ML20153B322
| ML20153B322 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/28/1988 |
| From: | NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NACNUCLE-T-0001, NUDOCS 8807130038 | |
| Download: ML20153B322 (162) | |
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UNITED STATES O
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR. WASTE In the Matter of: )
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FIRST GENERAL MEETING )
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EVENING SESSION )
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399 t) l .1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION L 2 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE 3 )
In the Matter of: )
4 )
)
5 FIRST GENERAL MEETING )
)
6 EVENING SESSION )
7 Tuesday, June 28, 1988 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 3:30 p.m.
BEFORE: DR. DADE W. MOELLER 13 Chairman
(-) 14 Professor of Engineering in Environmenta.'
Health and Associate Dean for Continuing Education, School of Public Health 15 Harvard University Boston, Massachusetts 16 ACNW MEMBERS PRESENT:
17 DR. MARTIN J. STdINDLER 18 Director, Chemict1 Technology Division Argonne National naboratory 19 Argonne, Illinois .
l 20 ACRS MEMBERS PRESENT:
l l 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 l
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L HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION -- (202)628-4888 t
399A I
g: l U' 1 DR. PAUL G. SHEWHON Professor, Metallurgical Engineering Department 2 Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 3
CONSULTANTS:
4 D. Orth 5 M. Carter J. Moody 6
INVITED GUEST:
- 7 3 CR. CLIFFORD V. SMITH 8
ACNW COGNIZANT STAFF MEMBER:
9 Richard Savio 10 NRC STAFF PRESENTERS:
11 John Greeves 12 Michael Tokar 13
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( 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION -- (202)628-4888
399B 1- MR. MOELLER: The meeting will resume. The next 2 item on our agenda is Dr. Scott Sinnock, who will be talking (J~%
3 about the translation of hydrologic setting to performance 4 modeling applications.
5 DR. SINNOCK: Thank you.
6 My name is Scott Sinnock. I'm with Sandia 7 Laboratories representing today the performance assessment 8 activities that Sandia's been undertaking for quite a few 9 years in support of the Nevada project.
10 As Max and Dwight mentioned, I'm going to try to 11 put some perspective on the process of translating the 12 concepts that DwAght talked about into numerical models that 13 allow us to make quantitative predictions of site behavior 14 for comparison with the regulatory requirements.
() 15 First, I will very briefly summarize some general 16 overviews of the relations among data gathering that I'll 17 refer to as data reduction modeling, and then finally, what 18 we're at Sandia focusing on, performance assessment 19 modeling.
20 That'll be fairly brief, and then I'll go to some 21 length in showing selected examples of certain components we 22 feel that all conceptual models must share, as Dwight talked 23 about also.
24 MR. MOELLER: Excuse me. What do you mean by data 25 reduction modeling?
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400 1 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. In the next view graph or two, 2 I hope to address that, spend some time drawing those
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3- distinctions.
4 (Slide) 5 DR. SINNOCK: I would first like to give some 6 perspective on one way of cutting the pie in the physical 7 world in a modeling sense, and it repeats using slightly 8 different terminology what Dwight went through, that all 9 conceptual models in some sense must share certain 10 components.
11 Among these are some processes that describe the 12 kinetics and kinematics of the situation, come energy and 13 mass flux moving through some system of interect.
14 So we usually describe these first conceptually,
( ) 15 narratively, and then eventually try to reduce these to some 16 set of mathematical equations to describe the change in 17 state of a system, either in space or time or both.
18 The physical domain we're referring to is we have 19 to draw some domain physically in our perspective around the 20 geometry, the volume of the earth that we' re interested in.
21 That defines a physical domain.
22 Within that, there's some geometry of light kinds 23 of materials, and we have to define what the light kinds of 24 materials are and how they're distributed through the 25 particular physical domain.
l Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 L .
401 1 Within'any one of these units, there may be
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v 2 certain properties that influence the magnitudes, rates,
'3 directions of these processes. So these properties may be 4 distributed statistically or with some trend within these-5 individual units. So there are some properties and the
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6 processes have to work through those properties as they 7 exist in space.
8 When you draw some boundary around your physical 9 domain, you've automatically got some boundaries. You hope 10 that these boundaries are not arbitrary, that in fact you 11 may set them where there's no mass or energy flux. You try 12 to make your boundary correspond to what may be a natural 13 physical break.
14 But sometimes that's impossible. Sometimes you're
( ) 15 boundary is arbitrarily drawn in space, and so you have to 16 represent this physical process at that boundary through 17 some mass or energy flux across it.
18 We have to specify some boundary on that domain.
19 And finally, for more perspective, and these 20 basically are shared even at a conceptuni level or narrative 21 model, you can describe these.
22 Then as we turn these into numerical models, there 23 are certain calculational constraints. We all wish we had 24 more computing power and more computing time available, 25 which always introduces some constraints on how finely we Heritage Eaporting Corporation U.02) 628-4888
r 402 1- can resolve either all the physical processes that are
(~j) 2 occurring or this variability represented by the geometry s
3 within the system.
4 (Slide) 5 DR. SINNOCK: We look at this somewhat differently 6 in space, hypothetically.
7 If for example, our physical domain and 8 performance is defined by what we call a controlled area.
9 The compliance boundary for the EPA compliance with the EPA 10 standards as reflected in 10 CFR 60 occur at something 11 called the accessible environment, which is defined as five 12 kilometers maximum away from the implaced waste.
13 (Slide) 14 DR. SINNOCK: Earlier, Max showed a conceptual
( ) 15 view of this in three dimensional space. This is the same 16 thing. This is looking down on that cylinder, if you will, 17 There's some boundary that defines our physical 18 domain for performance assessment. This particular physical 19 domain of course sits within a regional settino and is part 20 of that regional setting. We can't separate it from the 21 effects of the regional setting.
22 This setting includes the effects of tectonics, 23 climate, perhaps some sort of human activity outside the 24 actual domain that can have effects of interest within this 25 domain. It can affect the system geometry or material Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
403 1 properties that occur within that or are part of this much 2 larger sending. It may be a broad trend in properties, but (V3 3 to adequately see what the trend in properties is in the 4 area of interest, we need to know the broader trend.
5 But perhaps of more immediate concern and of 6 greater questions than what the effects are, this regional 7 setting certainly sets the effects on these soundary 8 conditions. We have to determine what the magnitudes and 9 rates of those energy and mass fluxes in or out of this 10 boundary are based on an understanding of the much broader 11 regional setting in which the site might sit.
12 So the data collection then focuses on mapping the 13 material properties within this domain to allow as detailed 14 as possible and feasible a prediction of what those
( ) 15 properties are, so we can map the process chen into those 16 properties throughout that physical domain.
17 We also need to make measurements in the regional 18 setting in order to determine t?.e effects on this. The site 19 characterize. tion modeling would be then in my the way I'm 20 using it, is based on the measurements within this domain 21 making predictions of how the properties vary.
22 There's modeling involved in that. I'll show some 23 examples.
24 It will certainly also involve naking predictions 25 of the effects on the boundary conditions. I'm Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
404 1 distinguishing that from the performance assessment modeling
{} 2 per se which is concerned with the movement of radionuclides To do so, we will be 3 to the edge of this particular domain.
4 requiring information from the site characterization 5 programs to tell us what the likely ranges in the changes of 6 those boundary conditions are so we can adequately 7 accommodate the uncertainty represented by what may happen 8 outside this in the regional setting.
9 Now, each of those items, the physical process, 10 the system geometry, and boundary conditions -- I'll then go 11 through very rapidly and show a few examples of what we're 12 doing, as Dwight der.cribed, we're assuming Darcy Flow for 13 hydrology through the system.
14 In the unsaturated zone in particular, as Dwight
( ) 15 mentioned, the conductivity term of the standard Darcy 16 equation is a function of the pressure, he expressed it as a 17 function of the saturation we have characteristics curves 18 that relate conductivity saturation and pressure.
19 Which basically is saying that this pressure is a 20 function o'4 the pore size distribution within the material 21 of interest, basically based on what might be capillary 22 bundle theory. You sort of think of the tension, the 23 capillary bundle, you've got a series of little pipettes 24 that vary in diameters, if you will. And how high would the 25 water rise in those little pipettes in a bundle of those?
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405 1 Well, it'll rise to different heights and those 2 represent the different suction pressures.
