SUMMARY OF THE REMEDIATION TECHNOLOGIES DEVELOPMENT FORUM
REFINERY ALLIANCE
CONFERENCE CALL

February 1, 2001
3:00 p.m.- 4:30 p.m.



On February 1, 2001, the following members of the Remediation Technologies Development Forum's (RTDF's) Refinery Alliance met in a conference call:

Mark Lyverse, Chevron Research and Technology Company (Alliance co-chair)
Jeff Hostetler, TriHydro Corporation
Randy Jewett, Texaco Group
Dawn Kaback, Concurrent Technologies
Joe Jasper, Environmental Technology Commercialization Center
Ali Taveli, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality
Kathy Yager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Technology Innovation Office (TIO)

Also present were Carolyn Perroni of Environmental Management Support, Inc. (EMS), and Jason Dubow of Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG).


FEBRUARY 2001 MEETING

The Refinery Alliance will meet in San Luis Obispo, California, on February 27 and 28, 2001. On the first day of the meeting, the Alliance will tour the Guadalupe Oil Field. Carolyn Perroni, Kathy Yager, and Jeff Hostetler agreed to rent minivans to transport Alliance members to the site. (Attendees will be required to carpool to the Guadalupe Oil Field rather than arriving in separate cars.) Perroni said that Unocal, the entity hosting the site visit, has asked for more information about what Alliance members hope to learn during the visit. Mark Lyverse, Dawn Kaback, and Perroni agreed to talk (via conference call) to a Unocal representative about this.

On the second day of the meeting, Alliance members will meet at the Quality Suites Hotel between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Agenda items will include deciding on Alliance operating procedures, finalizing the Alliance's memorandum of understanding (MOU), reflecting on the Guadalupe Oil Field site visit, and forming a Technical Work Group to initiate a remediation project at Texaco's Casper, Wyoming, site. This latter topic will dominate much of the meeting's agenda. Attendees will be briefed on expectations for Technical Work Group members, regulatory issues that pertain to the site, and current knowledge about the site's contamination profile. After the formal meeting has adjourned, small groups will form in the late afternoon and early evening to continue discussions. One group will talk about the Technical Work Group. (Ali Taveli, Randy Jewett, John Myers, Kent Udell, and Hostetler will lead this group.) The other group will focus on organizing abstracts that have been submitted by Alliance members. (Randy Breeden, Yager, Perroni, and Kaback will lead this group.)


MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

Kaback said that a draft MOU is being circulated among Alliance members. Comments are due on February 8, 2001. A new Alliance member, said Kaback, recently responded with comments and asked for several stylistic changes. Call participants said that now is not the time to make dramatic stylistic changes, since most of the Alliance members have reviewed earlier versions of the MOU and have concurred with the latest draft. Nevertheless, Kaback agreed to look through the new Alliance member's comments to determine whether any could be incorporated into the final version of the MOU. She will e-mail the proposed changes to conference call participants by Monday, February 5, 2001. Yager will follow up by calling the new Alliance member, explaining which comments the Alliance can accommodate, and providing some background on the group's efforts to develop an MOU.

Kaback plans to send a revised version of the MOU to core Alliance members by February 12, 2001. In her distribution message, Kaback will make it clear that all final comments must be submitted by February 21, 2001. She will also ask people to let her know who will be serving as the signatory from participating organizations, agencies, and companies. After collecting straggling comments, Kaback will release the final MOU on February 22, 2001. Signatories will be asked to sign the MOU before the February 2001 San Luis Obispo meeting.


COOPERATIVE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT

The Alliance plans to perform work at the Texaco site in Casper, Wyoming. Jewett said that a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) will need to be developed to define how Alliance members will work together on this project. Yager asked Joe Jasper to provide information about CRADAs. Jasper obliged, saying that CRADAs can be used to establish working relationships between government and private entities. A CRADA is not a true contract, he said: if one party decides to terminate involvement, then the CRADA dissolves and the entity that has terminated the agreement is not penalized. Jasper said that CRADAs were developed so that the government can ensure beneficial use of the nation's investment in research and development. CRADAs help the federal government transfer federally owned technology to the private sector and/or state and local governments. To enter into a CRADA, Jasper said, partners must develop a work scope that defines project goals, outlines a research approach, indicates what deliverables will be completed, and describes what resources will be used. Jasper said that private-sector participants may contribute money or in-kind services, but government partners may only contribute the latter. Funds that private-sector partners contribute are held at EPA; the moneys may only be used for the specific projects agreed upon under the CRADA. If money is left over at the end of a project, Jasper said, it is returned to the private entity that contributed it. If new intellectual property is discovered during a project, the federal government grants the CRADA partners an exclusive licence for the property.

Jewett asked whether forming a CRADA between several oil companies could cause accusations of trust-like behavior. He said that the public gets nervous when it sees several oil companies meeting together; they fear that the companies are colluding and fixing prices. Jasper said that CRADAs have been signed with multiple private industry partners in the past. He was unaware of such relationships causing any problems or eliciting antitrust accusations. Jasper told the conference call participants to call him (216-898-6409) with any additional questions.


NEXT CONFERENCE CALL

Call participants agreed that another conference call should be held before the February 2001 Alliance meeting. Perroni will contact Kaback to determine when a call should be scheduled.