ML20150D061
| ML20150D061 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/28/1988 |
| From: | NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NACNUCLE-T-0001, NUDOCS 8807130279 | |
| Download: ML20150D061 (59) | |
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UNITED STATES O NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMIESSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR MASTE
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In the Matter of: )
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FIRST GENERAL MEETING )
) 1 AFTERNOON SESSION ,
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DATE: June 28, 1988 ,
LOCATION: Washington, D.C. . -
PAGES: 342 through 398 >ii.
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\~/ 1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2# ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WAS'lE 3 )
In-the Matter of: )
4 )
)
5 FIRST GENERAL MEETING )
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6 I AFTERNOON SESSION 7 Tuesday, June 2Ny1988 8
Room 1046 9 1717 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20555 10 The above-entitled matter came on for hearing, 11 pursuant to notice, at 1:00 p.m.
12 BEFORE: DR. DADE W. MOELLER 13 Chairman f) 14 Professor of Engineering in Environmental Health and Associate Dean for Continuing Education, School of Public Health 15 Harvard University Boston, Massachusetts 16 ACNW MEMBERS PRESENT:
17 DR. MARTIN J. ETEINDLER 18 Director, Chemical Technology Division Argonne National Laboratory 19 Argonne, Illinois 20- ACRS HEMBERS PRESENT:
21 DR. WILLIAM KERR Professor of Nuclear Engineering 22 and Director of the Office of Energy Research University of Michigan 23 Ann Arbor, Michigan 24 25 O
HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION -- (202)628-4888
342A J _1 DR.' PAUL G. SHEWMON Professor, Metallurgical Engineering Department 2 Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 3
CONSULTANTS:
4 D. Orth
-5 M. Carter J. Moody 6
INVITED GUEST:
7 DR. CLIFFORD V. SMITH 8
ACNW COGNIZANT STAFF MEMBER:
9 Richard Savio 10 NRC STAFF PRESENTERS:
11 John Greeves 12 Michael Tokar i
13 14 15 16 17
, 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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1 HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION -- (202)628-4888
342 U 1 A[TpRHQQy jgSgIQH 2 DR. MOELLER: The meeting will come to order.
3 We're going to resume with our discussions with 4 the DOE staff and Carl Gertz will be leading off.
5 DR. GERTZ: What I want to do is set the stage for 6 this afternoon a little bit. You are first going to hear 7 from Max Blanchard.on my staff. He's a member of my organiza-g tion. Secondly, then you'll near f; om Dwight Hoxic from the 9 Survey. And then you'll hear from Scott Sinnock from Sandia.
10 And then I'll introduce Jerry Semanski; about his model.
gg But I wanted to just add a couple of things that 12 you talked about this morning just to expand on a couple of 13 your questions. If you don't mind, gentlemen.
g4 You had asked about the NRC audits and things like 15 that. What they have done with our participants, is they 16 have audited Los Alamos. They've also participated very aggressively and vigorously in two audits of the Survey. One 17 .
jg just completed this week and one last month at Menlo Park, g, They are scheduled to be at Sandia next month and they've 20 also participated as observers at F&S and Holmes and --
J ;g So they've been very active. And we have about one audit 1
scheduled a month, in-depth audit, of which they participate 22 23 as an observer, provide a written report, and things like 1
that. So there's a very aggressive program going on.
24 And the other thing I just wanted to point out is 25 Heritogo Reporting Corporation
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,y 343 1 I think I told you that I feel one of the key aspects o'J the 2 program is the independent scientific study and the indepen-3 dent scientific capability at the labs in the Survey. That's 4 certainly an advance to the program. What my challenge right 5 now is to convince them that the data they collect has to be 6 usable in a licensing environment. And the phrase I use is 7 no matter if it's exemplary science, no matter what, it's not 8 data unless the NRC says it's data. And we hit them with 9 that pretty heard. And we'll continue to and we'll continue 10 to.
11 So with that, let me introduce Max to start his 12 presentation.
13 DR. BLANCHARD: Thank you. I'd like to spend about 14 l fifteen or twenty minutes giving you a brief overview of the 15 I
l workshop that so many of the previous speakers have discussed 16 and to do that I have an outline which goes through the topics ,
i 17 I'd like to describe, what, when, where, why. The topics that I
18 were discussed and who attended. The nature of the documenta-19 ,
tion that resulted from the workshop, as well as the results and conclusions from the meeting. And then some afterthoughts 20 l 21 that the Department has about perception. And finally, the 22 f plans for incorporating changes in the SEP.
23 A little later on Steve Brccum will discuss those 1
24 P l ans in a little bit greater detail than I. When he comes 25 back up.
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344 I Of course, the Department hosted this meeting at 2 the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. It was a three-day meeting 3 on April llth through the 14th and the topic was "Conceptual 4 Models About the Groundwater System at Yucca Mountain."
5 "he purpose was to consider conceptual models of 6 the site's groundwater system including influences that could 7 be disruptive over the 10,000 years. Influences like pro-8 cesses like tectonics or climate changes. But there was also 9 a longer term goal. In that it was to analyze the features 10 that were proposed at the models and try to ensure that the 11 plans for data collection were going to be adequate so that 12 at come subsequent time we could evaluate the conceptual 13 models several years from now.
14 Also, and you'll hear a little bit more about this 15 from Don Alexander. He mentioned it briefly this morning 16 but he'll pick up on it towards closure. It was also to en-17 sure that the release scenarios that are considered by Issue 18 1.1, Total Systems Performance Requirements, included all of 19 the meaningful conceptual models and processes that could 20 l disrupt the repository. Don alluded to various disruptive 21 scenarios and he showed a few Vu-Graphs and he'll get into 22 those scenarios a little bit later.
I 23 DR. STEINDLER: Might I ask--in the time prior to l
24 this meeting, was it clear to DOE--I'm sorry. Let me re-
% 25 phrase that. Was the concern that the NRC had about the l Heritage Reporting Corporation j ,,,,,,,...
345 1 inadequacies in the conceptual model scope, were those con-g 2 cerns clear to DOE? Did DOE understand what the problem was 3 that the NRC staff was highlighting?
4 DR. BLANCHARD: I think yes and no.
l 5 Dh. STEINDLER: Regardless of whether they agreed 6 with--
7 DR. BLANCHARD: Yes. I think the answer is yes 8 and no. We write a fairly complicated document and we didn't 9 realize just how complicated it was until we began having the 10 opportunity to communicate with other technical people who 11 were reading what we prepared. And we found out that we 12 weren't communicating effectively. And so we felt that it l 13 was incumbent upon us and still do to try to straighten this 14
' out so that the communication about things like the way it's 15 organized and the models specifically get more clearly ad-16 dressed.
17 I think the NRC technical comments helped us a 18 great deal in understanding how to improve our communication.
19 DR. KERR: I don't understand that answer to his 20 question frankly. I thought he said did DOE understand what 21 NRC's concerns were and your answer seems to indicate that 22 NRC didn't understari what you had written.
23 DR. BLANCHA.0: No. I think they--well, I don't i
24 ! want to say that the i,AC didn't understand what we had writ-1 I
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ten. They did and we didn't effective portray what we were l
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A) 346 I intending to portray.
g 2 DR. KERR: So they understood what you didn't know I
3 ' that you were putting in the document, is that a fair characte-4 I rization?
5 DR. BLANCHARD: I think we tried hard to prepare 6 a document which contained enough information about conceptual 7 models pertaining to each of the ologies, if you'll let me 8 use that word. The effectiveness with which we dealt with the 9 ascumptions and the uncertainties left something to be de-10 sired. So we are going to try to do it better.
11 DR. STEINDLER: Well, let me ask the question a 12 little bit differently. Were the issues between NRC and the 13 DOE more substantive than the simple matter of communication?
14 DR. BLANCHARD: Oh, I believe they were.
e 15 DR. STEINDLER.- Fine. Thank you.
16 DR. KERR: In the longer term goal, Part V under 17 Why, I can't tell whether what you are trying to identify is 18 different physical occurrences or alternate methods of model-19 ing and agreed upon set of physical occurrences. Which is it 20 that's a problem?
21 DR. BLANCHARD: Well, I think that we're looking l at models that describe tectonic processes, geochemical pro-22 }
23 cesses, or hydrole;fc processes, and changes to those pro-24 cesses. And in zhe course of portraying what we've written 25 in the SEP, we've described in general what we think are our Heritogo Reporting Corporation von m m.
347 I preferred models with descriptions of uncertainties.
2 DR. KERR: I guess I didn't make my question clear.
l 3 There are physical phenomena that one might identify such as an earthquake, volcano, whatever. Ona has, let's say, agreed 4l 5 upon those things that miaht happen. Now comes the task of l
6 j mathematically modeling them or conceptually modeling them.
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7 ; It seems to me one can separate the identification from the l
8 modeling and I can't tell whether V refers to the fact that 9 you and NRC have some differences of opinion about the physi-10 cal occurrences that might occur or whether you have a con-11 cern about the fact that having agreed upon the physical 12 lappearancesasadisagreementaboutthewayinwhichone 13 models them.