(")i 3 Just to put things in perspective, we're looking 4 at suctions on the order of 10 to the 4th centimeters, 10 5 squared meters, perhaps, of rise, so there you can see that 6 those are very fine pores. Someone asked, we're looking at 7 pores less than a micron in diameter in many of these units, 8 which give a capillary suction to be able to rise water 9 hundreds of meters.
10 This addresses the question, could you actually 11 get water moving up, being drawn up by evaporation.
12 Theoretically, yes. If you had interconnected pores small 13 enough, yca could draw water and evaporate it.off the 14 surface and brought up. It would be a very very slow But whether it can cross any of the fractures in
( ) 15 process.
16 the way, whether you can sustain a continuous pathway of 17 those small pores is another questien.
18 In our modeling, we're making an assumption that 19 there's a pressure equilibrium perpendiculcr to the flow -.
20 Right now, that's sort of saying be're not accounting for 21 antisotrophy (phonetic) plus, by doing this, we're able to 22 come up with a composite relationship for the fractures in 23 the matrix that accounts for the different pore size 24 distributions within each.
25 It's sort of saying we're accounting for a, if you Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
406 1- will, a bimodal pore size distribution which gives a shape
(~)'; 2 to the conductivity curve as you draw the moisture out of 3 the conductivity comes down sort of flat and as the 4 fractures draw down, and it flattens and then draws down 5 further as you get into the matrix pores, a double hump 6- curve, we call that.
7 Sort of accounting for a bimodal distribution, not 8 separating fractures of matrix but saying it's a bimodal 9 porosity distribution.
10 We're calculating velocity, we're making the 11 assumption right now that the so-called effective porosity, 12 what we divide the flux by to get a velocity, is equal to 13 the moisture content of the rock. We're currently assuming 14 isothermal conditions. We have the capability to assume
() '15 thermal conditions, but we have not yet,.so far.
16 We can model in transient or steady stato. Most 17 of our solutions are actually run in steady state. And so 10 far, we' re only accounting for the single phase liquid flow 19 although wa're just starting to look. at the effects of the 20 vapor movement in the mountain as influencing the moisture 21 balance for the hydrologic calculations alsc as a potential 22 pathway directly to the surface for any gaseous 23 radionuclides that may occur.
24 An example of using those processes in a two 25 dimensional finite element sense is just shown here for Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
407 l' where a schematic of the mountain, the non-welded paint
-2 brush unit, the offspring, and then the calico hill starts
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3 approximately here. It shows we can solve then the standard 4 equations. In this case, we're plotting out saturations as 5 a function of space.
-6[ Because of the depth, we do get some. diversion of 7 water and this diversion's actually occurring at the back of 8 the arrow rather than at the point. This diversion's 9 occurring right at this interface, and going down. This is 10 for a~ simulation based on the assumption of a uniform 11 infiltration of a tenth of a millimeter per year.
12 And the bottom just shows the velocity vectors.
13 So we try to do solutions in this fashion because then these 14 become testable hypotheses. You can go out in the field and
(( 15 see how closely we're mimicking the saturations we can 16 observe in the fie3d.
17 (Cont inued on following page. )
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 L
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400 1 DR. SINNOCK: A little bit about the physical 2 domain we are using.
'( ')
3 The model you saw previously and other modelling 11 have been based on a geometric description of the system on 5 a computer graphics model. .
6 This accounts for the hydrostratigraphy, the 7 various structures, the water tables, the water table
, 8 elevation.
9 The hydrestratigraphy, these various units, are 10 based on a sort of not very formal but a quasi pattern 11 recognition process.
12 We would look for units that have similar 13 hydrostratigraphic properties and classify those as the 14 hydrogeologic units. Where we see a major change, that
( ) 15 constitutes a new unit.
16 Then within each of these various units we are 17 assuming that these properties are nonuniform but 18 heterogeneous throughout the units and perhaps contributing 19 to dispersion within the system.
20 We are currently looking very hard at 21 geostatistics as a method for describing this variability 22 within statistical populations defined by these various 23 units.
24 (Viewgraph presented) 25 Geostatistics can, through kriging, remove some Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
4 409 1 sort of trend. We can assume trends within the data. Get
' vf) 2 an idea on the spatial variability and the correlation 3- length among the various parameters.
4 And then use the geostatistics. And I am showing 5- an example of this.
6 (Viewgraph presented) 7 To simulate a distribution of properties 8 throughout the mountain. It has some uncertainty associated 9 with. In a Monte Carlo sense, we can account for 10 uncertainty in that distribution of properties by sampling 11 into the potential infinite distributions through some Monte 12 Carlo sense.
13 We are not sure what the scaling effects are in 14 terms of our predictability of material properties. We
( )' 15 measure very small pores. P obably at a minimum something 16 the size of this building will be our minimum volume of rock 17 accounted for in a model, 18 So what is the relationship betw3en sample 19 measurements on a pore or perhaps an in situ teot that may 20 sample something the size of this room at some level.
21 How do we scale this up to the modelling scalo?
22 (Viewgraph presented) 23 Just a few examples of the current case. You have 24 seen this figure several times before. Several questions 25 have come up on how far the repository is above the water Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
.c 410 1 table.
l f2 This is a scaled representation off of the 3 computer graphic _ system which represents the actual 4 dimensions.
5 It is actually cut from southwest to northeast to 6 maximize the variability including the variability from the 7 repository to the water table.
8 This is the repository horizon. You can see it is 9 approximately 200 meters; approximately 400 meters from the 10 southwest dropping to somewhere around 200 meters in the 11 northeast. That is approximate. That is almost at the 12 minimum distar.ct.
13 The same units, the welded units, the dark brown, 14 and the nonwelded units, the light brown with the white
( ) 15 showed, are used as hydrostratigraphic units.
16 These nonwelded units below the repository still 17 have an overprint of zeolitization which, as Dwight pointed 18 out, the zeolitic unit hydrologically behaves considerably 19 differently.
20 So what we have are a series of wedges of all 21 these various units underneath the repository. In fact, the 22 Topopah Spring is the only unit that occurs underneath the 23 entire repository.
24 No other 'anit does. Everything wedges out L
25 somewhere, either truncated by the water table or truncated Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
411 1 by the facies changes based on the zeolitic facies beneath
~h 2 the repository horizon.
(G 3 MR. MOELLER: Now is the fault shown there the 4 ' Ghost Dance Fault?
5 DR. SINNOCK: That is the Ghost Dance Fault. You 6 can see it offsets the units. We are showing it here as 7 offsetting the zeolites. We are not sure about that. But 8 it doer, not of course offset either the water table or the 9 repository.
10 The repository goes right across the Ghost Dance 11 Fault.
12 DR. MOODY: Where do you think the water, the 13 fluid, came from making the zeolites at that parvicular 14 height that is showing there because the water table now is
( ) 15 considerably Ceeper than the zeolites are, l 16 Where did that water come from?
I 17 DR. SINNOCK: Certainly I am not the expert to 18 answer that. My understanding is that Los Alamos is l 19 tentatively suggesting that this represents an old level of l
20 the water table very shortly after deposition of the top 21 units.
22 DR. MOODY: Which would nave been how many years 23 ago?
24 DR. SINNOCK: Eight to ten million years ago. And 25 please don't quote me on that. I am not the expert. I Heritage Reporting Corporation
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4 412 1 believe that is-what they are doing.
