Review of present groundwater monitoring programs at the Nevada Test Site
Groundwater monitoring at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) is conducted to detect the presence of radionuclides produced by underground nuclear testing and to verify the quality and safety of groundwater supplies as required by the State of Nevada and federal regulations, and by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Orders. Groundwater is monitored at water-supply wells and at other boreholes and wells not specifically designed or located for traditional groundwater monitoring objectives. Different groundwater monitoring programs at the NTS are conducted by several DOE Nevada Operations Office (DOE/NV) contractors. Presently, these individual groundwater monitoring programs have not been assessed or administered under a comprehensive planning approach. Redundancy exists among the programs in both the sampling locations and the constituents analyzed. Also, sampling for certain radionuclides is conducted more frequently than required. The purpose of this report is to review the existing NTS groundwater monitoring programs and make recommendations for modifying the programs so a coordinated, streamlined, and comprehensive monitoring effort may be achieved by DOE/NV. This review will be accomplished in several steps. These include: summarizing the present knowledge of the hydrogeology of the NTS and the potential radionuclide source areas for groundwater contamination; reviewing the existing groundwater monitoring programs at the NTS; examining the rationale for monitoring and the constituents analyzed; reviewing the analytical methods used to quantify tritium activity; discussing monitoring network design criteria; and synthesizing the information presented and making recommendations based on the synthesis. This scope of work was requested by the DOE/NV Hydrologic Resources Management Program (HRMP) and satisfies the 1993 (fiscal year) HRMP Groundwater Monitoring Program Review task.
- Research Organization:
- Nevada Univ., Las Vegas, NV (United States). Desert Research Inst.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC08-90NV10845
- OSTI ID:
- 10120673
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/NV-10845-32; ON: DE95006427; TRN: 95:002240
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: Sep 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
NEVADA TEST SITE
HYDROLOGY
GEOLOGY
TRITIUM
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
GROUND WATER
MONITORING
RADIONUCLIDE MIGRATION
CONTAMINATION
SITE CHARACTERIZATION
540230
450200
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS MONITORING AND TRANSPORT
NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS AND EXPLOSIVES