The Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability Site Workstation System

The Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) is a centralized emergency response service that assesses the consequences that may result from an atmospheric release of toxic material. ARAC was developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Defense (DOD) and responds principally to radiological accidents. ARAC provides radiological health and safety guidance to decision makers in the form of computer-generated estimates of the effects of an actual, or potential release of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Upon receipt of the release scenario, the ARAC assessment staff extracts meteorological, topographic, and geographic data from resident world-wide databases for use in complex, three-dimensional transport and diffusion models. These dispersion models generate air concentration (or dose) and ground deposition contour plots showing estimates of the contamination patterns produced as the toxic material is carried by the prevailing winds. To facilitate the ARAC response to a release from specific DOE and DOD sites and to provide these sites with a local emergency response tool, a remote Site Workstation System (SWS) is being placed at various ARAC-supported facilities across the country.. This SWS replaces the existing antiquated ARAC Site System now installed at many of these sites. The newmore » system gives users access to complex atmospheric dispersion models that may be run either by the ARAC staff at LLNL, or (in a later phase of the system) by site personnel using the computational resources of the SWS. Supporting this primary function are a variety of SWS-resident supplemental capabilities that include meteorological data acquisition, manipulation of release-specific databases, computer-based communications, and the use of a simpler Gaussian trajectory puff model that is based on Environmental Protection Agency`s INPUFF code.« less