14 DR. BLANCHARD: Well, I think there are differences l
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of opinion about both.
16 DR. KERR: Okay.
17 DR. BLANCHARD: The topics that were planned--
18 I DR. KERR: So instead of this being an overview 19 of alternate conceptual models, it has to do with more than 20 ll just modeling. It's actually identification of physical 21 occurrences. Is that--
22 DR. BLANCHARD: Well, it comes down to a definition 23 of what is a model and a model. And there are two types of 24 models in a very global sense. One that represents pro-25 cesses that we believe are acting at the site, or will be Heritage Reporting Corporation
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6 348 1 acting in the future. And then the translation of those g 2 characteristics and processes into performance assessment 3 calculations where you are trying to relate how those models 4 or processes would interrupt or disrupt radionuclide releases 5 from the waste package. Both are models. Both require an 6 understanding of the processes and a quantification of the 7 things that are operating, but they have different ways of 8 being applied.
9 ! We have to accomplish both.
10 DR. KERR: And you and the NRC are concerned about 11 both of these?
12 DR. BLANCHARD: Yes.
l 13 DR. KERR: Not more emphasis on one than the other 14 one?
15 DR. BLANCHARD: No. I think we need emphasis on 16 l both. I'm sure we've heard that from the NRC staff, espe-l 17 ' cially from SETH and from our own performance assessment 18 people. And we're trying to lay out a process which will 19 elucidate both to the reader.
20 DR. KERR: So that when you talk about alternate 21 conceptual models you are really talking about alternate 22 views of what the world might be like over the next 10,000 23 years.
24 j DR. BLANCHARD: Yes.
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DR. KERR: And how many alternates does the NRC l Heritogo Reporting Corporation imm. m.
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349 1 think one should consider?
g 2 DR. BLANCHARD: Well, I think it's too premature 3 to come up with a number of alternates. We just want to make 4 l sure that given the processes that seem to be operating there 1
SI and the uncertainty in those processes, we want to make sure 6 that we've scoped out enough investigations so we can dis-7 cover the magnitude of those processes.
8 DR. KERR: Well, you presented something to them.
9 They concluded that you had not considered enough alternates, 10 is that a fair assessment?
11 DR. BLANCHARD: I think that's a fair assessment.
12 DR. KERR: Okay. How many alternates had you con-13 sidered when they didn't think you had considered enough?
DR. BLANCHARD: I don't think you can quantify the 14 15 , alternates because they are not listed one for one. Within 16 each area, in hydrology, for instances, there are different 17 ways to characterize the site and different ways to represent 18 the taanner in which water flows down and water vapor flows 19 I up and so each one of those has an uncertainty associated l
20 with it and how you deal with that in an alternative fashion 21 is part of what our dilemma is.
22 DR. KERR: Well, how will NRC know when you have 23 considered enough alternate models? Have they told you?
24 , DR. BLANCHARD: Well, they've given us a prescrip-W 25 i tion which we think is a good way to go.
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350 1 Vu-Graph in this talk addresses that.
2 DR. KERR: Okay. Thank you.
3 DR. BLANCHARD: If I don't get to an adequate ex-4 planation for this, please ask me again.
5 DR. KERR:
6 DR. BLAT;CAHRD : The plans for the workshop were 7 to spend two days talking about conceptual presentations 8I about the groundwater system at Yucca Mountain, and in order 9 to represent conceptual models, one needs things like as-10 sumptions, processes, boundary conditions, and available data.
11 So we asked those who were making presentations to make it 12 clear what those were and to the extent they could, also 13 identify additional data that would be needed later on.
14 The third day we had set aside for discussion of i
is similarities and differences, hoping that we could begin 16 assessing the sufficiency of the data collection plans that 17 are so badly needed as we upgrade the SEP from a consultation 18 draft into a statutory draft.
19 As the meeting progressed, the topics that were 20 covered included statements from the NRC, the State of Nevada 21 and the Department and then conceptual presentations by five 22 people. Bill Wilson, hydrologist from the Ge', logical Survey, l
23 ! talked about the Yucca Mountain geo-hydrologic system for P
l 24 both saturated and unsaturated. Scott Sinnock from Sandia 25 was involved in our performance assessment program. But Heritogo Reporting Corporation von u. .. .
f6 351 1 principally focusing on pre-waste and placement groundwater 2 travel time. Talked about ways in which conceptually they 3 are translating the groundwater models into numerical models 4 for performance assessment.
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Jerry .Sermanski from my staff described his con-6 ceptual considerations in a draft report that he's prepared 7 and is still preparing, about the Death Valley groundwater 8 sy s te. a .
I 9 Alan Dutton, from the Texas Bureau of Economic 10 Geology, discussed chemical geo-hydrologic signatures that it were useful in validating a hydrologic model which he'd like 12 ; to see applied to a Texas site.
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13 ! And Mike Ellis and Rick Schwiekert, from the Univer-14 sity at Reno, talked about a cross section that they are 15 hypothesiz'ng that's applicable for the basin and range pro-16 vince.
17 DR. MOELLER: To clarify it again, you are describ-18 ing what occurred at this meeting and you told us where the 39 meeting was held and the dates. The people at the meeting 20 then were representatives of the NRC, DOE and the State of 21 Nevada, plus I guess consultants to all groups or just con-22 sultants to DOE?
23 DR. BLANCHARD: I'm getting to that.
24 lI DR. MOELLER: Oh, okay.
23 DR. BLANCHARD: For those three days, each day i Horitogo Roporting Corporation lI m u. ....
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Y 352 i there was approximately 160 scientists and engineers, as 2
well as a number of news persons. They had a lot of coverage 3
from the news media. We had technical and management repre-
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4 sentatives within that 160 that came from the state and local 5 l offices, like the state engineers, the State Hydraulic En-6 ; gineers Office. We also had the Nuclear Waste Project Office 7
staff and their contractors from the state. We had university
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g from both out of town and in Las Vegas. We had private en-9 gineering and science companies that weren't affiliated with 10 DOE, NRC or the state.
gj We had representatives from the Shoshoni Indian 12 nation. Of course, for the U.S. Geological Survey, repre-33 sentatives that were not affiliated with the NNWSI project.
g People from Reston. And then NRC and their contractors and l
i 15 l ne Department and their contractors. So there was a fairly l
16 broad group of people that were there.
37 DR. KERR: Can you give me--I'm still trying to I
gg understand what a conceptual model is as contrasted with some l
I other kind of model. What alternative adjectives could one l
20 use to talk about different models?
y, DR. BLANCHARD: What adjectives could one use to 22 talk about different models?
DR. KERR: Well, I mean conceptual model picks out 23
,4 a class of models and I'm trying to understand that classifi-25 cation. It must be in contrast to some other kinds of models.
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353 1 DR. BLANCHARD: You are going through the same 2 process we went through as we tried to build this agenda for 3 the workshop, and that was what a model is to one person is 4 not going to be called a model to the next person. And so 5 we have, later on when Don Alexander gets up and discusses 6 ! the scenarios, he will explain the definition of the model I
7l that we're adopting for revisions to the SEP. During the 8 meeting, Dan Golson, for one, and John Trapp, for another, 9 and I think Seth Copeland, each proposed a definition as well 10 as a number of people from the Department.
11 DR. KERR: For what?
i 12 DR. BLANCAHRD: The definition of conceptual model 13 might be. And a lot of this is in the eyes of the beholder, 14 l I've tried to explain that we within the Department envision l$ two types of conceptual modele. That which you need--the 16 scientist needs to build an understanding of the processes 17 that are operating at the Mountain in different discipline 18 fields, like geology, geochemistry, climate, tectonics.
19 Then there's another set of models which relate l
20 I your understanding into a numerical process where you can 21 calculate radionuclide releases. This we gene ally refer 22 within our project to performance assessment modeling. Both I
23 are legitimate conceptual models. Both require very dif-24 forent approaches. But yet both can be referred to I think i
25 rightly so as conceptual models. For an understanding of i Heritage Reporting Corporation j
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354 1 processes and how they relate to each other.
g 2 DR. KERR: Thank you. ,
3 DR. BLANCHARD: From a documentation standpoint, 4 we had a court reporter there. We produced three volumes 5 that were distributed in May that describe what went on at i
6 l the meeting. The transcripts are now being analyzed by our 7 1 staff to determine if there's a significant missing aspect l
8 in the consultation draft of the SEP.
9 Moving on to the results of the workshop. The 10 principal criticisms that we received from the NRC technical 11 staff indicated first that the conceptual models were not 12 clear enough for them to understand. Second, that there was 13 insufficient information presented about those models with 14 ,
respect to things like assumptions, components, processes and i
15 testing.
16 l Although no new studies and activities were offered 17 at the workshop, some may be identified as a result of com-18 pleting the SEP revisions as a consequence of the workshop 19 and as a consequence of the NRC point papers, and the comments l
l 20 ; from the USGS that we received thus far.
21 At the close of the workshop, the recommendation 22 i from the NRC technical staff to DOE was to revise the SEP i
23 with a systematic approach for alternative conceptual models i
24 that would be integrated across all disciplines and that W 25 0 would address all performance objectives in 60.112.
