Groundwater modeling to support risk assessment at Rocky Flats Plant, Colorado
- Woodward-Clyde Federal Services, Denver, CO (United States)
- EG and G Rocky Flats, Inc., Golden, CO (United States)
Operable Unit No. 2 (OU2) of the Rocky Flats Plant (RFP), located west of Denver, Colorado, has been the site of extensive environmental investigations related to contamination from past radioactive and chemical waste storage and disposal practices. As part of the OU2 Phase 2 RCRA Facility Investigation/Remedial Investigation (RFI/RI) process, numerical groundwater fate and transport modeling using the MODFLOW, MT3D, and ONED3 codes was performed to support the data needs of the OU2 Human Health Risk Assessment. Characterization of OU2 physical conditions indicates that complex subsurface geologic conditions dominate the hydrogeology and contaminant distribution and transport within OU2. Because the sole purpose of the groundwater fate and transport modeling for this project was to support the needs of the human health risk assessment, it was adequate to limit the degree of model complexity to that necessary to provide conservative estimates of contaminant loading to local creeks, thus resulting in conservative estimates of human health risk. To accomplish this, the complex, multi-layer, highly transient site conditions were simplified to an equivalent, single-layer, steady-state system that incorporated the large-scale behavior of the integrated OU2 system.
- OSTI ID:
- 113199
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-940499-; ISBN 1-56590-014-6; TRN: 95:022487
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Federal environmental restoration and waste minimization conference and exhibition, New Orleans, LA (United States), 25-29 Apr 1994; Other Information: PBD: 1994; Related Information: Is Part Of 1994 Federal environmental restoration III and waste minimization II conference and exhibition: Proceedings. Volume 1; PB: 783 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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