Conceptual Models of Flow through a Heterogeneous, Layered Vadose Zone under a Percolation Pond
Understanding how water and solutes move through the vadose zone is necessary to make effective remedial action decisions where contaminants were spilled or leaked at the ground surface or were buried in shallow land-disposal sites. In layered, heterogeneous systems, high contrasts in hydraulic conductivity can lead to formation of perched water zones, and enhanced lateral spread of contamination. Two conceptual models are considered solute for migration through the vadose zone. In the diffuse flow conceptual model, perched water zones accumulate until the head over the perching layer becomes sufficient to drive the infiltration through the perching layer. In the preferential flow conceptual model, perched water moves laterally until a path around the perching layer is encountered. Preferential flow paths can enhance contaminant migration because greater moisture saturation leads to higher advective velocities, and the preferential flow paths bypass low permeability layers with higher sorption capacity. Monitoring wells and instrumented boreholes were installed around a newly constructed industrial-waste percolation pond and an ephemeral river that lie over a 150-m-thick layered vadose zone. Background data gathered before discharge to the pond began show the presence of at least one, and possibly two, deep perched zones. The shallower zone, at approximately 45-m below land surface (bls), extends 800-m south of the river to the vicinity of the pond. There is a deeper zone at 90-m bls, southeast of the pond, in the direction away from the river. The river last contained water in May 2000, two years before data collection began in the summer of 2002. Two significant implications of this are (1) perched water persists for several years in the absence of surface recharge, and (2) lateral migration of perched water extends on the order of a kilometer from the river. Hydrological data collected and analyzed since discharge to the pond began in October 2002 indicate a high degree of spatial variability within the shallow subsurface, resulting in directional flow in a southern direction from discharge to the south cell and a northern direction from discharge to the north cell. Water arrival was observed at deeper locations before shallower ones, and lateral transport was observed not only at basalt/interbed interfaces but also within thick basalt layers. Recharge was observed as deep as 87-m bls and as far away as the Big Lost River 860-m to the north. New perched zones formed at the first alluvium/basalt interface on the southern end of the pond after discharge began to the south cell and at deeper lithologic interfaces where monitoring wells were completed on the northern, southern, and western perimeter of the pond. Preferential flow was found to be the most prevalent type of flow at the Vadose Zone Research Park, in contrast to the current INEEL conceptual model of vadose zone transport that adopts the diffuse flow model for contaminant transport predictions.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG07-02ER63508
- OSTI ID:
- 838816
- Report Number(s):
- EMSP-86679-2004; R&D Project: EMSP 86679; TRN: US200508%%513
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 2 Feb 2004
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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