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355 1 This meant a five-step sequence. First establish 2 what's known about present conditions of the natural and the 3 engineered barriers. Second, for each element in the natural 4 and the engineered barrier provide a discussion of the un-5 ! certainties and the assumptions that were made about that 6 element. Third, for each uncertainty state alternative hy-I 7 s poth<tSNs that's consistent with the existing data. Fourth, 8 L for each hypothesis, describe the investigation or the infor-9 mation that would allow us to discriminate between the hypo-10 theses. And fifth, prioritize these investigations to be 11 sure that we can avoid interference between tests. Don't i
12 conduct a test that would destroy your ability to conduct a 13 test later on when you find out that you really need that 14 information.
15 DR. KERR: Now, what is there about that list of 16 f recommendations that couldn't have been made before you ever 17 wrote the report? They sound like good sound recommendations 18 to me.
19 DR. BLANCHARD: I think they are good sound recom-20 mendations.
21 DR. KERR: So NRC maybe could have given you a list i
22 like that before you even got started?
23 DR. BLANCHARD: Well, I think everyone in the room 24 l Lad their idea of what they were expecting to see on con-l 25 l ceptual models. And because looking at conceptual models l
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'y 356 I and how they couple to each other from an engineering and 2 a science standpoint, it requires an assemblage of multi-3 discipline people to address the topic. And that's probably 4
l why it took a while to jell the ideas for whet needs to be 5 there. The hydrologists and the tectonics peop.19 have to 6 talk about how tectonics can change the hydrologic environment 7 i and then the performance assessment people have to talk with I
8 both of those to explain how they are going to try to trans-9 late that information into some sort of a method using math 10 and physics to calculate the radionuclides that would reach 11 the excessful environment.
12 So I think that those recommendations that came out 13 of that workshop were really a consequence of a multi-disci-14 pline team all looking at the subject of conceptual models 15 h[ with the perspective of, how are we going to deal with these 16 in the future? What advice do we want to see laid out?
17 DR. STEINDLER: In your previous Vu-Graph you in-i 18 ! dicated five recommendations.
i Is it fair to assume from your 19 reading of the workshop that the NRC provided you with in 20 effect, say, Recommendation No. 1, and inferred or allowed 21 you to infer that you didn't completely identify what is 22 known about, as you see written there, what is known about the 23 present and future states of natural and engineered barriers?
lI 24 h I mean, is that--let me rephrase that. The fact that you d
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t 357 I simplicity. Is that first one to give me a signal that the 2 NRC balieves DOE didn't do a complete job on that particular 3 l topic?
I 4 DR. BLANCHARD: Yes, I think so. I think that i
5 h, they felt that within the information we presented in Chapter 6 8, we had not presented in a fashion all of the components 7 l that make up that conceptual model. We left a number that 8 were inferred. You could read and say, well, that's under-9 stood. but we didn't do a clear enough job to be able to 10 elucidate, here are all of the assumptions that go with this 11 component.
12 DR. STEINDLER: Okay.
13 DR. BLANCHARD: Now, we've had time to begin work-14 ing on this and we've had afterthoughts from the meeting and 15 these are four points that I think I'd like to bring out to 16 ; you.
l 17 ! Don mentioned performance allocation this morning l
18 and it required goal setting. And one can get overzealous I
19 i with goal setting. The performance allocation process re-20 quires a postulate about how subsystem elements interact to i 21 define the behavior of the whole system. But we recognize 22 that this doesn't preclude examining alternate hypothesis 23 abcut how the system could behave. And we can do a better i
24 job in describing that.
d 25 At this stage we think it's far more important for ll i Heritage Roporting Corporation g; - . . _
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358 1 us to ensure that the available data, all of it, is examined g 2 rather than to focus on defending the correctaess of any 6
3 l model that we might have at this stage, at the beginning of l
4 l position, that's especially true.
0 5 The principal goal as we see it from the SEP is 5 ] to ensure that the Data Acquisition Program will obtain enough 7 information so that we have sufficient data to either under-8 ll stand and if not understand then bound the process and the
- i 9 l events that can disrupt containment.
10 And finally we think that the ACM meeting was bene-11 ficial. It was beneficial because it allowed us to receive 12 l ideas from the technical community at large about alternative 1
g 13 interpretations with respect to data that exists as well as 14 ! processes that could affect the site.
15 DR. STEINDLER: Is the distinction between under-h; 16 I standing and bounding the same as the distinction between 17 mechaaistic and emperical information?
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DR. BLANCHARD: Well, I don't know if I would make 18 l I
19 l the same analogy, but I think there may be some things that i
20 h we will never understand well enough so we can quantify within l
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! people's satisfaction. Like the origin of earthquakes and 22 the certainty with which they will reoccur and their magni-d 23 lj tude. In that case we'll have to work with upper bounds to h
That's what I meant by 24 h the extent that we understand them.
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I DR. KERR: liow will you know when you've considered 2 enough alternative models?
3 DR. 1;LANCliARD : How will we know when we've con-4 sidered enough alternative models?
5 DR. KERR: Yes.
6 DR. BLANC 11ARD : Well, that's a difficult question i
7 ! and I assume that over the next several years we'll be trying 8i to come up with an answer to that. The process is one of l
9 [ building a cadre of people within the program and without the I
10 l program and testing working hypothsis about processes that l
11 L can disrupt the site. This would include writing reports, 12 I having meetings with the NRC staff and with the state, as 13 well as presenting papers on these processes at science meet-14 ings so that we air the ideas across the national scientific t
i 15 community and get them exposed, h
16 I DR. KERR: Any good scientist does not like to 11 17 solve a problem without inventing two or three additional ones 18 so if you're depending on the scientists to make this deci-19 sion, the answer will be that you will always discover a few 20 new alternative models that you could consider. If you don't 21 begin to make some sort of decision about this, it seems to 22 me you will not ever know when you have finished.
l 23 j DR. BLANCl!ARD : Yes, you are quite right. And 24 that's where the performance assessment modeling comes in.
25 l Because they are charged with trying to determine what h Horilogo Reporting Corporoflon g ..
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360 1 difference does it make. Suppose this model in tectonics g 2 can do A, B or C with respect to disrupting containment and 3 isolation. It may. well be that any of those three events or i
4 i all three of them won't really have an impact on the amount 5 of radionuclides that could reach the excessfull environment i
i 6 in 10,000 years. So the performance assessment modeling ef-7 forts are geared towards looking at those things that would 8 have an impact on radionuclide releases.
9 DR. SMITH: Well, I guess you are going to explain i
10 it at some time, but following up on Bill. The thing that II lbothersmeiswhendoyoucometoclosurewiththisissue?
12 Because at some point you have to make a decision and there l 13 are still going to be a lot of models out there that people 14 will think that you should have locked at.
15 DR. BLANCHARD: Sure , we--
\l 16 [ DR. SMITH: You must have some process in mind to 17 come to making a decisior.
18 .
DR. BLANCHARD: We have a closure process thLt will i
19 be discussed in greater detail in this SEP than was in the i
20 j last SEP. It centers around developing position papers about 1
21 l sections in 10 CPR 60. The idea being that we take the avail-22 ! able data, look at a paragraph in 10 CFR 60, determine if we N
23 j have enough information to build an argument to demonstrate 24 ! we can comply and explain why we think we can comply. Then i
25 ! bring that as an argument or in a position paper out in the 4
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l 361 opJn, solicit a mee. ting with the NRC. Go through this two 2 or three times if we have to until we get to the point where 3l those who are chewing on it can't make significant changes to i
4 j it anymore. And at that point we envision this position paper l going from a neophyte stage into a maturation stage and we 5 l 1
6 put that on the shelf for use later on in building either the 7 l DEIS or in building a license application. Not feeling that d
g that had been closed but that we had gone a long ways towards 9 l reaching a general understanding for what was important with l
go respect to demonstrating compliance in the hopes that when we gg prepared the license application and the Department was inter-g; ; acting with NRC on that and in that time frame, that we could 13 reach closure because we'd already flushed through it several times. So that there wouldn't be something that we'd have to 34 l 15 [ go back out to the site to try to acquire completely new in-16 formation.
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As you realize, the site characterization plan is gg g updated every six months. So when we issued the statutory 39 version, we anticipate a series of meetings on technical 20 l subjects covering all of the ologies, if you will--forgive me 23 for using that--with the NRC staff so that we can begin 22 hbuildingthesepositionpapers.
Don will discuss more about those position papers.
23 i
34 lie mentioned them this morning and I think he'11 close on 25 that later on this afternoon.
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e tG 362 1 DR. SMITil: Thank you, g 2 DR. BLANCilARD: Okay. Plans for revising the SEP.
3 ! In late May we completed an action plan which involved a 1
4 multi-disciplire team of people from headquarters in the pro-5 ject as well as our project participants. The major efforts 6 that are underway focus that team on revising Chapters 1 7
through 5 as well as extensive revisions in Chapter 8. We i
8 ' have introductory type revis .n Section 80 through 82.
