Estimated recharge rates at the Hanford Site
The Ground-Water Surveillance Project monitors the distribution of contaminants in ground water at the Hanford Site for the U.S. Department of Energy. A subtask called {open_quotes}Water Budget at Hanford{close_quotes} was initiated in FY 1994. The objective of this subtask was to produce a defensible map of estimated recharge rates across the Hanford Site. Methods that have been used to estimate recharge rates at the Hanford Site include measurements (of drainage, water contents, and tracers) and computer modeling. For the simulations of 12 soil-vegetation combinations, the annual rates varied from 0.05 mm/yr for the Ephrata sandy loam with bunchgrass to 85.2 mm/yr for the same soil without vegetation. Water content data from the Grass Site in the 300 Area indicated that annual rates varied from 3.0 to 143.5 mm/yr during an 8-year period. The annual volume of estimated recharge was calculated to be 8.47 {times} 10{sup 9} L for the potential future Hanford Site (i.e., the portion of the current Site bounded by Highway 240 and the Columbia River). This total volume is similar to earlier estimates of natural recharge and is 2 to 10x higher than estimates of runoff and ground-water flow from higher elevations. Not only is the volume of natural recharge significant in comparison to other ground-water inputs, the distribution of estimated recharge is highly skewed to the disturbed sandy soils (i.e., the 200 Areas, where most contaminants originate). The lack of good estimates of the means and variances of the supporting data (i.e., the soil map, the vegetation/land use map, the model parameters) translates into large uncertainties in the recharge estimates. When combined, the significant quantity of estimated recharge, its high sensitivity to disturbance, and the unquantified uncertainty of the data and model parameters suggest that the defensibility of the recharge estimates should be improved.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC06-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 10122247
- Report Number(s):
- PNL--10285; ON: DE95008084
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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