Subsurface moisture regimes and tracer movement under two types of trench-cap designs for shallow land burial sites

Abstract

The Los Alamos work has focused on proper design of shallow land burial (SLB) sites in arid and semiarid regions and on applying corrective measures to existing sites. One of the most important design features affecting the probability of movement of radionuclides in SLB sites is the type of trench cap placed over the waste. The cap influences such interdependent parameters as erosion, water infiltration and percolation, and biointrusion. To obtain experimental data for arid and semiarid sites, two different designs of trench caps, one with topsoil underlain with a cobble/gravel biobarrier and one with topsoil underlain with crushed tuff, were compared with respect to (1) seasonal changes in volumetric soil water content, and (2) downward migration of tracers emplaced directly below each type of trench cap. The causes for the large differences in concentrations found in this experiment need to be investigated further. Problems in environmental modeling and monitoring of arid and semiarid SLB sites because of heterogeneities in the soil profiles and their implications for SLB waste management need to be better understood. More work in trench-cap design and its influence on the many pathways available for mobilization is needed.