9 And a great deal more inform,. . na as in the overview in 8-31.
I 10 It describeu the philosophy, the approach and the definition 11 of conceptual models for use in the SEP. The guts ' the 12 j revisions are really in 8-312 through 8-317. These the
( 13 programs in hydrology, geochemistry, tectonics, climate, 14 I and so forth, i
15 We will be having extensive use of tables and 16 supporting texts to describe conceptual models with respect i
17 1 to the topics that were mentioned earlier in the closure of 18 the ACM meeting. Those five items that were discussed by 19 f John Lenahar..
20 i ! Other sections are under consideration. We're not d
21 quite sure whether we're going to be referring back to tables 22 in those three sections or whether we're going to have a i
23 ' separate set of tables.
24 l Also in Sections 8-32 through 8-35, we'll be revis-I 25 i ing the text to reflect considerations of alternate models il k
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363 1 also.
2 If you have further questions, I'll be glad to 3 answer them. If not, then what I'd like to do is explain 4 to you what Dwight Hoxie, Scott Sinnock and Jerry SemanskiL 5 will talk with you this afternoon about.
6 Of course, we don't have time here to present the 7 presen+ ations that were used at the Alternate Conceptual 8 Model workshop because Bill Wilson's, about hydrology of the 9 site, involved several hours. So what we decided to do is 10 to abstract it down to about thirty minutes and Dwight Hoxie, 11 hydrologist from the USGS, is going to discuss the unsaturated 12 zone model at Yucca Mountain.
13 Scott Sinnock will take a piece of the presentation 14 he used before and discuss translating the conceptual hydro-15 logic setting into performance assessment modeling. And I 16 hope that that wil) help answer some of the questions that 17 you all have about when is a model a model and what does it 18 mean in the eyes of the beholder.
19 And finally, Jerry Semanski will discuss his draft 20 repor' h se's revising it which is entit_ "Conceptual 21 Cons tions of the Death Valley Groundwater System."
22 And Jerc'r will talk for about sixty minutes.
23 Do you have any further questions?
24 DR. STEINDLER: It seems to me that your planned 25 position papers on the various parts of 10 CPR 60 sound like Heritage Reporting Corporation cm>m.m
. r;t 364 I a great idea. Do you have a planned schedule or some kind of g 2 target when the first of those is likely to come out?
3 DR. BLANCHARD: Well, we don't have a schedule 4 which shows the dates. We do have in the SEP now in draft 5 form identified topics and we have a working--
6 ? Let me interrupt if I may. We are de-7 veloping a process now for how we will be interacting in clos-8 ing up issues that are key issues that we believe can be 9 fruitfully closed before the licensing period starts with the 10 NRC. It's not clear certainly yet which ones of those might 11 be appropriate for this type of position paper or which ones 12 might be appropriate for rulemaking and how they will be 13 worked out.
14 I think we will have to play that in part as we 15 go and we what type of information is available, when we see 16 what the key issues really are as they are developed during 17 the characterization process.
18 We certainly will be closely working with NRC during 19 this time period and using a variety of methods to interact.
20 We certainly don't have that sciedule yet.
21 DR. BLANCHARD: Marty, does that come close enough 22 to what you were looking for?
23 DR. STEINDLER: Thanks very much.
24 DR. BLANCHARD: There'll be more information in the 25 statutory SEP about that subject.
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- l 365 1 DR. STEINDLER: Well, let me just comment that I 2 think that's a sound technical way to focus in on the issues 3 at hand.
4 DR. BLANCHARD: Thank you for your advice.
5 Dwight, are you ready?
6 DR. MOELLER: I understand that the handouts for this 7 presentation are being reproduced and should be available in 8 time.
9 DR. HOXIE: Good, because I'm going to skip some 10 of them, but I want you to have them out there so I don't 11 have to show the slides.
12 My name is Dwight Hoxie. I'm with U.S. Geological l 13 Survey in Denver. And I have a PhD in physics.
14 And I would like to briefly discuss this afternoon 15 the hydrology of the unsaturated zone at Yucca Mountain and 16 the reason that the hydrology of the unsaturated zone is so 17 important, of course, is because the unsaturated zone at 18 Yucca Mountain, Nevada, ranges from 750 to 500 meters thick 19 and this is what recommends the mountain as a potential re-20 pository site. This "ary, very thick distance between land 21 surface and the water table.
2: Yucca Mountain is composed of interated volcanic 23 ash. And in my talk I'm going to concentrate on two varieties .
24 I'm going to be talking about tuff--that's the indurated 25 volcanic ach. I'll be talking about welded tuff and nonwelded l
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,f) 366 1 tuff. And rather than going through a lengthy definition of g 2 the two, I'm going to hand around some samples. So Exhibit 3 A is going to be a core of welded tuff and little angular 4 yellow buff colored rock is going to be an example of non-5 welded tuff. So the welded tuff that I have here is not from 6 Yucca Mountain but it has very similar properties hydrologi-7 cally speaking to the Topopah Spring unit and the nonwelded 8 tuff I'm handing around again is not from Yucca Mountain but 9 it's very similar in its properties to the Calico Hills. So 10 I would like to circulate these and I think by looking at 11 them.and getting a feel for them, you'll have an idea of what 12 tuff is.
13 DR. SHEWMON: Is the porosity in both connected or 14 is only in one?
15 DR. HOXIE: Well, I think that's a very, very diffi-16 cult kind of thing to say because the--I'm going to talk about 17 that, but the perosity of the welded tuff, of course, is very 18 low. And we don't know how much of that is interconnected 19 because all we can measure is the total porosity. There's 20 a very high interconnected perosity to the nonwelded unit 21 because if you drop water on them they will absorb it.
22 DR. SHEWMON: Fine. !
23 DR. HOXIE: The first thing I would like to do is 24 to kill several birds I hope with a single stone. First of 25 all I would like to locate Yucca Mountain. It's about 140 Heritago Reporting Corporation I cao .a au
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367 1 kilometers northwest of Las Vegas and so it's located on this 2 map right here. The map that I'm showing you is a map of the 3 entire area. The dctted line out here actually is the sup-4 posed boundaries of a groundwater flow basin. This is within 5 the saturated zone.
6 The various symbols on here represent different 7 mountain ranges with different rocks that are outcropping.
8 The thing that is of most interest to us is this area up in 9 here which is all volcanics of tertiary age, so on the order 10 of--well, at least of Yucca Mountain, on the order eleven 11 or twelve million years in age. So Yucca Mountain is sitting 12 here. Jackass Flat sitting out here. Crater Flat is sitting 13 to the west. And Yucca Mountain is essentially a wedge-shaped 14 block of ridges that are delineated by normal fuults which 15 dips deeply to the west, in which the west side has been dis-16 placed downward relative to the east side.
17 The Yucca Mountain achieves a total elevat# m of 18 of about 1800 meters above sea level. The central . for 19 the repository would be located about 1500 meters above sea 20 level. And at that point it is standing about 300 meters 21 above the surrounding valley floors.
22 l I think I'm going to be very presumptious and I l
23 do not want to get involved in a philosophical debate, but 24 this is the definition of a conceptual model which we are l
W 25 using in the geohydrology program and this definition does Heritage Reporting Corporation
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368 I app 7ar in Chapter 3 of the SEPCD. And what we are saying is 2 that a conceptual model--I'm saying for a physical system, 3 but in this case a hydraulic system, .with a set of hypotheses 4 that fit all the available data that we have, that are as 5 simple as possible, account for all known aspects of the 6 system, are internally consistent, and are testable and thus 7 falsifiable. And if we have hypotheses that are falsifiable, 8 we then have contesting hypotheses which then gives rise to 9 our alternative conceptual model and we must therefore devise 10 some kind of crucial or critical experiment to try to falsify 11 the wrong hypothesis.
12 The last item down here is that we hope--the plan l
l 13 is anyway--is that we will then come up with a conceptual 14 model that we can use on which to base numerical models by 15 which to calculate and therefore predict the system response, 16 say, over time, or to disruptive events, or what have you.
17 I'm a member of the working group 8 and we are 18 in terms of the NRC requirements are looking at all of these 19 aspects of it, all the way down to the point of all the hy-20 potheses that we can possibly think of down to the point of 21 those that are being test able and thus falsifiable. And 22 that's our mission and we're doing this as a group in hopes 23 that by looking at the data as objectively as possible, we 24 can come up with all of the reasonable hypotheses and try to h 25 identify those that are significant, those that are not, and Heritogo Reporting Corporation a,v us as.
369 i so forth. That is getting well beyond my talk however.
3 DR. KERR: It seems to me that if one could arrive 3 at the conceptual model that would satisfy all those criteria, 4 you would only need one.
5 DR. HOXIE: There's only one.
6 DR. KERR: I don't see why you'd need alternatives.
7 DR. HOXIE: Well, the thing is we're not talking 8 about alternative conceptual models as such. We're talking 9 about hypotheses that are testable and therefore falsifiable.
10 I'll try to illuminate this more in my talk. I have a good 11 example of that. And I'll try to explain what I mean by using 12 the talk to do that.
13 DR. MOELLER: Dr. Moody has a question.
14 DR. HOXIE: Yes.
15 DR. MOODY: Just a quick one. Explain what you 16 mean by internally consistent.
17 DR. HOXIE: Well, by internally consistent it means 18 that if you draw a conclusion from the set of hypotheses, 19 you cannot draw two conclusions that contradict themselves.