2 You note over here the zeolites start plunging.
( 3 The densely welded unite and the matrix appear to be 4 nonzeolitized. 5 So this represents a somewhat quasi parallel to 6 the water table. There is some assumption there that it was 7 related to some paleo water table. 8 There the thermal backing out of the temperatures 9 of transitions I think are used to tentatively suggest that 10' perhaps this occurred somewhat contemporaneously with the 11 deposition or shortly thereafter when the temperatures were 12- considerably higher. 13 DR. SHEWMON. Does the exchange characteristics of 14 the retardation change dramatically when you go into the ( ) 15 zeolitic material from the other rocks above? 16 DR. SINNOCK: As I look at the table in the EA and 17 the SCP, I do not see a great distinction between any of 18 these units in terms of their batch sorption. 19 DR. MOODY: That's probably something that is 20 being looked at. The zeolites behave very much differently. 21 DR. SINNOCK: They certainly do. And for some j 22 nuclides, the zeolites have an order of magnitude greater 23 batch sorption number associated with them. 24 DR. MOODY: Yes. l 25 DR. SINNOCK: For many of the nuclides, there Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 {~-} s h
413 h 1 appears to be no difference. ('Nj 2 There is an extremely high available surface area v 3 in the matrix of these rocks independent of the type of 4 rock. Of course when you do batch sorption you grind it up 5 anyway. 6 DR. SHEWMON. When you do batch sorption, does 7 this tell you whether R is close to 1 or close to 1007 8 DR. SINNOCK: We hope so. And Los Alamos is 9 certainly addressing that question through how reliable are 10 batch sorption measurements to give you an estimator of the 11 true sorption capacity. 12 DR. MOODY: That-is a very touchy issue probably. 13 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. They are doing the kinematic 14 modelling to try and determine whether or not the batch ( ) 15 sorption which is of course much simpler to perform, to i 16 determine if it is a reliably estimator of the retarding 17 capability of the rock. 18 And so yes, the zeolites behave definitely 19 differently hyd -togically. They are going to behave 20 differontly geochemically but it is going to be on a 21 nuclide-specific basis. 22 But I do not think we should fall into the trap of 23 thinking it is only the zeolitic layers that are sorbed. 24 The densely welded layers through the batch sorption are 25 showing very good affinities for most of the cationic Heritage Reporting Corporation {J's (202) 628-4888 j
l 414 1 species. (~) 2 DR. SHEWMON. Is that factored into your model,
%s 3 also, or at least the capability to model that?
4 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. Currently we just calculate a 5 retardation factor given a KD or-what Los Alamos calls an 6 RD, based on the porosity, and we calculate a retardation 7 factor. 8- And they are quite high for most nuclides except a 9 few, of course. 10 (viewgraph presented) 11 Within each of those units, once we can quantify 12 the actual distribution and space -- and of course being on 13 a computer graphic system that allows us to the nearest 14 thousandth of a foot if we want, to distinguish how thick a ( ) 15 particular unit is or a particular space. 16 It givas us a quantitative way to characterize the 17 geometry three-dimensionally in the mountain. 18 And we define those units and then look at the 19 samples we have in these units to try and define what the 20 property distributions might be. 21 This is an example of porosity, matrix porosity 22 samples available for the various units: Topopah Spring, 23 Calico Hills, Zeolitic. 24 For some units we have fairly large amounts of 25 data. For others we are very los. Calico Hills Vitric, one Heritage Reporting Corporation l
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r l_ ic 415 1 of the important units, very little information. () 2 Now this is an example of where we can use the 3 actual data in a pattern recognition sense to determine the 4 stratigraphy. 5 You will notice on this graph it looks like a 6- distinctly bx-modal distribution. We think it probably is. 7 We probably missed a unit. 8 This probably should be split into two 9 distributions because we basically think the densely welded 10 Bullfrog and this is the Vitric nonwelded, the partially 11 welded Bullfrog, but they are distinctly different. 12 So we intend then to give measurements to help us 13 assess whether we have got the proper unit distinction. 14 DR. SHEWMON. I have no idea what I am supposed to ( ) 15 get out of that slide. You have some property and some 16 measurements and you force fit a distribution to them and 17 then draw some conclusion? 18 DR. SINNOCK: In this case, yes. 19 DR. SHEWMON. What is the property, the number? 20 DR. SINNOCK: This is matrix porosity. 21 DR. SHEWMON. Okay. 22 DR. SINNOOK: Zero to .6. So the densely welded 23 units Dwight mentioned are about .12. That is an average of 24 quite a few samples. 25 The actual histogram is shown here and yes, we Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
416 1 just -- based on a mean and a standard deviation -- said 2 there is the beut fit. normal distribution, just to get a ( }- 3 graphical picture of the kind of variability we are seeing 4 within these units. 5 (Viewgraph presented) 6 Now also -- this is now hydraulic conductivity. 7 This is a map view showing the outline of what we call the 8 perimeter drift of the repository. This is looking down on 9 .the repository area.
' l'0 These properties also vary and have trends in 11 space so this is a crude estimate using geostatistics of how 12 normalized to zero -- the mean is zero in this case -- how 13 hydraulic conductivity varies within -- in this case this 14 is the Topopah Spring -- across the unit.
( ') 15 You can also use kriging to come up with an 16 estimate of the variance associated with each point within 17 the map of interest. 18 So using this trending mean and this variance for 19 any given point then we have a value and a variance and an 20 uncertainty associated with it. So for each point we can 21 sample off the distribution represented by this mean and
- 22 variance to get a particular value of conductivity .
23 And simulate, then, a pattern of any particular 24 property within any given unit. The probability of this 25 simulation being the real representation of zero. You go Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 l
417 1 through it enough times and you will be able to capture the f') v 2 uncertainty in your output calculations. 3 Now whether this becomes a significant contributor 4 to the' uncertainty in your performance predictions has to be 5 determined. 6 If it is not a significant contributor, maybe just 7 use the mean. If the variation and uncertainty is 8 significant, then we want to sample to try to pin down this 9 variance as much as possible. 10 Not make the variance as little as possible, but 11 describe it as we think it actually is. 12 (Viewgraph presented) 23 Moving along to some of our current assumptions 14 about the boundary conditions. Again, repeating a lot of A t, j 15 what Dwight said, the unsaturated zone, we treat the upper 16 boundary as a flux variable. 17 So far we just assumed flux as spatially 18 distributed to change the total volumes of flux across the 19 whole side. Side boundaries, we can set a fixed pressure or 20 a no flow boundary in the unsaturated zone 21 Just stressing again, we have not yet included 22 analyses of gas flow. Saturated zone -- the lower boundary 23 in the saturated zone, we can treat that as a no flow 24 boundary as we have or as a transient specified leakage 25 flux. Heritage Reporting Corporation (~) (202) 628-4888 v
~418 1 In other words, we can assume a certain amount of i 2 water comes up along a particular fault and look at the 3 potential consequences of that in terms of hydrology.
4 We have so far obtained the side boundary either 5- obtaining a fixed pressure along the boundary from the 6 ' regional model or by kriging the data we have available 7 within he site area. l ! 8 (Viewgraph presented) 9 And I think it is within these boundary conditions 10 that we see treating a lot of the scenarios, the potential l 11 changes. This is something we call numerical experiments. 12 He changed the boundaries to reflect some scenario such as 13 injection of water or such as climatic changes that 14 increasas the infiltration flux above what we think it might ( ) 15 be. I 16 So we can modify thc lower boundary in the 17 saturated zone, the water table elevation, the flux across 18 the boundary which we can do by changing it in particular 19 ways. 20 Accommodating climatic influences primarily we 21 think by modifying the surface flux. I think eventually we 22 are going to need to do this both total uagnitude and also 23 look at what the effects are of distributing that flux 24 across the site. 25 For these treatments of these boundary conditions, s I Heritage Reporting Corporation { (202) 628-4888 (')N
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~419-1 of course, we need to determine through our characterization
() 2 programs what the magnitude, frequency and duration of these 3 changes are likely to be. This is going to have to come out 4 of the tectonic and climatic programs working in close 5 conjunction with the hydrologic programs. 6 DR. STEINDLER: Before you leave that, when you
- 7. say "numerical experiments", I assume that is a computer 8 related exercise.
