Mike Neal is a Principal Engineer/Scientist and has more than 30 years of expertise in environmental engineering and pollution abatement, risk assessment for all environmental media pathways to reconstruct radiological dose and toxic chemical exposures, and special nuclear material (SNM) and hazardous and radioactive waste management. For air quality, he has conducted air pollution dispersion compliance modeling for fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, assessed inhalation health risks with air emission tests for radionuclides, heavy metals and volatile organic compounds, and prepared expert testimony for air pollution compliance. Ground water plume contamination modeling for potentially responsible parties involved both radioactive and toxic chemical contaminants of concern. He has established environmental restoration and decommissioning site characterization data and final contamination/pollution risk-based clean up levels based on future land use at a large variety of commercial, DOD, and DOE facilities, under CERCLA, RCRA, and NRC licensing requirements.
He has developed a relational data base for performance data and documentation of decommissioning experience for technology transfer, which included the implementation of passive/active neutron assay for fissile material contamination to picocurie per gram detection limit soil concentrations. He prepared a waste management plan for characterization, treatment, minimization, storage, and disposition of project decommissioning waste for a depleted uranium facility, prior to submittal of the project-decommissioning plan to the NRC Agreement State. He provided an entire new chapter addressing radioactive waste treatment for a complete revision of the Decommissioning Handbook for U.S. DOE Office of Environmental Restoration. New guidance was also developed to address preparation of implementation plans to comply with Occupational Radiation Protection (10 CFR 835) requirements as applied to decommissioning projects.
Dose reconstruction and toxic chemical exposure involved identification of screening levels for radionuclides and hazardous chemical contaminants of concern, determination of source terms with uncertainty analysis and their release points, environmental pathway analysis, and verification and validation of air and ground water transport models at those facilities. He has prepared safety procedures and operating manuals for SNM and Low-Level and Transuranic radioactive mixed waste facilities. The manuals addressed system malfunctions, ventilation, radiation monitoring for liquid and airborne effluents, emergency procedures, and limiting conditions for operation (LCO), which were approved by the Sandia National Lab Radiological and Criticality Safety Committee. He has drawn on this considerable experience to perform expert analysis of the operations involving uranium and mixed oxide/plutonium fuel fabrication facilities, and several fossil fuel and nuclear power utilities, which were used during litigation. Mr. Neal received his B.S. from Ohio State University and his M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Texas, School of Public Health.