M Okay? That's what I mean by internally consistent.
21 DR. MOELLER: Now, the word falsifiable to me means 22 you are able to substitute something false in its place?
23 DR. HOXIE: No. What I'm saying is that, you know, 24 if we have hypothesis, we can never prove its truth, okay?
W 25 But we can find examples where it fails. Okay. So that's Heritage Reporting Corporation
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s I what we're looking for. The example of where it fail.
g 2 DR. MOELLER: Where it fails. Thank you.
3 DR. HOXIE: Unfortunately, you know, we can--this,.
4 is very philosophical and, again, as someone has pointed uut, 5 conceptual models are in the eye of the beholder. And I am 6 firmly convinced of that.
7 But I wanted to give you an idea of where we are 8 in the geohydrology program. And so the components of a 9 conceptual model now for a hydrologic system, the first thing 10 that we need is the geometry which is defined by the geologic 11 framework of the system that we're looking at. Wa need 12 initial and the boundary conditions and I call that environ-13 mental setting. The environmental setting will include the 14 regional tectonic setting, the climatological setting, and 15 the regional saturated zone hydrologic system. So this is 16 what I'm saying by environmental setting.
17 And then we need to identify the dynamics and kine-18 matics, that they are operating within the system. That is, g9 those hydrologic processes plus other processes, mechanical 20 Processes, thermal processes, that are all working together 21 to control the hydrology.
22 The components of the geologic framework. We have 23 two aspects. First of all we have the structural features 24 which at Yucca Mountain include faults, falds and fractures 25 that would be significant.
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1 1 And then we also take the tuffs that compose the g 2 moutain and we subdivide--well, actually we divide them into I
3 hydrogeologic units. At the present time we have five or so 4 that we really recognize as such. And that's based entirely 5 on the degree of welding." So you can get some idea from 6 those two samples.
7 So we are speaking of welded tuffs and nonwelded 8 tuffs. Another aspect of the welded tuffs is that they tend 9 to be highly fractured and so this is another component of to tne system that we must take into account. Whereas the non- j 11 welded tuffs do not seem to be as highly fractured and the 12 fractures that are present tend often times to be sealed by 13 mineralization.
14 So focusing down on Yucca Mountain itself, this is 15 non the greatest slide in the world, but it does de.ine what 16 the--it's defining essentially the boundaries of the entire 17 area.
18 Yucca Mountain is bounded on, or at least the cen-19 tral crest, and this is the repository area parameter shown 20 in red. It's bounded on the west by the Solitario Canyon 21 Fault which has a displacement that ranges anywhere from 400 22 meters at the south to about 70 meters at the north, with 23 again the west side displaced downward. And it creates quite 24 a scarf and I'll show you that in a little bit.
25 Over on the east side, this slide unfortunately Heritage Reporting Corporation m aa.,
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- 1 372 1 doesn't show it. There is a very, very dense complex, a 2 very small fault, that are defined by USGS--they refer to them g
3 as broken zones. And on the northeastern boundery up here 4 we have a series of faults that are inferred to be strike 5 slip faults, analogous to the San Andreas, but on a very, 6 very, very much smaller scale.
7 Essentially the block itself, the repository block, 8 is intact except for a fault that has a displacement again 9 with the west side down of about 25 meters that transects it, 10 to Ghost Dance Fault and grading down here to the Abandoned 11 Wash Fault.
12 So the block itself, as least from the surface 13 expression, is reasonable intact.
14 So what I'd like to do now is to look at just a 15 very schematic cross section through Yucca Mountain from the 16 west to east. And what we're looking at here now is only 17 about three kilometers or so in distance. So the central 18 crest, the Yucca Crest, is standing at about 1500 meters 19 above sea level and the area down in here would be Crater 20 Flat, which would be about 300 meters below.
21 The block is bounded on the west by the Solitario 22 Canyon Fault. On the east, I just call it this Eastern Fault 23 Complex. The Ghost Dance Pault transects the mountain and 24 we have divided the mountain into a series of hydrogeologic t
25 units. First of all, we do have some surficial deposits of l Heritogo Reporting Corporation m m .m
6J 373 l alluvium, so that's one. The upper most outcropping unit is 2 the Tiva canyon unit. It's a welded tuff, highly fractured.
3 Below that is the Paintbrush tuff. Paintbrush unit we're 4 calling it. And it is a nonwelded tuff, essentially non-5 fractured. Then we come into the Topopah Spring unit which 6 is a very thick densely welded tuff, again, highly fractured.
7 Below that, the Calico Hills unit and then finally below 8 that the Crater Flat unit. Calico Hills is essentially a 9 nonwelded tuff and it has a varyino chemical composition that 10 may or may not be important in terms of inhibiting the trans-Il port of radionuclides but this Calico Hills unit is what we 12 are considering to be the primary natural barrier ror the 13 downward flow of water borne radionuclides to the water table 14 and once they get to the water table, then whatever.
15 Let's see. I want to go through the--do you have 16 copies i r.y handout by now? You don't? Okay.
17 DR. SMITH: What did you say the distance was of 18 '
.e water table up to the repository?
19 DR. HOXIE: Okay. I'm glad you asked the question.
26 The distance ranges from 200 to about 400 meters, and there 21 are two reasons for this. For one thing, as you can see 22 here, the blocks of the--the folded blocks tend to dip to 23 the east and so there is going to be that eastern dip that 24 has to be taken into account in order to calculate that dis-25 tance. The other thing is, is that the water table is not Heritage Reporting Corporation m u. au
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374 I flat at Yucca Mountain. It tends to rise to the west and to 2 the north. And so the repository horizon strings to about 3 200 meters at the north end and it's about 400 meters at the 4 south end.
5 That's one thing I do want to point out. I'm going 6 to--
7 DR. SHEWMON: I'm sorry. You are saying that the 8 left-hand side of that red area called repository horizon 9 and the right end--between the two ends, there's a difference 10 between--down to the blue is 400 meters on one hand and 200 11 meters on the other hand?
12 DR. HOXIE: This is an east-west cross section, 13 and the significant thing as far as the distance from the 14 apository horizon to the water table is the fact that the 15 wa'.i.r table rises to the north.
Okay?
16 DR. SHEWMON: Good. Thank you.
17 DR. GERTZ: Let me clarify a second though, Dwight.
18 Most of the significant difference is because of 19 the way the repository sits in the block. There's not a 200 20 meter change in elevation in the water table in that area.
21 DR. SHEWMON: You mean the repository is sloped?
22 DR. GERTZ: Yes, the repository is sloped.
23 DR. HOXIE: It only slopes about 5 degrees. So 24 that's not a big amount.
25 Oh, they are coming around I hope. Are they there?
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gtl 375 I What I would like to do, is there are four slides j 2 in there I would like to skip and you will have them and I g
3 will just talk about this diagram. That's what I would like 4 to do.
5 Yes, sir.
6 DR. SHEWMON: While we're waiting for that, is there any way in which you quantify weldedness or if you are 8 a trained geologist you look at it and you say it's nonwelded 9 or welded?
10 DR. HOXIE: Okay. The geologists will look at it 11 and say it's welded or nonwelded. What we want to do is to 12 characterize it in terms of its hydrologic properties. And 13 I will do that in another slide.
14 DR. SHEWMON: Okay.
15 DR. HOXIE: Coming up here very shortly.
16 Since you now will have the handout, if you will 17 find the four slides that follow after this. Let me go ahead 18 and use this diagram to talk about those slides.
19 Because what I want to do is now talk about environ-20 mental settings and that is to determine the boundary condi-21 tions which we need to use if we're going to examine un-22 saturated zones, for example, quantitatively.
23 I'm going to start out with the lower boundary 24 condition, because it's the most obvious and the lower boun-h 25 dary condition is the water table, which is defined to be that Heritage Reporting Corporation
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g- s 376 I surface on which the liquid water pressure is equal to atmos-g 2 pheric pressure. Or if you are using gauge pressures, the 3 liquid water pressure would then be zero.
4 That surface mathematically anyway is well defined 5 so we do have a well defined boundary at the water table.
6 r e water table, of course, is not flat in general 7 in most hydrologic systems. And so the water table not only 8 may be curved or different shaped or have some kind of con-9 figuration That configuration is also a function of space 10 and time. And it is this kind of thing that we must allow 11 in our quantitative assessments of what might be happening 12 to the Yucca Mountain system, The upper boundary for this system is defined by i
l 13 14 land surface and we at the present time presume that any 15 water that can enter into the unsaturated zone must enter 16 into the unsaturated zone as infiltration of precipitation 17 falling on Yucca Mountain. Unfortunately, Yucca Mountain 18 is--well, fortunately actually--in a very arid environment.