9 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. 10 DR. STEINDLER: Which no doubt has an infinite 11 amount of variation and can be run as long as your account 12 on the computer is'still valid. 13 What relationship do you eventually try to 14 establish between those numerical experiments and what you ( ) 15 believe to be the real world? 16 DR. SINNOCK: That is what I am trying to get at 17 in this very last item is yes, we could assumo we have 18 Hawaii out there in terms of infiltration. Right now we 19 would saturate the mountain and the water would run off the 20 surface, but we could push the system to that numerically 21 and increase the filtracion to 150 inches a year. 22 This is where the characterization programs have j- 23 to focus on setting some sort of bounds on what the 24 likelihood of the magnitude, the frequency find the duration 25 of these changes might be. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
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420 1- And we have to work _very closely with the site b) A/ 2 characterization program in an iterative fashion to try and 3 determine what magnitudes of changes represent potential 4 jeopardies to the site. 5 And if they do represent a jeopardy, are they' 6 indeed a reasonuSle possibility. 7 DR. STEINDLER: But I guess my problem is unless 8 you have some way of doing a continuous rain dance for a 9 long time out there, you are never going to turn that site 10 into a Hawaii to determine whether or not your computer 11 exercise has any relationship to the real world. 12 So if you are that far off in your ability to do 13 experiments, how do you determine or what kind of processes 14 do you go through to determine the data needs that will test ( ) 15 your model or your composites or whatever? 16 DR. SINNOCK: In terms of the possible future 17 scenarios, we can certainly look to analogues where we think 18 information will tell us what conditions might be like at 19 the mountain if they were to change. 20 But we can also perhaps to try to look for 21 evidence of the system perhaps oti.11 responding to some 22 former perturbation; saturation differences through the 23 mountain that we know cannot be maintained under steady 24 state conditions. 25 There may be some transient that is still being Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
421 1 dissipated within the mountain. (') 2 Maybe the next slide will help a little bit. 3 '(viewgraph presented) 4 MR. MOELLER: We have another question. 5 DR. SHEWMON. Yes. Someplace in here you say you 6 don't consider gases by which you mean up-drafts of air you 7 haven't modelled yet? 8 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. 9 DR. SHEWMON. So what goes in, goes down? 10 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. 11 DR. SHEWMON. Since you are conserving water. 12 What is relevant to the ques',lon of licensing the 13 site? Travel time or what? 14 DR. SINNOCK: The water movement, certainly, as g s_) 15 downward and although theoretically it is possible to move 16 water upward by evaporating it off the top. We are almost 17 certain that would be a very long -- 18 DR. SHEWMON. But it is also quite possible that 19 most of what falls ont he surface does never make it to the l 20 bottom. 21 DR. SINNOCK: That is possible. 22 DR. SHEWMON. It depends on what your model is so 23 far. 24 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. 25 DR. SHEWMON. So let's come back to -- so insofar Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 {'}
9 O l 422 1 as your model is limited currently to what goes in, goes
. v(I) 2 through, you can get velocities out of it, is that right?
3 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. 4 DR. SHEWMON. And then the next thing is to try to 5 model what fraction of what actually comes back up? 6 DR. SINNOCK: We do a moisture balance accounting 7 for the vapor flux through the mountain to get at that 8 question of given an assumption of what infiltrates to the 9 surface, the upper few meters, how much of that is likely to 10 propagate down to the repository horizon where it can 11 contact the waste and become a transporting medium for the 12 waste. 13 Certainly we hear talk throughout our hallways, et 14 cetera, there is a possibility there is not water moving in ( ) 15 that valve now. It is basically just held there by 16 capillary forces. 17 DR. SHEWMON. And evaporation. Since something 18 falls on it, something has to come out. 19 DR. SINNOCK: Well, the evaporative front may 20 penetrate considerably 'eeper than the upper few meters is 21 what we are findica 22 So if we do a model that says net inflitration is 23 anything below three meters, the agricultural science is 24 that is certainly good enough. That is found in no man's 25 land. Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
423 1 We may find we are getting some slight amount of 2 evaporation deeper, perhaps hundreds of meters, with a net (~J3 \~ 3 circulating system, air vapor. 4 Some of the preliminary modelling we have done 5 does show some amount of natural circulation down to the 6 repository depths of vapor. But we haven't coupled the two 7 together, 8 (Viewgraph presented) 9 The next one is -- by doing one of these numerical 10 experiments and for instance assuming considerably more 11 infiltration, again it presents a testable prediction.
?2 In this case, it shows that the entire mountain 13 becomes saturated. Yes, we do instigate considerably more 14 lateral flow. And this is in the matrix. And in fact, we saturate the fractures over on the eastern side of the
( ) 25 16 mountain and sustain rapid fracture flow. 17 (viewgraph presented) 18 But going back to the other slide, it is a 19 testable type of prediction, so we want to cast the 20 numerical experiments in a form that says okay, if this is 21 to be the case, we should find very high saturation levels 22 throughout the mountain. 23 very briefly, I think I missed a slide in here 24 somewhere. 25 (Pause) Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 O
424 1 Oh, there it is. Simply, our calculational () 2 approach uses standard solutions of the hydrologic equations 3 for a pressure distribution that shows flow lines. Wo 4 calculated velocity. 5 But we solved for pressure. Or come up with an 6 approach that can just solve directly an algebraic equation. 7 The reason I bring that up is there are some
'8 trade-offs numerically. These are some numerical 9 constraints we have to concern ourselves with related to the 10- dimensionality of the code, the meshed time steps, treatment 11 of spatial variability.
12 And we have to do this in the context of whether 13 we are being conservative or not. 14 The full solutions, finite element solutions, very ( ) 15 realistically we think treat the process. They account for-36 pressure continuity, but boy do they crunch the computer 17 time. 18 And they may not practically be able to account 19 for spatial variability within the given units which may be 20 a contributor to dispersion. 21 The algebraic approaches, on the other hand, can 22 more realistically finally resolve the spatial variability 23 but so far we are violating pressure continuity in the 24 mountain by doing so. 25 So we think we are going to use the full solutions Heritage Reporting Corporation f) (202) 628-4888 v
l l 425
-1 to give us representative -- on representative subdomains to
(') 2 help us constrain the boundary conditions from the simpler 3 approaches throughout the full domain of the site. 4 Based on these, we have three major classes of 5 information needs to support the model. One, what is out 6 there right now? What can we measure to support our nominal 7 case? 8 Secondly, particularly looking at the regional 9 influences on the boundary conditions, how can this nominal 10 case be disturbed. What are the bounds-on that disturbance? 11 These then will be used to define scenarios for 12 these numerical experiments and hopefully with very close 13 cooperation with the people developing these scenarios. 14 The third major class of information is how do we ( ) 15 come to some assessment of the models we have chosen as 16 reasonable representation of the physical behavior of the 17 system. 18 All of these have to be based on measurements of 19 things that are out there today and we can make inferences 20 in terms of what it means in the past. 21 We can also look at laboratory experiments and 22 natural analogues particularly to help us bound the 23 potential influence of scenarios. 24 Particularly the validation process, this meeting 25 is one of the meetings where we are certainly expressing our Heritage Reporting Corporation {} (202) 628-4888
4
.l l
426-ll ideas to a much' larger audience. 2 ['1Y
' %- And it is essential that we continue to do so.
3 Our parameter uncertainty, how does hydraulic
- 4. conductivity vary, through using the input variables --
5 hydraulic conductivity, porosity, thickness as random 6 variables -- we can then' identify those variables as the , 7 variables that are the most influential on the travel time 8 or the radionuclide releasea to help us focus our 9 characterization efforts on those sensitive areas. 10 Then we can put those back into a probabilistic 11 prediction to see the source, given particularly those 12 sensitive variables, how much they affect the prediction of 13 performance. ; 14 And this in turn feeds back to how sensitive it ( ) 15 is, not just if the travel time goes from a million years to 16 ten million. It may be very sensitivo to that parameter but 17 we may not care. 18 However, if the travel time goes from 100 to 19 100,000 years, travel time sensitive to it, it is also of ( 20 considerable significance, s 21 (Viewgraph presented) j 22 The basic conceptual concerns we have that are a 23 little more difficult to deal with in getting a statistical 24 basis of measurement have to do with the fracture flow. I 25 Does it exist? If so, how much and where. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 [}
427 1 Something that has not been mentioned very much is matrix 2 diffusion. Even if water were to flow in the fractures, and f( } 3 this occurs in the saturated zone we are pretty sure, and 4 the contaminants are in the water in the fractures, they l- 5 have concentration. 6 Out in the matrix, chemical concentration. So in 7 the matrix pores where there is water, the chemical 8 concentration is less. 9 So there is a chemical potential for diffusion of 10 the contaminants from the fractures where the water is 11 flowing into the matrix where the water may not be flowing. 12 How effective is that process? The physical 13 process that will occur, will it occur in a sufficient 14 enough rate or magnitude to be significant for the ( ) 15 performance? 16 I will briefly mention the scalar relationships 17 and vapor flux which are concerns we are dealing with 18 currently. 19 (viewgraph presented) 20 In terms of disruptive scenarios, I imagine we are 21 interested in the magnitude, frequency, duration and spatial 22 extent of potential changes. 23 And the material properties within our physical 24 domain and the defining boundary conditions for our 25 modelling domain. Heritage Reporting Corporation {} (202) 628-4888 i
428 i
~1 Specifically the tectonic, climatic influences and perhaps some human' influences such as water withdrawal in a
(( ). 2 3 desert, mining, et cetera. 4 (Viewgraph presented) 5 Sort of like validation, which comes back in here, 6 these-conceptual concerns are much less amenable to 7 quantification than parametric uncertainty, which we can 8 statistically describe and then account for. 9 We can address this conceptual uncertainty perhaps 10 by waiting. We can do analyses based on one set of 11 assumptions and analyses based on another. We have no way 12 of knowing which is right. 13 We either have two sets of analyses or just 14 through some sort of Delphi approach come up with some sort
/~3 ~ -(_j 15 of estimate of their likelihood and roll them together.
