History of Remedial Process Optimization
Although geospatial methods were developed in the 1800s and early 1900s, federal agencies only recently have begun using these methods for optimizing environmental projects. Optimization efforts started in earnest with the remedial system evaluation process developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the late 1990s, and the subsequent remedial performance optimization process. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) also began efforts for remedial process optimization at about the same time. Early guides for optimization developed by USACE detailing the conduct of optimization have grown to include checklists and guides to optimize specific systems for more than 20 different situations; see USACE guidance (USACE) and USACE checklists (USACE 1999).
Table 19 describes the status of optimization activities in the federal agencies. Private sector optimization is also underway as these techniques become more widely accepted and applied.
Table 19. Status of optimization activities in U.S. federal agencies. Source: Courtesy of Dr. Carol Dona USACE presented at the Federal Remedial Technologies roundtable November 2014.
| Agency | Optimization Policy (Y/N) | Remedial Phases | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| DOD | Y | Postconstruction and including remedy selection | General requirement to optimize – no specific requirements |
| Army | Y | Same as DOD | |
| USACE | Y | Same as DOD, also RA-O | Required optimizations on existing FUDS remedial systems with annual O&M costs>$100,000 |
| Navy | Y | All | Optimization across all remedial phases |
| Air Force | Y | All | Performance-based contracting (PBC) requires optimization approaches with major focus of achieving accelerated site completion |
| DOE | N | ||
| USEPA | Y | All | Formal program, selected third party optimizations, also recognizes processes typically used by project team such as CSM, TRIAD, or GR, as included in optimization |
