREF | Wed., Oct. 30 | 9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. | 1-800-842-2005 |
| TIAA/CREF | Wed., Oct. 30 | 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. | 1-800-842-2005 |
| Fidelity | Fri., Oct. 25 | 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. | Wanda, ext. 2-2989 |
| Fidelity | Fri., Oct. 25 | 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. | Wanda, ext. 2-2989 |
| Fund | Contributions from: | Rate earned through |
| TIAA Regular | 10/01/96 -- 12/31/96 | 7.25% -- 12/31/96 |
| TIAA Supplemental | 07/01/96 -- 09/30/96 | 6.75% -- 12/31/96 |
| Prudential Fixed Interest Account * | 07/01/96 -- 06/30/97 | 7.13% -- 06/30/97 |
| Prudential Guaranteed Interest Account | 10/01/96 -- 12/31/96 | 6.60% -- 12/31/97 |
| UNUM (Old Account) | 01/01/96 -- 12/31/96 | 3.50% -- 12/31/96 |
| UNUM "No Load"** | 02/01/96 -- 12/31/96 | 5.75% -- 12/31/96 |
** The minimum guaranteed interest rate for 1995 is 5 percent
Bond drive representatives will be available to answer questions and enroll employees in payroll deduction plans from 7:30 a.m. -3:30 p.m. in the Building 213 Cafeteria.
Bonds offer competitive interest rates, tax savings and can be replaced if lost, stolen or destroyed. The interest may be completely tax deductible if used for college tuition. Bonds can be cashed without penalty six months after they are issued.
Volunteers will hand out refreshments at the finish line of this international marathon, and will recieve uniforms that they can keep.
For more information, contact Marty Thomas (NBL) by Wednesday, Oct. 9, at ext. 2-9046 or by e-mail at martin.thomas@ch.doe.gov.
Scam artists are targeting the now-ubiquituous beepers by sending pages with 976 numbers. When the victim calls the number, the pager user's account is charged automatically.
Another scam will display an 800 or 888 number on the pager; when the "mark" calls the supposedly toll-free number, then punches a selection on the voice-mail menu, he or she is call-forwarded to a 976 or other toll number without warning.
Argonne employees with wide-area pagers -- the devices that require a seven-digit number -- should not respond to pages from unfamiliar numbers, said ECT's Chuck Zimmerman. On-site pagers, which require only a five-digit number (4-XXXX), are safe from these kinds of scams -- so far.
Monday, Oct. 7
Mathematics and Computer Science Division Seminar: "Frontal Software for the Solution of Sparse Linear Equations" by Jennifer Scott, Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, Didcot, England. 10:30 a.m., Bldg. 221, Conference Room A216.
Tuesday, Oct. 8
Fall 1996 ACCA Chemistry Seminar Series: "Novel Azacyclic Ureas That Are Potent Inhibitors of HIV-1 Protease and Development of the Protease Inhibitor Ritonavir for Aids Therapy" by Hing Sham, Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Ill. 7 p.m., Bldg. 223 Auditorium.
Fall 1996 ACCA Biology Seminar Series: "Putting Systematics to Work for Conservation: A Philippines Case Study" by Larry Heaney, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Ill. 7 p.m., Bldg. 203 Auditorium.
Thursday, Oct. 10
Special Physics Division Seminar: "Focal Plane Polarimetry Results from MIT-Bates" by Kyungseon Joo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. 11 a.m., Bldg. 203, Conference Room R150.
Physics Division Theoretical Physics Seminar: "Non-perturbative QCD for Beginners: A 'Back to Basics' Approach" by Francesco Antonuccio, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. 3 p.m., Bldg. 203, Conference Room B221.
Friday, Oct. 11
Physics Colloquium: "Soft X-ray Lasers and Their Applications" by Luiz Da Silva, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Calif. 11 a.m., Bldg. 203 Auditorium.
Monday, Oct. 14
Chemistry Division Monday Morning Seminar Series: "Catalysis of Organic Reactions by Inorganic Solids" by Pierre Laszlo, Department of Chemistry Ecole Polytechnique, Cedex, France. 11 a.m., Bldg. 200 Auditorium.
Joint Chemistry and Materials Science Divisions Seminar: "New Uses for Conductive Thin Films as Corrosion Protective Coatings and Dimensionally Stable Anodes" by Greg M. Swain, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, College of Science, Utah State University, Logan. 1:30 p.m., Bldg. 200, Conference Room J183.
Thursday, Oct. 17
Physics Division Theoretical Physics Seminar: "g Æ 3[[pi]] and Related Processes in a Confined Quark Model" by Mikhail Ivanov, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia. 3 p.m., Bldg. 203, Conference Room B221.
Friday, Oct. 18
Argonne-West Technical Seminar: "Critical Heat Flux Modeling for TRIGA Reactors" by Cris Eberle (ED). 9 a.m., L & O Conference Room.
Thursday, Oct. 24
Physics Division Theoretical Physics Seminar: "The qq Interaction in the Wilson Loop Approach"by Nora Brambilla, University of Milan, Italy, 3 p.m., Bldg. 203, Conference Room B221.
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Story ideas, comments and suggestions are welcome. The Argonne News office is in Building 201, room 2Q-02 (OPA-201). The fax number is ext. 2-5274. Send E-mail to Argonne News editor Dave Jacque.
Seminar listings: Send by inter-office mail to Evie Fagan, Building 201, room 2U-09 (OPA-201). Fax to ext. 2-5274, or send by E-mail.
Classified ads: Please limit ads to 25 words. Send by inter-office mail to Evelyn Fagan, Building 201, room 2U-09 (OPA-201). A drop box is located at the Argonne News office.
Classified Ads sent by electronic mail cannot be accepted!
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