19 The average rainfall has been estimated on Yucca Mountain 20 to be on the order of 150 millimeters per year. On the other 21 hand, you can calculate the potential evapotranspiration 22 that could occur. If we're going to grow crops on Yucca 23 Mountain, the estimate is 1600 mm. per year So that there 24 is quite a difference between the amount of water that could 25 be returned back to the atmosphere and that which is actually Heritago Reporting Corporation im> u.4m I
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I lt 377 1 falling on Yucca Mountain itself. So the problem is that 2 does not leave very much water to infiltrate into Yucca 3 Mountain. The current estimates are as an area average over 4 the entire surface of Yucca Mountain, is that the net infil-5 tration is probably no greater than 1 mm per year of water.
6 So it is perpulating into the unsaturated zone and probably 7
at preferential sites that vary in space and time.
8 We have an infiltration program out at Yucca Moun-9 tain that is going to try to quantify that, establish bounds 10 for how much water Yucca Mountain can actually receive.
11 l DR. STEINDLER: Excuse me. Is there any indication 12 that that number may be negative?
13 DR. HOXIE: Yes. And I will talk about that, okay?
14 , Let's see. Oh. Wa have to discuss the lateral 15 boundaries. The lateral boundaries for the system have not 16 really been defined. The only way that I think that we can 17 define the lateral boundaries is to say that over the next 18 10,000 years any effects that are occurring on whatever we 19 choose to be the lateral boundaries, must not be able to 20 propagate to the repository. And it may be that the Solitario 21 i Canyon Fault will be the wectern boundary in the sense that i
22 there'll be no lateral flow across the fault into the reposi-23 tory horizon itself or into the unsaturated zone. That's a 24 hypothesis and it must be tested.
25 over here on the eastern side we have probably a Heritogo Roporting Corporation non.nau.
378 I choice of boundaries that are going to be related to this l 2 fault complex that will produce water from--first of all, it 3 would have to move up in order to get into the system. The 4 only difficulty is is that water possibly can move down the 5 fault zones, the fracture zones, and so forth. So that choos-6 ing the lateral boundaries are going to be difficult.
7 The strike slip faults up on the northeast will 8 probably be a very effective lateral boundaries because if 9 they extend to any depths whatsoever strike slip faults tend 10 to be filled with gouge and so forth and tend inherently to 11 be inpermeable.
12 DR. MOODY: Just a second.
l 13 DR. HOXIE: Yes.
14 DR. MOODY: Could you put that back?
15 DR. HOXIE: Sure.
16 DR. MOODY: What's the approximate distance between 17 the repository horizon and the Solitario Canyon fault and 18 the Ghost dance fault? In other words, we're looking at a 19 barrier, so what's the approximate distance between the hori-20 zon itself and those two faults?
21 DR. HOXIE: Actually I think that as it's planned 22 right now, the repository horizon actually transects the 23 Ghost Dance fault, if I'm not mistaken. And I'm not sure 24 what the distance out here is. The repository is going to 25 be 1600 acres and I'd have to sit down and figure out on the Heritago Reporting Corporation o,n m m.
379 I map.
g 2 DR. MOODY: Does anybody else know?
3 DR. HOXIE: Scott will talk about it a little bit.
4 DR. MOODY: Well, do you have an approximation now?
5 MR. SINNOCK: Scott Sinnobk from Sandia Labs.
6 It's approximately 100 to 150 meters from the wes-7 tern fault, the edge of the perimeter. ,
8 DR. MOODY: All right.
9 MR. SINNOCK: And it does--yes, the Ghost Dance 10 fault goes right through the middle of the facility.
11 DR. MOODY: Thank you.
12 DR. HOXIE: I couldn't pass this up. But anyway 13 I think--this is a view of Yucca Mountain and what we're do-14 ing is looking from the north right down the central crest 15 itself. So this is Solitario Canyon faultline start right 16 along here. Let's see, Unfortunately on the diagram you 17 can't see it very well. There's a drilling rig over here 18 that would provide you with a little bit better scale. There up are some trailers parked down here. What one generally sees 20 then is that the central crest and repository would be lo-21 cated in this area, is very, very sharply, steeply bounded on 22 the west by an inscarpment, and then tends to slope more 23 gradually towards the east. And many of these ridges that 24 we see out here are in fact bounded by faults. And the Ghost h 25 Dance fault is coming through--gosh, I can't--it should be Heritogo Reporting Corporation m .a. ....
'h 380 I coming through right about in here parallel to the crest it-2 self.
3 Well, now, what I would like to do is to discuss 4 some of our hypotheses and some of these that are testable.
5 One of the things that we want to do since we're working in 6 the unsaturated zone is to try to go ahead and use unsaturated 7 zone theory to describe the properties of the rock matrix 8 at Yucca Mount, the tuffs themselves. And so what we are 9 doing is relying a great deal of soil physics literature and 10 so forth. Unfortunately, the soil physics literature does 11 not necessarily apply to indurated rock and especially inte-12 rated tuffs of very, very low porosities. But the continuing 13 hypothesis is that we can measure a few field of parameters 14 or laboratory parameters and describe the storage and move-15 ment of fluids in the tuffs, and this is something that again 16 is a hypothesis that really is going to have to be tested.
17 And what I would like to do is describe just a 18 little bit about how at least from a soil physics point of 19 view water moves in an unsaturated zone.
20 DR. SHEWMON: Before you get into that--
21 DR. HOXIE: Yes.
22 DR. SHEWMON: Will you tell me what an indurated 23 rock is or implies with regard 3 the microstructures?
24 DR. HOXIE: Okay. What I'm saying is that an 25 indurated rock is one that is cemented together and, you know, Heritogo Reporting Corporation o.o u. a..
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381 1 as opposed to something that is unconsolidated like a soil 7 or loose sand--
3 DR. SHEWMON: It's cemented, not welded.
4 DR. HOXIE: Well, welding is--
5 DR. SHEWMON: I get the point.
6 DR. HOXIE: Welding is the process by which the 7 induration took place. Okay?
3 What I'm trying to show here in two dimensions is 9 a very hypothetical cross sections. The matrix of rain is 10 shown in brown. In between are interstitial voids, the 11 floors themselves which are occupied by water which I'm show-12 ing in blue and by air which I'm showing in green. And the l 13 whole idea is, is that we can store water within the system 14 in the porous media simply by means of surface tension or 15 capillary forces acting between the interstitial spaces be-16 tween rains. So the water is being held in storage by capil-17 lary forces.
18 The point is is that if we have a region, and I've 19 sort of depicted it up here, which has more blue than green, 20 if we have a region which has a little bit higher saturation 21 than a region down here, the capillary forces will simply 22 tend to pull the water into the regions of low saturation.
23 So that we can actually transport water by means 24 of the capillary forces themselves. And in our system, like 25 at Yucca Mountain, over in the earth's environment, we also Horitage Roporting Corporation an, ,1. ...
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( 382 1 have a gravity component to the flow, which would pull the 2 flow downward and the resultant motion of course is resultant 3 of the two forces. So we have both capillary forces and the 4 gravity forces operating within the porous media.
5 DR. SHEWMON: Does this transport occurrence that 6 you visualize is by fluid flow and not vapor transport?
7 DR. HOXIE: I'11 get into that.
8 DR. SHEWMON: Okay. Also is the wetting angle 9 positive or negative? Does it go to the thin spots or the 10 thick spots?
11 DR. HOXIE: Okay. The water is the wetting agent, 12 okay? So it's the one that's adhering to the rains. And the 13 air is a non-wetting agent.
14 DR. MOELLER: Well, is the water flow or movement, 15 does it tend to be from high to low saturation?
16 DR. HOXIE: It tends to be from high to low.
17 Actually if we measure pressures is what we really want to 18 talk about. And the pressure--well, we're going-to get 19 carried away. I don't--
20 The water between the pourous is being held by 21 tension. Okay. By surface tension forces. So that the 22 narrower the necks in this kind of thing, the greater the 23 force. And the thing is that because it's a tension and not 24 a compression, it's a negative--we measure it as a negative 25 pressure. We call that the capillary pressure. So what Heritogo Reporting Corporation on> usa. .
y4 383 I happens then is that the water moves in the director of more g 2 negative capillary pressure, okay. So the capillary pressure 3 down here is less than the capillary pressure up here. I 4 mean it's more negative.
5 DR. SHEWMON: But can it ever get through one of 6 those bulges?
7 DR. HOXIE: Oh, yes. In fact, it does it--the way 8 you think about it now is that it will go into the small 9 spaces and then when it gets into a large space, it just 10 fills very, very rapidly without any problems, 11 DR. SHEWMON: The gravity pulls it into there not 12 the surface tension.
13 DR. HOXIE: Not the surface tension.
14 Well, somebody asked about Darcy's Law so I decided 15 we should probably take a look at that.
16 And what I said before is that we can measure a 17 few parameters to characterize the system and this looks like 18 a lot. But these are some of the parameters that we used 19 and I introduce these notations because later on when Jerry 20 Semanski talks he will also be using these terms and you might 21 want to refer back to this slide when he's talking.
22 First of all we'll going to have a position vector 23 for describing locations in space. We will have a saturation 24 of a particular fluid, call it fluid f, so it might be air, 25 it might be water. Or some other fluid.
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384 1 And the saturation is just the fractional volume 2 of the floors that is occupied by fluid f.
