"In short, the defense sector is a crucial player in the Obama administration's national strategy of innovation to address energy and climate challenges. What you are doing in this domain is immensely important. It is the leading edge, and the White House very much appreciates it." With these remarks, Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, praised attendees at the Partners in Environmental Technology Technical Symposium & Workshop for their dedication and achievements.

Plenary, technical session, and short course presentations from the 2011 Partners in Environmental Technology Technical Symposium & Workshop are now available for general viewing at http://symposium2011.serdp-estcp.org.

ESTCP has announced 27 new awards for demonstrations of emerging energy technologies on military installations through its Installation Energy Test Bed initiative. This initiative is playing a key role in testing, evaluating, and scaling up emerging energy technologies to accelerate their deployment across the department. A list of the selected projects may be found here.

Congratulations to Dr. Hans Paerl, William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences at The University of North Carolina’s Institute of Marine Sciences, who was awarded the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation’s Odum Award. For four decades, Dr. Paerl has worked to clarify the causes, consequences, and mitigation of harmful algal blooms in estuarine and costal environments. Dr. Paerl is engaged in SERDP’s Defense Coastal/Estuarine Research Program at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.

More than 65 SERDP and ESTCP FY 2012 new start projects have been selected for funding. A full listing of project numbers, titles, and performers is available here.

SERDP released two solicitations on October 27 seeking proposals for FY 2013 funding. Through a Federal Call for Proposals and a Broad Agency Announcement, funds are available through a competitive process to both Federal and private sector organizations to perform basic and applied research and advanced technology development. All pre-proposal submissions for the Core Solicitation are due January 5, 2012. All SEED proposals are due March 8, 2012.

DoD’s Installation Restoration Program has set goals to achieve Response Complete (RC) at 90 percent of sites at active installations and Formerly Used Defense Site properties by the end of FY 2018 and to achieve RC at 95 percent of these sites by the end of FY 2021. Despite substantial progress made in the past 20 years, significant challenges remain for remediation of chlorinated solvent-contaminated groundwater at some sites. Cleanup to unrestricted use is often desired, but technically difficult to achieve, and sustainable remediation has become an increasingly important goal. To address these challenges, SERDP and ESTCP hosted a workshop on investment strategies to optimize research and demonstration impacts in support of DoD’s restoration goals. A review of the science, remediation technology, characterization and monitoring technology, and technology transfer needs identified at the workshop is presented in a summary report.

Congratulations to ESTCP investigators Hua Cai, Alessia Eramo, Patrick Evans, Rodney Fricke, and Rachel Brennan who were awarded the prestigious McKee Groundwater Protection, Restoration, or Sustainable Use Award by the Water Environment Federation. The team was recognized for a thesis paper written by Hua Cai of The Pennsylvania State University that detailed work performed under ESTCP project In Situ Bioremediation of Perchlorate in Vadose Zone Soil Using Gaseous Electron Donors (ER-200511).

SERDP Principal Investigators recently presented a paper on their award-winning research at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Applied Vehicle Technology (AVT) Symposium on Munition and Propellant Disposal and its Impact on the Environment, October 17-20, 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland. This research was recognized with The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP) Achievement Award (2010) for significantly advancing the knowledge and understanding of the environmental fate and ecotoxicology of energetic materials to improve the ecological risk assessment of testing and training ranges at defense installations in TTCP nations.

SERDP requests proposals to perform fundamental ecological research on estuarine, coastal, and associated terrestrial ecosystems that are necessary to sustain military readiness. The DCERP is an existing SERDP program that involves the execution of ecological research within the context of military land and other resource use. This call for research proposals is intended to fund a new DCERP effort for a period of five years and also provide new thematic directions to guide the research effort. Researchers from Federal organizations, universities, and the private sector can apply for SERDP funding. Proposals are due January 5, 2012. For complete details about this opportunity, visit www.serdp-estcp.org/Funding-Opportunities/SERDP-Solicitations/Resource-Conservation-Special-Solicitation.