The Radiological and Environmental Sciences Laboratory (RESL) is a government-owned and government-operated laboratory operated by the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

Operations Office. It reports directly to the DOE-ID Assistant Manager for Technical Programs and Operations, and is located at the IRC in Idaho Falls, Idaho. RESL and its predecessor organizations have been part of the DOE-ID since 1949. RESL provides an unbiased technical component to DOE oversight of contractor operations at DOE facilities and sites. As a reference

laboratory A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratories are found in a variety of settings such as schools ...

, it conducts cost-effective measurement quality assurance programs that help assure that key DOE missions are completed in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. By assuring the quality and stability of key laboratory measurement systems throughout DOE, and by providing expert technical assistance to improve those systems and programs, it assures the reliability of data on which decisions are based. As a result, customers and stakeholders have greater confidence that those programs protect workers, the public, and the environment. RESL's core scientific capabilities are in

analytical chemistry Analytical skill, Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to Separation process, separate, identify, and Quantification (science), quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute t ...

and radiation calibrations and measurements. The RESL staff includes professional chemists, physicists, health physicists, engineers, computer programmers, and technicians, many of whom have advanced degrees. Their professional involvement includes participating in professional society activities, acting as reviewers and participating on working groups and committees for organizations such as the American Society for Testing and Materials, the Health Physics Society, the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

, the Council on Ionizing Radiation Measurements and Standards, the American Water Works Association, the

American National Standards Institute The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...

, and the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. M ...

. Constructed in 1951, the original RESL facility was demolished in 2018, and a "behemoth midcentury radiation detector" weighing 55 tons and located in the structure was "salvaged for modern use because of its invaluably rare material composition".

References

External links

Radiological and Environmental Sciences Laboratoryhps.org
United States Department of Energy national laboratories Research institutes in Idaho {{US-gov-stub