Hydrologic resources management program. FY 1995 progress report

Abstract

This report presents the results of FY 1995 technical studies conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as part of the Hydrology and Radionuclide Migration Program (HRMP), a multi-agency program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office (DOE/NV), to address the environmental consequences of nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). A priority is to better characterize the complex near-field environment in order to assess and predict the movement of radionuclides in groundwater. Other participating organizations include the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Desert Research Institute (DRI) of the University of Nevada. A radiologic source term in excess of 10{sup 8} curies of tritium, fission products, activation products and actinides is residual from more than three decades of underground nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Burial depths to insure containment of these explosions necessitated firing approximately one third of the more than 800 underground nuclear tests within one cavity radius or below the static water table. Work at LLNL has focused on studies of radionuclide transport under saturated, partially saturated or unsaturated conditions as well as investigations of the stable, radiogenic and cosmogenic isotope systematics of NTS groundwaters. LLNL has prioritized these studies because of the significance for potential radionuclide migration at the Nevada Test Site. LLNL utilizes expertise in nuclear weapons testing, radiochemical diagnostics, nuclear test phenomenology, mass spectrometry, aqueous geochemistry and field and laboratory studies of radionuclide migration to bring a unique measurement and interpretative capability to this research.