Project Services

RSCS, Inc. was established in 1989 and is owned and operated by three principals. Each of the principals has earned Health Physics degrees from the University of Lowell Massachusetts in Radiological Sciences and Protection and has earned Comprehensive Certification from the American Board of Health Physics. The collective experience of the three principals total over 80 years in virtually all areas of Health Physics including research, nuclear power, industrial, medical, instrumentation, calibrations, site characterization, remediation, decontamination and decommissioning, and radon testing.

Our consulting staff includes eight ABHP Certified Health Physicists and many professional and technical experts in various fields including ALARA, Hydrogeology, Soil Science, Radiochemistry, Decommissioning, Final Status Surveys, Project Management, and Engineering. Our services help solve our clients needs in various ways ranging from regulatory compliance support, decommissioning cost estimates, facility integration, and public communications. Our team of professionals has many years of experience and is well known and respected in their technical fields evidenced by numerous publications and professional presentations in a wide range of technical and managerial topics. We have also successfully solved regulatory issues and have worked with several agencies to ensure effective compliance. Our staff has played key roles in the decommissioning of small and large facilities, assisted clients in licensing activities, performed dose and shielding calculations, and provided a wide range of training courses. In short, our consulting staff is known for quality services with technical accuracy.

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Summary of our expertise in Environmental and Geotechnical Services

• Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM)
• Radiological Characterization, Site Closure and License Termination
• MARSAME/MARSSSIM Survey Support
• Groundwater Investigation
• Geotechnical Services
• Soil Vapor Extraction Technology

RSCS specializes in MARSAME based waste minimization techniques to support large site projects including Extended Power Uprates or decommissioning. This federally endorsed process is designed to logically approach the task of free releasing large amounts of material and equipment using a risk based processed developed from site historical documents and supplemented with sampling. Specialized In-Situ techniques and gross aggregate monitors using high purity germanium and scintillations media are used in parallel with traditional instrumentation to provide a unique process that greatly reduces the amount of time to disposition material for waste or free-release for recycling. In addition these techniques can reduce the need for confined space entry or additional material handling contributing to reduced worker risk. RSCS can provide support from procedures and technical evaluations all the way to full turn-key solutions for its clients.

RSCS provides turn-key groundwater investigation, monitoring, remediation and modeling services. Our focus is on radiological contaminants, however our staff is trained and qualified to address any environmental contaminant of concern. The RSCS staff is familiar with facility operations that involve the use, transport and storage of radioactive materials including spent fuel pools, reactor containment structures, storage tanks, discharge lines and primary and secondary systems. Our experience in radiological groundwater characterization has supported the characterization and remediation of groundwater at operating and decommissioning nuclear power facilities as well as radiopharmaceutical research facilities, laboratories and universities.

NEI 07-07 Groundwater Protection Initiative Support

• RSCS conducts comprehensive groundwater investigations and assessments in support of nuclear facilities. Tasks include consulting and field support to implement the Nuclear Energy Institute’s 07-07 groundwater protection initiative. Our support includes development and implementation of investigation and monitoring strategies, characterization of local groundwater flow to identify plant-related radionuclides in the environment, the development and field implementation of groundwater fate and transport numerical modeling, as well as the development of hydrogeologic input parameters for modeling dose using the RESRAD numerical model code.

RSCS can support your project with planning, implementing and interpretation of a broad spectrum of geotechnical investigation methods to support the needs of you site including:

• 3D Site Digitization
• Aquifer Testing (pump tests)
• Down-hole data logging instrumentation
• Down-hole Geophysical Logging
• Extraction Well Design and Installation
• Geotechnical Soil and Bedrock Boring Description
• Groundwater Fate and Transport Modeling
• Groundwater Sampling
• Monitoring Well Design and Installation
• Slug Testing
• Soil and Sediment Sampling
• Soil Resistivity Measurements
• Surface Geophysical Survey Techniques (GPR, EM, T. Conductivity)

These geophysical methods provide our clients with high quality geospatial data sets that support characterization and site investigations that can support a broad range of projects including groundwater protection/investigation, buried pipe investigations, subsurface mapping and construction.

RSCS, in conjunction with the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), has developed an innovative Soil Vapor Extraction System (SVES) for monitoring subsurface soils above the water table for tritium contamination. Tritium (H-3) is a radioisotope of hydrogen and typically occurs in the environment as tritiated water (HTO or T2O). The EPRI SVES extracts and collects water vapor from the subsurface as a distillate that can be analyzed for the presence of tritium. RSCS has extensive experience researching this technique and successfully deploying the system in the field. The technology has been used to characterize contaminated soil/soil volumes, estimate the extent of shallow groundwater plumes and investigate pipe leaks in unsaturated soil. The Tritium SVES is minimally invasive and can be deployed rapidly using a variety of instillation methods including direct push (geo probeTM) soil coring, conventional drilling and soil vacuums. These installation methods create an excavation in which a soil vapor extraction point can be installed. Soil vacuum techniques provide the fastest and safest installation option in areas of dense underground utilities.

Advantage/Cost Benefit

• Provides a large sample volume (bulk), undiluted by groundwater, relative to conventional monitoring well sampling methods.
• Easily installed using common excavation methods.
• Implemented/sampled regularly and in conjunction with conventional monitoring wells this technology can be useful as an early leak and spill detection tool.
• A means to optimize monitoring well location and remedial systems/actions.
• Characterize tritium distribution in the subsurface without the installation of conventional monitoring wells.

RSCS can perform shielding and dose evaluations for complex geometries and various source terms. We use state of the art radiation transport codes; such as Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) from Los Alamos National Laboratory and GEANT4 from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). These codes use the latest physics models (1eV up to 100 GeV) and allow single or coupled transport of the following particles:

• Gamma / X-rays
• Electrons / Betas
• Neutrons
• Protons
• Alphas and heavy nuclei

We offer complex dose reconstruction for accident scenarios and potential contamination events. Our staff has extensive experience calculating dose from exposure pathways including inhalation, ingestion, and external radiation fields. In addition, RSCS has the ability to calculate internal dosimetry kinetic modeling from bioassay data.

RSCS performs studies to determine site specific correction factors for nuclear power plants, particle accelerators, and research facilities. These correction factors are recommended as they provide more accurate dosimetry results over the use of default values from the vendor. Correction factors are recommended to be done with any of the following changes: in dosimetry type or provider, changes to power levels, changes to system components or shielding in containment, changes to reactor head design, beginning of ISFSI fuel campaigns, change from ICRP-26 to 60 neutron dose coefficients. RSCS performs these measurements using Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counters, Multi Sphere techniques, and/or H-3 Neutron Spectrometer to measure true dose equivalent and spectral qualities of the neutron radiation fields. Custom ANSI 13.11-2009 compliant phantoms are used to perform these measurements with dosimeters in containment vessels designed to satisfy site engineering requirements.

Using NIST traceable equipment we offer precision measurements for photon and neutron sources. Our main characterization equipment for photon and neutron fields are the Exradin spherical ion chambers and the HAWK Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter (TEPC), respectively. Error analyses are performed for characterizations in accordance to ANSI/NCSL Z540 GUM and NCRP112 methodology.