16 Or we can use bounding calculations to see if they 17 make any difference. If the uncertain represented by the 18 conceptual alternatives we have to deal with does not 19 influence the performance in a sense to jeopardize 20 compliance, we may be able to, in a bounding sonse, be able 21 to say that we can live with the uncertainty represented by 22 those alternatives. 23 It is all tied in again to this validation of our 24 modelling approaches. So we can calibrate our predictions 25 with respect to field observations to test them; is the Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
}
429 1 saturation what we predict. f') v 2 Or we can compare it to controlled field 3 experiments or controlled laboratory experiments to see if 4 we've got a handle on being able to mimic the process given 5 a known set of :aaterial problems. 6 And of course, this process should be open to 7 peri ~dic formal peer review and continuing informal peer 8 review. 9 (Viewgraph presented) 10 The summary summarizes what I said. We are 11 running behind so I think I will not go over the last two 12 viewgraphs. 13 DR. SHEWMON. Does the DOE program have any 14 measurements in air flow through the mountain? ()15 DR. SINNOCK: yes. There are some. Dwight. I 16 think Ed Weeks has obtained some estimates in a bore hole. l'i Right? Do you know? 18 MR. HOXIE: What? 19 DR. SINNOCK: The question is, is there any 20 measurement of air flow through the maintain? 21 MR. HOXIE: Can I address that real quick? 22 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. 23 MR. HOXIE: I am Dwight Hoxie. 24 Ed Weeks also with USGS in Denver has discovered i 25 that we have one bore hole on the crest of Yucca Mountain Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 l
430 1- and he has observed quantitatively air flow that will go in {)2 and out'of the bore hole, a bore hole breeze essentially, as 3 a result of barometric changes occurring at the surface of 4 the mountain. 5 And so the whole idea is that there is a kind of 6 chimney effect that the bore hole has induced within the 7 fracture system at depth. And at depth I mean about 300 8 meters or so. 9 DR. SRENMON. Well, in Arizona we visited a DOE
.10 program in which they were studying that aort of behavior in 11 a mountain down there and my question is basically whether ,
12 the same sorts of measurements will be made at Yucca 13 Mountain that would be germane to the sort of movement of 14 water up and down or to what extent what goes in comes back (f15 out instead of going through. 16 MR. MOELLER: Other questions. 17 MR. HOXIE: I was just going to respond to that 18 for a second. 19 One thing we don't know for sure is whether or not 20 the bore hole actually is responsible for the observed air 21 flow. 22 It may have disturbed the system. Otherwise it 23 may not be a natural cycle. We don't know. 24 DR. SHEWMON. Okay. 25 MR. MOELLER: Dr. Moody? Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
'F 431 1 DR. MOODY: The question I have is we talked about validation of model approaches. It is sort of interesting.
b - l[ f. 2 - 3 I am not sure that laboratory approaches will yield the. kind 4 of data that you need here. S- Just explain why you are still interested in doing 6 lab experiments. 7 DR. SINNOCK: Well, I certainly sympathize with 8 your concern. We still want to build a warm fuzzy feeling 9 that our way of treating the interaction between the matrix 10- and the fractures is -- indeed the way we treat it 11 mathematically and numerically -- is indeed a reflection of 12 a real process. 13 I think within the lab we can control the material 14 properties of the boundary conditions and specify them ( ) 15 specifically enough that if we can mimic what we do perhaps 16 see in a san,dbox or its mimic with our codes, it will help 17 give us a feeling that we are doing something right. , 18 The control on the boundary conditions and the 19 material property distribution in field experiments I think 20 is going to be a continuing source of uncertainty in the 21 interpretation of the results from those experiments. 22 So only in the lab do I see where we can get down 23 our uncertainty about our material property and boundary 24 conditions sufficiently to know that our inability to match 25 it perfectly isn't due to our uncertainty and what it is we Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
0 432 1 are observing in the field. m () 2 DR. MOODY: I know. But there is the' classic 3 question that you also probably know and that is especially 4 the determination of physical properties, that when you talk 5 about a laboratory experiment in a 3 cm core of rock and 6 compared to what actually goes on in the field when you see 7 the rock in place -- 8 DR. SINNOCK: Even for the laboratory experiments 9 we are going to rely on some of those small core samples to 10 characterize the material properties within whatever volume 11 of rock in the field it is we are testing, pulsing with 12 energy or mass or whatever. 13 DR. MOODY: I know. But what I am trying to say 14 is I question how you make that interface between laboratory ( ) 15 experiments that you do and what you observe in the field. 16 That is sometimes not easy, as you know. 17 DR. SINNOCK: I think another area of the 18 laboratory can help us by measuring small samples, getting 19 controls, and seeing how we can use small samples to mimic a 20 behavior of a property on a larger scale. 21 One of the issues we have, especially the densely 22 welded tufts, is the response time even in the laboratory, 23 looking at the conductivity. It is a half millimeter per 24 year. That is water moving that far in a year under natural 25 conditicas. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
}
m 433 1 So we've'got some problems of mimicking the actual (m) 2 behavior. We suspect in the site -- we can't do it in a 3 real time basis. 4 So we have to pulse the system very hard with some 5 sort of water which may be creating situations that are not 6 analogous to the type of behavior we expect in the sites.
-7 The response time of our system in the densely 8 welded tufts is another issue we have to confront in 9' designing and experimental program.
10 MR. MOELLER: Dr. Kerr? 11 DR. KERR: Is someone attempting to develop a 12 method of deciding when your model is good enough? 13 DR. SINNOCK: (Pause) 14 Well, yes, and we are in the process again of ( j 15 m developing these position papers. And I think through this 16 process of defining what goes into a position paper-is going 17 to be part of that process. 18 When do we think we've got enough in terms of 19 model development? The other aspect, we have through our 20 quality assurance program, done sufficient things to be able 21 to demonstrate we think the development of that model 22 numerically as adequate. 23 DR. KERR: Well, it seems to me those are two 24 separate issues. Criteria for decision simply going to be 25 based on somebody's judgment as to what's enough, and the Heritage Reporting Corporation {} (202) 628-4888
434 1 other, it seems to me, is another question.
.2 DR. SINNOCK: We are certainly continuing the
(} 3 development work in the model area at this time. Whether we 4 are buying a 2 per cent improvement or a 50 per cent 5 improvement I think is going to depend on some of the 6 results we see from the experimental program and how well 7 again we are able to match what we can observe. 8 DR. KERR: In using these to predict the behavior , 9 of a depository, the assumption is made that the material's 10 properties do not change over the 10,000-year period? 11 DR. SINNOCK: That can be handled either way. One 12 of the little arrows on my first one is that material 13 properties can change. 14 DR. KERR: Which assumption is going to be made?
.( ) 15 That they do?
16 DR. SINNOCK: Either one can be made and we have 17 currently made the ascumption that material properties are 18 constant. 19 DR. KERR: No, but eventually in determining 20 whether you meet whatever criteria that have been set, you 21 are going to have to decide, it seems to me,which of these 22 assumptions you make. 23 DR. SINNOCK: We are assuming that something like 24 porosity remains a constant. I think as we consider some of 25 these tectonics scenarios where they are actually modelled, Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 (')%
435 1 say fracture porosity chains are treated as a change in a () 2 boundary condition on flux, depends on what the sensitivity 3 of those various treatments are in terms of performance of
'4 <
-the system. And if they make a difference.