3 And saturation can vary, we've already seen that, 4 in space and in time.
5 We wanted to characterize the transmissive proper-6 ties of the medium in terms of fluid f and we introduced the 7 first quantity that's called the intrinsic permeability of 8 the porousmedium. This is just a measure of the medium it-9 self irrespective of the fluid that's being transmitted and 10 its ability to transmit fluids. I'll say it that way.
11 The other quantity that we will introduce is what 12 we call a relative permeability which is dependent upon the 13 fluid. In fact, it's dependent upon the saturation. And 14 you can kind of see this because in an unsaturated or par-15 tially saturated porous medium, those pores that have more 16 water will have more cross sectional area of water, for ex-17 ample, through which water can move. And as you decrease the 18 saturation, then the permeability essentially or the ability 19 to transmit decreases. So we have this relative permeability 20 which can be a very steeply decreasing function of saturation.
2 The mass density of the fluid, the viscosity of the 22 fluid, and the pore pressure of the fluid, we just talked 23 about that, measured in the pores themselves. Acceleration 24 of gravity.
25 i Another quantity which is the saturated hydraulic Horitago Reporting Corporation tm> w.m ,
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'O 385 1 conductivity of the material, and that is the hydraulic con-2 ductivity, essentially measure of the flux moving through the 3 system under unit potential gradient, if you will. Unit 4 pressure gradient, that's how I want to say it. When the 5 sample is fully saturated with-the fluid, be it water or bd 6 it air.
, 7 The hydrologists of ten times speak in terms of 8 hydrolic head instead of pressure, and, of course, . hydraulic 9 head is just a pressure divided by the density of the fluid 10 times the gravitational constant. So it has a unit of length.
II And finally we introduce the vector volumetric flux 12 of fluid which is just the volume of fluid transmitted through 13 unit area in unit time. So it has the units of length over 14 time.
15 I want to give two formulations for Darcy's Law.
16 This is applicable to the unsaturated zone and the only 17 thing that makes it different from the saturated zone is the 18 appearance of this relative permeability. But what the 19 formulation one is eaying, the kind of a physical formulation, 20 it says that the volumetric flux is equal to a conductive 21 term times the gradient of the chemical potential for unit 22 mass, the local chemical potential fcr unit mass in a uniform 23 gravitational field. So that's the thermodynamic definition, l
24 if you will, of Darcy's Law.
25 So it says that if fluid is going to move from areas Heritage Reporting Corporation von u, m, Ii
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f 386 1 of high chemical potential to low chemical potential.
2 The hydrologists formulation however says for the 3 unsaturated zone that the volumetric flux of fluid is equal 4 to the saturated hydraulic conductivity times the relative 5 permeability which takes into account the variable saturation 6 times the gradient of the hydraulic head. So this is the 7 hydrologists' approach.
8 Yes.
9 DR. STEINDLER: Yoc said that a piece of that over 10 that is a chemical potential?
11 DR. HOXIE: Yes. For unit mass.
12 DR. STEINDLER: Are you using the term in a thermo-13 dynamics sense?
14 DR. HOXIE: Yes. For unit mass. Not for mobile 15 but for unit mass.
16 DR. STEINDLER: What's the reaction for which you 17 are deriving a chemical potential?
18 DR. HOXIE: Well, chemical potential is just a de-19 rivative of internal energy with respect to the amount of 20 constituent, a constant volume. It's the Gibb's function for 21 unit mass, okay.
22 DR. STEINDLER: Okay.
23 DR. HOXIE: All right. The reason that Fomulation 24 2 is useful is that saturated hydraulic conductivity can be 25 measured easily in the laboratory and in principal, although Heritago Reporting Corporation an> n. ....
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6' 387 1 it's very difficult to do, the relative hydraulic conductivity 2 can either be measured or estimated and the way that one has 3 to estimate it by knowing the four sides distribution which 4 is again another matter.
5 What's at issue her2 is whether or not Darcy's Law, 6 written in this form, actually applies to the tuffs at Yucca 7 Mountain. And I can give you some ideas of why they may have, 8 well, not doubts so terribly much, but at least some question 9 anyway.
10 I want to just simply characterize the hydrogeologic 11 units. The Tiva Canyon unit, which is at the top of Yucca 12 Muontain, has a range of fitness given in this table in years 13 and has a verosity that is the volume of porous per unit 14 volume of rock of only about .1, which means it's very, very l 15 low verosic. Alid we don't know how much of that is inter-16 connected verosity. And no that the matrix of the welded 17 units, which you just looked at that before, seem to be very, 18 very tight, and there may be other processes that really are 19 controlling the amount of water that can move or be present 20 within the welded tuffs. And i.his is something that we are 21 examining.
22 The saturated hydraulic conductivity, and we don't 23 have good numbers for any of the units at Yucca Mountain.
i 24 This was based on very few samples, so we certainly can't W 25 apply any statistics. So these are iust representative kinds Heritogo Reporting Corporation (mim.m
388 1 of numbers. But the saturated hydraulic conductivity mea-2 sured in millimeters per year is only about .4, but we look 3 at the nonwelded units, like the Paintbrush, we have a very 4 high verosity and the saturated hydraulic conductivity is 5 6300 mm. per year. And I would say, well, we probably 6 wouldn't have much trouble in applying Darcy's Law to that 7 particular unit.
8 In Topopah Springs, again, it's very similar to 9 Tiv'. Canyon. It has a verosity of .12 and a saturated to hydraulic conductivity of about 0.8.
11 The Calico Hills nonwelded unit, we divide that 12 into two different classes. One is victric which means that 13 it has a high glass component within it. The other one is 14 a zeolitic, which means it has a lot of 2eolitic kind of 15 minerals in it. The two units have about the same verosities 16 but considerably different saturated hydraulic conductivities.
17 When we get down to the Crater Flat unit, we again 18 have a medium I guess velocity of below a .23 and a relatively 19 low hydraulic conductivity.
20 The point that I would like to make is first of 21 all, we're not sure about Darcy's Law in these welded tuffs, i
22 l and the other thing that is of concern is the tremendous 23 contrast in the conducting capabilities of these various rock 24 '
matrixes. So this is going 1.0 make numerical modeling of 25 Yucca Mountain a formidable task. And one of the things that Heritage Roporting Corporation m u.. ....
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389 1 we will probably do, we'll have to subdivide these porous 2 hydrogeologic units into more refined units.
3 DR. SHEWMON: ~ir, if you'll go back to the pre-4 vious slide, is it clear to you what the relative distribu-5 tion of the vitric and zeolitic parts of the Calico Hills 6 are? Some are north and some are west? Or there's alter-7 nate layers in the same area or what?
8 DR. HOXIE: The zeolitic--Calico Hills tends to be 9 more Zeolitic towards the north.
10 DR. MOODY: Is that closer to the water table?
11 DR. HOXIE: Well, the water table is moving up, 12 so that in the north end of the mountain the water table is 13 in the Calico Hills.
14 DR. MOODY: There's no question the zeolites are 15 forming from the glass, the vitric glass reacting to it.
16 DR. HOXIE: Right.
17 DR. MOODY: To water. So we expect it to be 18 closer to the ground water ir. the Calico Hills.
19 DR. HOXIE: Well, of course, the water table may 20 have been much higher.
21 DR. MOODY: It fluctuates, yes.
22 DR. SHEWMON: Well, does that mean there's in this 23 relatively impermeable layer anyplace that Calico Hills' 0
24 L nonwelded meets the water table?
l W 25 DR. HOXIE. Well, that's not necessarily--if it's Heritogo Roporting Corporation a.n m m.
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1 vitric basis then it has essentially a much higher hydraulic 2 conductivity so that--I'm not sure what you are--
g 3 DR. SHEWMON: The assertion was that zeolitic 4 material--sorry. Vitric plus water made zeolitic.
5 DR. MOODY: It makes zeolites. It certainly does.
6 DR. HOXIZ: It makes zeolites, yes.
7 DR. SHEWMON: And so where one meets the water 8 table--my question was where the water table meets the vi.ric 9 does that mean you'll always have a layer of zeolitic?
10 DR. HOXIE: Oh, no. Because this is over geologic 11 time and this also is a relative kind of thing. The Calico 12 Hills has a high proportion of zeolites in it anyway.
ll 13 (GO TO NEXT PAGE) 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 h 25 Horitogo Roporting Corporation
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O I 391 UR. SHEWMON:
Is it clear to you what the relative ,
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distribution of the vitric and geoletic parts of the Calico
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3 Hills are?
Are thse sort of, some are north and some are west 4
5 or are all layers in the same area or what?
6 DR. HOXIE: The geoletic tends--the Calico Hills, 7
tend to be more geoletic towards the north.
DR. MOODY: Is that closer to the water table, I 8
9 mean--
DR, HOXIE: The water table is moving up so that in 10 11 the north end of the mountain, the water table is in the 12 Calico Hills.
DR. MOODY: There's no question the geoletics are ll 13 14 forming from the -
15 DR. HIXIE: Of course the water table north has 16 been much higher you know back--
DR. STEINDLER:
Does that there is a permiable layer 17 18 any place in the Calico Hills that meets the water table?
DR. HIXIE: Well that -not necessarily.
