Employing Agency Name & Address: Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20460
Contact's Name: Jonathan Major, Xinyue Tong, Jay Santillan
Email Address: Major.Jonathan@epa.gov, Tong.Xinyue@epa.gov, santillan.eugenio-felipe@epa.gov
Dates Needed: Summer 2020 and Fall 2020. The exact start and end dates can accommodate the intern’s schedule.
Weekly Hours Needed: Up to 40 hours per week. The exact hours can accommodate the intern’s schedule. The duties could accommodate more than one intern. The exact project to be executed during the internship can be discussed and developed between the intern and EPA hosts, based on available time and data resources.
Internship Title & Description: WIPP, developed by DOE in southeastern New Mexico about 26 miles east of Carlsbad, is the nation's first and only facility for deep geological disposal of defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste. The facility is mined in a stable salt bed 2150 feet below the ground surface. SE New Mexico was selected due to its stable geology, thick impermeable salt layers, and local support. Defense TRU waste consists of clothing, tools, rags, residues, debris, sludge, soil, and other items contaminated with plutonium and other man-made radioactive elements. WIPP can accept two types of shipments: Contact-handled (CH) waste: dose rate < 200 mrem/hr measured at container surface and Remote-handled (RH) waste: dose rate up to 1,000 rem/hr (no more than 7,080 m3, or 5% by volume). In the WIPP LWA of 1992 and 1996 amendments, Congress gave EPA the authority to develop the criteria to implement the generally applicable radioactive waste disposal standards specifically for the WIPP. WIPP began to receive waste shipments in 1999. At the end of 2019, 12,638 waste shipments containing over 172,000 waste containers have been received at WIPP.
Virtual Job Duties: Produce a GIS database and associated map products for use by EPA staff for the WIPP and the Delaware Basin region of southeast New Mexico around and south of Carlsbad, NM to track and verify information provided by DOE along with other state and federal agencies. DOE has a GIS database that would be the starting point for the EPA work. The Delaware Basin is part of the oil and natural gas-rich Permian Basin that covers west Texas and southeast New Mexico. The database should include subsurface data derived from publically available industry and government resources and wells drilled by DOE in support of WIPP characterization and monitoring. Location of production wells inside the Delaware Basin. Location, timing, rate, depth (formation), and total volume of wastewater injection wells inside and surrounding the margins of the Delaware Basin. Location, time, and depth of brine encounters during drilling activities inside the Delaware Basin. Location of pipelines and other infrastructure The GIS database would parallel and incorporate data from DOE’s Delaware Basin Drilling Surveillance Program (DBDSP). The GIS database may also include data from the WIPP groundwater monitoring program to support and allow independent hydrological analyses by EPA staff. Other database parameters that may be included: Location, time, and magnitude of earthquakes inside the Delaware Basin. Hydrological and climatological data, including water quality data (where applicable), and Air monitoring data to support EPA NESHAPS work. Job duty includes literature reviews, online research, database entry and creation, and GIS maps.
Internship Application Requirements: Resume and Unofficial Transcript
Submit application: Submit to Tom Peake (peake.tom@epa.gov) via email.
Application deadline: 09/30/2020