5 MR. MOELLER: Dr. Orth? 6 MR. FRAZIER: Excuse me. Let me follow up-the 7 last question. My name is Jerry Frazier. 8 In the tectonics section of the SCP, we address 9 the subject you were asking and we say that we will attempt 10 to identify whether properties will change by more than a 11 factor of 2 is the number we use. 12 DR. KERR: Thank you. 13' DR. ORTH: Do you have your proverbial warm fuzzy 14 feeling that you really have identified all of the material ( ) 15 and properties that might be important in the overall 16 characterization? 17 For example, considering your earlier remarks 18 about zeolitic strata and vitric strata and plum puddings 19 versus layer cakes, those kind of differences can make 20' tremendous differences in the retardation and the way things 21 move. 22 And so again, just using that as an example, do 23 you really think you have identified all the material
- 24 properties now to put them inte your model and to put them 25 into your experimental programs?
Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
436 1 DR. SINNOCK: My personal opinion? () 2 DR. ORTH: Personal opinion. 3 DR. SINNOCK: Yes. At least those parameters that 4 will have what I will say will be a first-order effect on 5 the performance and behavior of the system. , 6 MR. MOELLER: Other questions?
? (No response) 8 MR. MOELLER: Well, thank you, Dr. Sinnock.
.9 DR. SINNOCK: Thank you.
10 MR. MOELLER: We will go back to Carl Gertz.
- 11. I suppose the question at this point will be what 12 is the remaining program and what sort of a schedule can we !
13 anticipate. I know Dr. Syzmanski is next. 14 MR. GERTZ: Yes. I am going to take about three ( ) 15 or four minutes to introduce Dr. Syzmanski and then I will 16 leave it to Ed to discuss with'you what you would like to do 17 after that. 18 MR. MOELLER: Okay. 19 MR. WEEKS: We have about an hour's presentation 20 scheduled by Jerry Sy manski followed by about a 30-minute t 21 summary presentation by two other presenters. 22 And we also have about another 15-minute 23 presentation in there. So that we have approximately an ; 24 hour and 45 minutes of presentation time which we are 25 prepared for. t f Heritage Reporting Corporation {} (202) 628-4888
b J
.w 437 1 MR. MOELLER: All right. Well, we will plan on
~
I 2 that. And if we can stick to that schedule, then we will be
- 3 through by 6:00.
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438 1 Fa. GERTZ: I didn't stato for the record what my 2 background is. And I am a civil engineer from Michigan
-[~)
s 3 State University, and there are some people from Michigan 4 around here, so I wanted to get in Michigan State 5 University. 6 I have u Masters Degree in Systems Management from 7 the University of Southern California, and some post-8 graduate nuclear engineering work. But I didn't want to 9 miss an opportunity to talk about Michigan State. 10 Let me first state before I introduce Jerry's 11 subject is that DOE Management is committed to a 12 comprehensive site investigation program. We're absolutely 13 committed to get on with the job. We recognize that it's 14 important to the power industry and society that this n (_) 15 project is a success, success being we build a repository if 16 the place is right, or we don't build it if Yucca Mountain 17 doesn't meet the safety requirements. 18 However, if you believe in keeping the nuclear 19 option open, finding solution to nuclear waste is essential. 20 We also believe and we heard a discussion today, and I hear 21 wherever we go, there's many technical requirements that are 22 unprecedented. Ten thousand year models, 2nsaturated zone 23 activities, and therefore our perceptions and our approaches 24 will constantly be evolving. We're going to be changing 25 them all the time we think through site characterization. Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
439 1 And therefore we do welcome input for ways to () 2 refine current approaches and we'll respond as appropriate 3 to clarify or modify programmatic plans. In fact, one of 4 -the things that has caused us to change our thinking on the 5 project is the next subject. And that's going to be Jerry 6 Szymanski's report. 7 Let me talk aoout it a little bit. It deserves 8 some introduction, I believe. The background is that it is 9 a conceptual model for thermal tectonic interactions. 10 Jerry's going to talk a lot more about it when he gets up 11 here. 12 The origin of the report, a couple years ago Jerry 7 13 had some ideas about what was happening at the mountain. He 14 discussed these verbally although he didn't put anything in
)15 writing at the time. And then last November, Max Planck, 16 the supervisor and myself said, gee, some of these things 17 may make' sense. Why don't we get them in writing so that we 18 can-have a review of it, so we can see what the facts 19 represent, what the report would be like. -
20 And he did that. In fact, he provided the report 21 officially to me on December 22nd, about five months ago. 22 About a month later though, that same report, which was 23 certainly an early and an unreviewed draft, was released to 24 the public so to speak by the Governor of Nevada. 25 And because of some of tne conclusions drawn, and Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-1808
440 1 soine of the ' paraphrases that wore made by the media, it did [
\j
)- 2 create some confusion. While the conclusions had 3 qualifications to them, when you have a media and a United 4 States Senate race, it created some confusion about out of 5 context.
6 So we got a lot of interest, 29 media contacts the 7 day it was released in my office, 29 media contacts. We did 8 initiate a review process at the time it was received and 9 it's on going now. It's a standard QA review process, it's 10 comments and resolutions documented. Each piece of paper, 11 we're going to evaluate any possible impacts to the project 12 approach,.being incorporated right now, and we will produce 13 a peer review report. 14 What is the status of that peer review report? (G_) 15 Well, we've had a lot of reviewers, 17 to 20 reviewers, 16 diverse expertise because it certainly crosses many 17 technicL1 boundaries. We've had some other reviewers. 18 We've talked to the National Academy of Sciences. We've 19 discussed it in the alternate conceptual model worksusp and 20 the State of Nevada has some comments on it, comments that 21 I've not received yet, and I've asked for them, so it could 22 be factored into our peer review process. Perhaps they'll 23 be coming with us in the SCP comments. 24 Es've gone through the comment resolution process, 25 we've talked about it. And I'll name them because they're Heritage Reporting Coqporation {} (202) 628-4888 1 1
441 1 important: hydrology, flow processes, thermal convection, 2 vulcanism, tectonics, rock mechanics, geochemistry, and
'( )
3- under ground nuclear explosions at NTS, all those things are 4 part of Jerry's report. 5 The resolution process has been interdisciplinary 6 with scientific interactions and the status is we've looked 7 at the majority of the major topics at this time. We've 8 resolved, achieved about a hundred percent resolution. And 9 let me tell you what that means, though. 10 Resolution means that perhaps the report needed 11 clarification and the author, Jerry, has agreed to clarify 12 the report. Maybe the comments needed clarification and the 13 commenters agreed to do that. 14 Commenters and the authors recognize there have 7-( j'15 been alternate interpretations possible that perhaps one 16 initially stated, so that's being stated. And the
~l significance has been qualified and not just given without 18 qualification.
l 19 What are our plans, though? Well, we do want to l 20 resolve all the comments that these reviewers have, and we 21 want to develop our peer review report, and that's about a 22 month or two in the future. But more importantly, we want l 23 to co-author a synthesis, because Jerry's report is pretty 24 thick, and we'd like to co-author a 20 page synthesis, Jerry I 25 and some of the key reviewers, and then we would prosent Heritage Reporting Corporation
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442 1 that to people so that we can clarify technical issues, and () 2 provide a better peer review so to speak quote unquote of 3 it, outside' evaluation. 4 And as part of today's presentation, we hope to 5 talk about 15 minutes, after Jerry's done, about what the 6 peer reviesars have to say about it. And I think it will be 7 very important, if you'd bear with us through that. Jerry's 8 going to -- endorses it totally and wants to have it happen 9 today. So we' re going to have that happen. g 10 And certainly we want to evaluate our adequacy of 11 site characterization plan. Our botto.n line is, project's 12 perception of the environment is evolving. There is a 13 management commitment to integrate all evolving hypotheses 14 into the project, concepts that stress and temperature, i ! (3 s_) 15 inner components of behavior are now being integrated at the 16 working level. 17 _One of the things I think the report did was cause 18 the scientists to think about this, that perhaps they 19 weren't thinking about it before, they were focused maybe 20 too narrow. There has been healthy technical disagreements 21 about magnitudes and frequencies of hydrologic events, 22 They're being expressed by various scientists. As project 23 manager, I endorse that scientific debate. 24 During the re-review process, it's been beneficial 25 to the scientific community. Some of the disagreements Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
443 1 about significance, this significance, hydrologic
. significance, may be resolved during the review'p:ocess;
~
2-3 others:we're going to have to wait until testing to resolve. 4 And in. summary, that's where we stand. And I'11 5- just turn it over to Jerry now to talk about his report for 6 you all. 7 MR. MCELLER: Thank~you, Carl. 8 (Continued on following page.) 9' 10 11
.12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
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444 1 DR. SYZMANSKI: What I will be talking about is () 2- the key player in the repository performance which I believe 3 is the hydrologic system. 4 And of cource in order to formulate such a thing, 5 we have to have something which I call the conceptual model. 6 So that is basically what we will be talking about. 7 (Viewgraph presented) 8 I would like to present this thing in four parts, 9 this introduction which will be broken actually in two 10 parts. We will be talking about conceptual models of a 11 hydrologic system in general, which I think requires some 12 clarification. 13 And the second part I will be talking about 14 specifically the Yucca Mountain as seen in the data base
.s
_ %, ) 15 which exists already at this point in time. l 16 There is an integral part of this whole thing 17 which is essentially somehow to conceptualize the tectonics 18 environment of this site and try to obtain what is important 19 in_ terms of hydrology. 20 Finally, I will put this whole thing together to 21 develop the conceptual model of the whole system. And 22 finally I would like to go to the technical issues.