If it's g9 the vitric basis, then you would have essentially a much 20 I'm not sure what your--
21 higher hydraulic conductivity to that, DR. STEINDERL:
Well, the assertion was that the 22 O 23 geoletic material, the vitric plus water made zeoletic--
DR. MOODY: Made zeolite.
24 DR. HIXIE: Made zoolites, yes, over time.
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,.! 1 '. .DR, MOODY: Over time.
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.5 DR. HIXIE: Oh no, because this is.over geologic 6- time and.this also is a relative kind.of thing. The Calico
- 7 Hi-ll'has a high' proportion of zeolites anyway and
- the. point .
8 is, in-fact--
9 -DR. MOODY: At the grass roots.
10 DR. HIXIE: At the grass roots, yes. :There tehds 11 to be more grass to the north than-- or more zeolites, yes.
12 It's a mixture--it's a mixture, it's not, you know--
13 DR. STEINDLER: 'That came through easily._ What i
14 hasn't-come through is whether this mixture is likely to be 15- like plumb pudding or like.a layer cake, so that, indeed, it'e 16 an impermiable layer in that someplace or whether it's sort of 17 you go around it easily.
18 DR. HIXIE: I think it's an irregular distribution 19 so that, you know, we're looking at simply average properties,
' 20 okay.
.21 DR. STEINDLER: Plum pudding.
22 DR. MOODY: Plum pudding.
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23 DR. HIXIE: Plum pudding.
24 DR. STEINDLER: Do you have some information on 25 the poitr' size distribution, when'you say porosity? Is it a Heritage Reporting ~ Corporation
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3- 'We.have s. ne'information on pore size distribution! based on
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V 4 mercury's_ pore symmetry.<'
's . DR. STEINDLER: Is-mercury's pore symmetry an 6 ' adequate'model for the permeation of water?:
7 DR. HIX1E: We have'some-experiments under way to
-8 try and resolve that issue and I can't really sat at the-
'9 present time, except we think there are better ways. Okay.
10 sacrimetric methods, for examples and I'm sure I'm running II I way behind time, so--
12 One-place where we know-that the continuing 13 hypothesis-is going to fail is with the fractured units 14 - and one of'the questions is whether, as hypothesis go, 15 as to whether fractures act as barriers or conduits for 16 flow and whether we can have lateral flow across fractures 17 or longitudinal flow within.
18 Here's another diagram that is similar to the last 19 and I just want to try to schematically show what are our 20 conceptual of flow and fracture is at the present time.
21 The first hypothesis--let me describe it. What 22' we're look at, essentially, is an intersection of two frac-
[.O- 23 tures under a microscope.
l 24 These are the grains again. The green is the air and 25 the blue would be water. And the whole idea is that, in Heritage Reporting Corporation mm
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. water within the-grains'and'sateri can'not enter spontaneously 6 into the fracture.
7 However, where the fracture meets, in other g words close together, then the capillary forces capillarity--
9 allows water to be continuous'across the fracture and we can 10 have water move laterally across the fracture in' unsaturated 11 conditions, similarly occurring down here. This makes the 12 water path much more tortuous.
.33 The other aspect of the fractures, responding to 14 another question earlier is that where we have an integrated 15 system of fractures, many of which are filled with air, it is 16 possible that we could then use air flow within the fracture 17 system itself so the fractures may become, under partially 18 saturated conditions, we think anyway, very highly trans-39 missive conduits for air flow and this has been demonstrated 20 in the upper units of Yucca Mountain.
21 So that the flow, the whole moisture, within Yucca 22 Mountain, must take into account the fact that we can remove C 23 both air and water and if we're moving air, we can also be 24 removing water as water wapor.
.p So the total moisture balance is liquid water plus
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395 I water vapor and there are several mechanisms that we might 2 consider as to how to move the water vapor itself, both within 3 pores and within the fractures.
4 But the fracture system would probably be much more 5 significant to gaseous transport than would be the pores.
6 The other thing that we need to consider is the 7 hydraulics of faults. We think in a welded units, they would 8 be very similar to the fractures in the welded units.
9 Because of the ductility of the non welded units, 10 however, dwre are likely to be barriers and the other thing 11 is that since faults have moved in the past, they could move 12 again and we would need to consider scenarios involving (l 13 the hydrologic eifects of moving faults, for example.
14 So these are some of the hypothesis that we are 15 considering within the unsaturated zone.
16 And, I would like to invite any questions--further 17 questions that you might have.
18 DR. MOELLER: Cliff.
19 DR. SMITH: It's kind of striking that you mentioned.
20 about one milimeter per year of infliltration, didn't you?
21 DR. HOXIE: Yes.
22 DR. SMITH: Did you look at the evaporation rate 23 plus the range fall rate?
24 DR. HOXIE: Well the potential evaporation.
, 25 DR. SMITH: The potential evaporation, okay.
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If'I.can-. phrase this right. Is it possible that, QJ.
22 when you;get down to the' repository that really you don't 1
- 3. ;have'a problem in that unsaturated-zones at. ground. water 7
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5 'DR..HOXIE: sin the sen,ss ,that--I,'m'not,quite sure
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'6 .what you mean. We h' ave some measurements that indicate that-7 that the saturatio'n is-about 65ipercent. ,
8, DR. SMITH: 65 percent.
DR. HOXIE: Of the total pore volume. So the
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9 10- only way we can maintain that'.would be if we had some' water 11_ that is actually moving' downhill dynamically or statically-12 within the system, or we had some kind of recirculating sys-13 tem involving vapor transport within fractures.
14 DR. SMITH: So the problem is now'trying to.come-15 up with a model to describe that movement?
16 DR. HOXIE: Yes, sir, with all of the components.
17 DR. SMITH:- Right.
'18 DR. HOXIE: That, you know, we have the geothermal 19- gradient to worry'about out there too, so we have thermal 20 effects and stress effects that will open and close fractures 21 and this kind of thing.
22 DR. SMITH: And the ground water table itself is 23 is pretty _ steady?
DR. SMITil: As(of the present time, it's not 24
- 25 undergoing large changes. There are fluctuations due to Heritage Reporting Corporation (103) Meget i
3 397 1 carth tides, fluctuations due to distance, yet know, to 2 earthquakes. Some of the wells seem to be showing fluctua-3 tions we can't understand because they collect only on the 4 order of meters. It's not hundreds of meters.
5 DR. SMITH: Thank you.
6 DR. MOELLER: Other questions or comments. Paul.
7 DR. SHEWMON: Is the rainfall up there tend to come 8 in bursts once every other decade?
9 DR. HOXIE: No. There are two seasons. One is in 10 the winter time when they get cyclonic storms and they even 11 get snow on Yucca Mountain. The second one is a monsoonal 12 thunderstorm season in the summertime.
13 So, it gets slow rain in the winter and these 14 intense storms in the summer. The actual infiltration is 15 probably very irregularly distributed over the mountains 16 that takes place.
17 DR. STEINDLER: Do you have any idea how old the jg pore water is at the repository horizon?
DR. HOXIE: Not at the repository horizon. We 19 20 have gotten water out of the Paint Brush tap, in some sites, 21 and it doesn't--it had baumtritium in it, for example, so 22 water can get down as far as the Paint Brush tuff in some of 23 the wells quite rapidly, or in some of the areas quite rapidly .
24 DR. STEINDLER: Thank you.
25 DR. MOELLER: Any other questions.
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I DR '5MITH:' .I,have one other question.
'2 '
, DR. [MOELLER: ~ Go Jahead'. -
3 DR. SMITH: Maybe.you have already. talked about it
'4 earlier.
5 What.was the NRCs' concern.about_ drilling in that
'6- Calico area?-
.7 'DR. HOXIE: ' That's someth'iniJ I-wanted'to talke ab'out
- /
8 We don't'have very'much knowledge'about'the Calico 9 and I think what their concern'was-is that tif we drilled 10 or drifted'into the Calico hills, we might risk the integrity 11 .if'the unit'as a barrier. That's my understanding.
12- DR. MOODY: Yes.
13- DR. HOXIE: But on the other hand, we can't assess 14- its ability to act as a barrier without information and so j '15 it's a Catch 22 situation.
16 DR. MOELLER: Any other questions?
< 17 (No response)
.18 DR. MOELLER: Well thank you, Doctor Hoxie.
19 I think_this is a good time to take a break.
20 (Whereupon, at 3:10 p.m., a short recess was taken.)
21
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23 24 25 -
Heritoge Reporting Corporation mm
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1 CERTIFICATE 2 ,
3 This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the 4 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter oft S Name: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (ACRS) 6 Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste 7 Docket Number:
8 Place Washington, D. C.
9 Date: January 28, 1988 2 10 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 11 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 12 Regulatory Comt.tission taken stenographically by me and, 13 thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction 14 of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a 15 true and accurate re rd of the foregoing proceedings.
16 /S/ L" N Jih IRWIN L. f5'E5EERi1 17 (Signature typed):
18 Official Reporter 19 Heritage Reporting Corporation 20 21 22 23 24 25 l
()
Heritage Reporting Corporation .
(202) 628-4888
.