- 23 MR. MOELLER
- Your handout says on the cover that i 24 you are a physicist.
25 Could you tell us what your background is? IIeritage Reporting Corporation 1 (} (202) 628 4888 i (
445 1 DR. SYZMANSKI: Well, my background essentially is () 2 in geology and geohydrology, but I guess the Government 3 doesn't have such a title so they slapped this physical 4 scientist on me, which is fine with me. 5 (Laughter) 6 The system that I will be talking about 1 I 7 essentially is the one whereby -- I think it is the best ! 8 viewgraph to synthesize this thing. 1 9 (Viewgraph presented) 10 In my perception, that system changes cyclically. 11 There are two parameters which vary. The one is the 12 hydrolic potential and the other one is the temperature of 13 the rock which is another form of a potential. 14 What is important is that there is a decay in time 15 in coming back to its normal position. 16 Actually I think that Yucca Mountain right now is 17 somewhere at this point in time. And that is essentially 18 the main point, that there is a cyclic change which involves 19 two potentials: temperature and hydraulic potential. 20 DR. SHEWMON. Are you going to tell us what you 21 think the return time is in that model? 22 DR. SYZMANSKI: Yes. I believe that these 23 conceptual models are quite important things. They are 24 important because they provide the foundation for all 25 aspects of our activity; forten1ating mathematical models, Heritage Reporting Corporation q{ } (202) 628-4888
446 1 ' development of compliance strategies, development of the
'[ J 2 data collection, and finally demonstration of the regulatory 3 . confines. .
4 What is important from that viewgraph is that the 5 conceptual model is a foundation. If the foundation is 6 wrong, the building is likely to be functionally wrong. 7 (Viewgraph presented) 8 Well, before we get any further I would like to 9 concentrate on the word "conceptual model" of a geological 10 system. What is it? 11 For 'ny purposes I am defining this as a set of 12 thoughts or concepts which has three characteristics. One is 13 that it pertains to a system. The second one is it must be 14 useful or organized and somehow reduced to a readily ( ) 15 digestible form. 16 And finally, such a thing has to recognize and 17 express either from the nature of the system under question 18 or the circumstances under which this system operates. 19 I would like to spend a bit more time on the word 20 "system", what is "organized" and "circumstances". 21 (Viewgraph presented) 22 So essentially as a geological system, I have used 23 a part of the earth's crust as a body which is composed of 24 interacting and interdependent parts. The strengths can be 25 variable. Heritage Peporting Corporation l (3 (202) 628-4888 i %) 1
m ,
^
R 447 1 Now what is important in this second bullet is () .2 that "subsystem" cannot be treated in isolation of the 3 overall system. The subsystem is only a part. In some 1 4 places, the interaction is very weak and justifiably so. )
)
5 We can view the subsystem as not really related to 6 the overall system.
- 7. DR. MOODY: Jerry, do you think in the system we 8 are going to be talking about, the repository at Yucca 9 Mountain, do you think the crust is the only portion of the 10 earth you have to be concerned about?
11 DR. SYZMANSKI: I don't think so. I think we ha're 12 to be concerned with the mantle as well because that is 13 where the energy will be coming from.
- 14. But I would like to see this connection in terms I~)
(_, 15 of boundary conditions. Later I will have a viewgraph which 16 will tell you exactly where I see the connection. 17 Somehow we have to break it. We cannot really 18 look at the 30 km or so. So somehow we have to cheat nature 19 a bit. l
' :2 0 There is a third bullet which is likewise 21 important in my judgment which essentially says what Judith 22 was asking. We cannot really expect to Pnow everything that 23 is to be known about the system.
24 However, we must knew what is important, of course 25 for purposes of our activities, which is the waste system Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
448 1 interaction.
.( ) 2 (Viewgraph presented) 3 I think this is a very important viewgraph. What 4 we are really interested ~in is this one, the subsystem.
5 There is some linkage between the vadose zone hydrology and 6 the overall system, which consists of both saturated and 7 unsaturated. 8' Now this hydrological system is somehow related to 9 this one. And again one can view a conceptual model as l 10 <,pecifying what these relationships might be, specifying how 11 strong this relationship eight be. 12 And finally evaluate how important these 1 13 relationships are. Well I vier that quite strongly what we l 14 are talking about in terms of a saturated zone is a sub-l (_s) 15 subsystem. Its basic nature is related to these two things. 16 Now I also feel that this coecept must be useful. 17 And again I see them as useful when they are organized. It
.18 is quite difficult to organize geological observations or l
19 geological descriptions. i 20 However, we can try to do this more kind of in a l 21 mathematical physicist language. In other words, what we 22 uant to focus upon is the information which will help us to 23 set the governing equ,ation. 24 For example, we have to ask ourselves the question 1 1 25 of whether or not the governing equation should concern all l l l' Heritage Reporting Corporation () (202) 628-4888 l l 1 l
449 1 these three things or maybe there is only one important l~l 2 thing. LJ 3 But again a thought here is that that decision 4 'must be conscious. It cannot be a decision by default. ' in e S is interested in the state of the system. 6 Well, it is quite easy to solve the equation when 7 it is a steady system and it is more difficult when it is a 8 transient. 9 But the convenience again should not be the one 10 who guides us to which state we use for our evaluations. 11 Well, there is another important parameter which 12 is very often ignored because it is very difficult to probe 13 in, which is boundary conditions. 14 And again I see this as a mass and/or energy input
/~
(_Tj-15 into the system. There is some description of it. It is 16 quite easy to say that the boundaries are really of no 17 importance and that there are no flow boundaries. 18 Well, our problem is completely different. 19 Finally, we have to know what our initial conditions are and 20 there is a fourth aspect which is quite important, I think, 21 which is essentially space and time dependence of constants l ~22 which relate work and energy. I 23 In our case, the biggest important is a constant 24 which we call hydrolic conductivity. There is another one 25 which is called thermal conductivity. I I Heritage Reporting Corporation [} (202) 628-4888
450 1 Now my thought would focus on possible time n
.(% ) .2 dependence. And I think that is a unique thing in the
.3 hydrological thinking that I have seen thus far because most 4 hydrologists say that these constants are the function of-5 space but very few of them think about them as being a 6 function of time.
7 Again, the temporal aspects of the beharior of 8 such a system are completely different. 9 (viewgrt rh presented) 10 Well, the third part of our requirements in 11 defining conceptual models is this concept will recognize in 12 a tectonics setting which is active in terms of strain 13 energy and one which includes alkaline volcanism, that the 14 strain energy in such rocks vary in time, and it is very fs ( ) 15 likely that the terrestrial heat flow coming from the deep 16 parts of the earth is substantial. 17 By putting this together, after my talk -- I hope 18 -- it will become quite obvious that there are three things 19 which are important. The first is time dependence of the 20 constants I was talking about. 21 There is another possibility that there is a 22 convective nature of the flow process. Thermal energy 23 drives tl.a system. 24 And finally recognize in the convection in 25 fracture we could be talking about transient convection. I f Heritage Reporting Corporation i (} (202) 628-4888 L
451 1 DR. SYZMANSKI: The integral point of my 2
~
() introduction would be to put some very basic and very
'%)
3 selected information pertaining to local geology, in situ 4 stress, slug test and in situ temperatures which I-have 5 selected for the purposes of illustrating that some of the 6 concerns which I am expressing have some roots in terms of 7 the information which we already have. 8 So first the very brief overview of Yucca 9 Mountain, the repository somewhere in this area, there are 10 two features which strike any geologist visiting this place. 11 The one is the presence of numerous cones. They 12 are volcanic cones, those here. 13 (Viewgraph presented) 14 There are about 11 of them. They are all of (') 15
%j quaternary age. And there is one bugger right here which 16 can be as young as about 20,000 years old.
17 The rocks which form these cones are alkaline -- 18 kind of rocks which are similar to what they are in Hawaii. 19 The second feature which is of interest is the 20 presence of basically five faults. There are five of them. 21- Now these faults have a history of quaternary 22 movement. This one, Windy Wash Fault, is known to have 23 about five movements in the last about 200,00 years. 24 The others, we don't have such precision yet but 25 we know there is a late quaternary movement involved. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
452 1 (Viewgraph displayed) p (J2 This is the east-west ~ cross section of Yucca 3 Mountain. Of interest are these five zones which correspond 4 to the-five faults I have shown on the photographs. 5- Now the rock which is composing these zones is 13 very peculiar and I ha%e brought you a piece to'take a look 7 at it. 8 (Passes rock out to audience) 9 What is peculiar about it is this is essentially 10 matrix cupported, the one which has a very substantial 11 amount of volumetric strength. 12 Now I have done a very simple computation. The 13 total length from here to there is somehwere on the order of 14 10 km. We have five zones about .5 km thick, each one. rx (_) 15 Together they form 2.5 km. 16 On the average, I judge the volumetric strength to 17 be on the order of 10 per cent. So therefore a conclusion 18 is that the width of that mountain has increased 250 meters 19 since the deposition of the rock. 20 That is a very curious circumstance. And I
- 21' started looking into this deeper. Now these breccias zones 22 are quite old. There is no question about it.
23 However, in the center of this breccias occur 24 materials which are obviously much younger. 25 Next viewgraph. Heritage Reporting Corporation J) (202) 628-4888 l
h - 453 1 (Viewgraph presented) f') 2 There is a picture of it over here. And of 3 interest is this group of veins. We only know them for 4 about the first 15 feet of the surface. 5- Now this material consists of essentially 6 intermixed and interlayered calcite and silica. What is 7 peculiar here is that the water table is down 500 meters. 8 This is a close-up of the vein section 9 (Viewgraph presented) 10 We know that these things are late quaternary. 11 They are somewhere on the order of 200,000 years old or so. 12 So we do have these breccias We do have these materials. 13 I think they are suspicious looking things, myself. 14 So my next step was all right, let me imagine what
<^x
(._) 15 kind of a system would be the one which allows this dramatic 16 change in.the water table. 17 Well, the next bunch of data which I have looked 18 at were in situ stresses. And ag Yucca Mountain in terms of 19 engineering project is quite unique. 20 We do have four deep bore holes whereby 21 hydrofracture measurements were performed. So before we get 22 ini'o this, I think some unification between me and you is i 23 required. Therefore, let's examine this. l l 24 This is a typical Moore diagram which shows two 25 things: the stress, in terms of the Moore circle, and l L-l l Heritage Reporting Corporation
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454 1 presents also strengths of the rock. () 2 Now if this distance between the circle and the 3 line comes essentially nonexistent or zero, we will develop 4 here failure.
' S' If this distance, which I call e-2 becomes zero, 6' we will have a hydraulic failure. And if a failure occurs 7 in-between, it will be a hybrid. It will be a combination 8 of the two.
9 Now let's take a look at the stress measurements 10 at Yucca Mountain. This is essentially bore hole g-1. And 11 now should the circle be substantial distance from a dashed 12 line, it would mean that our e-1 value was substantial. 13 However, having these dots quite systematically 14 right smack on this dashed line tells us that e-1 is very, ( ) 15 very small. 16 That is the coefficient against -- friction 17 stability coefficient against frictional sliding is very 18 close.to one. 19 I think it is a very important observation. Now 20 of course this type of thing is recognized in terms of 21 tectonics, stability of openings and other engineering 22 purposes, but very seldom this thing is looked et in terms 23 in hydrology. 24 I would like to spend a bit more time. And before 25 we go, I would like to show you another measurement whi h is Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
455 1 an interesting situation here. Again we do have these three () 2 dots right smack on the line but somewhere down in depths 3 that thing wants to depart. 4 In other words, what we begin to see is that the 5 deeper we go -- somewhere around the order of 1500 meters -- 6 that coefficient becomes bigger than one. 7 but it is not so in this area. 8 Next viewgraph. 9 (Viewgraph presented) 10 Now let's probe a bit more in terms of the 11 potential hydrologic significance. And there are two 12 drawings here which really are after this one, but we cannot I 13 get results understanding this thing. 14 This one is the standard shear stress, shear n (_) 15 displacement diagram which essentially consists of two 16 parts. 17 If our coefficient against friction or sliding is 18 one, then the displacement is either here or somewhere 19 there. 20 In other words, we would not know which one the 21 case pertained to on the basis c f stress measurement alone. 22 However, what is significant to understand is that 23 once that rock is stressed in nuch a manner that we go to 24 this limit, the rock begins to be dilated in shear. 25 In other words, the space of the joints begins to Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 620-4880
1 l
-1 456 l 1 increase. Now common sense tells us if we have a rock in l
-() 2 this situation, the conductivity of such a rock is much 3 different than over here. 4 So this is essentially a concept of how shear 5 displacement translates in terms of shear dilation. 6 Next one. 7 (Viewgraph presented) 8 This is a very interesting graph as well. This is 9 the increasing full pressure or it could be a decreasing 10 effective stress. 11 In other words, if we stress rock in such a manner 12 that the coefficient against frictional sliding is much 13 greater than one, the conductivity is constant and stress 14 independent., () 15 However, when we take it to the limit, our rock 16 seems to have very small increases of poor pressure or 17 decreases in the effective stress and causing enhancements 18 in conductivity.
'19 Now that enhancement is extreme at this point 20 where our e-2 will go to zero. In other words, our rock 21 opens up and conductivity is as high as you want.
22 Now what is interesting, I think, is to examine 23 some selective data. And we have them from about 25 holes. 24 Let's do a slag test. And I selected a few results. I hope 25 everybody knows what a slug test is. Heritage Reporting Corporation {} (202) 628-4888
457 1 What happens is we are taking an interval of rock, 2 'say 50 or 100 meters, sometimes we use 200 meters, and we Is-'/I 3 isolate that interval with two pockets, one at the bottom, 4 one at the top. 5 There is a pipe which goes all the way to the 6- surface with the mouth at the bottom. 7 We will fill the pipe with water, usually 500 8 meters of air. We will open our valve and we will be 9 watching how fast the slug moves in the pipe. 10 And this essentially is the result. 11 Now obviously in this case our slug travels quite 12 slow. And there is 10,000 seconds required to reduce the 13 head by about 20 per cent. 14 So the interpretation here is that of course with ( ) 15 500 meters of head we do not have an enhancement of 16 conductivity induced by hydraulics. 17 But let's take a look at another plot which is 18 slightly different. 19 (Viewgraph presented) 20 See, there are two intervals here. And we have 21 two distinctive parts of the graph, this one and that one. 22 This one and that one. 23 (Points to two areas on graph) 24 Now fortunately not far from that bore hole we 25 have measured that the stress, the confining stress, which Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 O(~N
458 1 allows e-2 to go to zero is somewhere on the order of 220 () 2 . meters. 3 So therefore the interpretation is that the break 4 essentially establishes a point at which the rock fails in 5 the Griffiths mode; that is, opens up hydraulically. 6 And of course over here we are measuring rock 7 which is dilated in shear. However, you can compare the 8 first plot and this one in terms of how fast the slug 9 disappears and you will see quite a significant difference. 10 There is finally another one which I think is the 11 most important one. Essentially we are seeing here that the 12 slug travels very fast. About 2 minutes or so are required 13 to get rid of 500 meter column of water. 14 I don't think I can swim that fast and I am a good ( ) 15 swimmer. And the curve doesn't have any breaks. Very 16 important to stand what it is an interpretation of. Let's 17 put this one up. 18 (Viewgraph presented) 19 Now I think that one is that essentially at that 20 point, that rock is stressed in such a manner that at that 21 point it is very low. In other words, we are observing this 22 part of the curve. 23 If you put the two together, I think it becomes 24 quite obvious that this is a reasonable expectation. In 25 other words, what I think we are seeing is combined slug Heritage Reporting Corporation ( (202) 628-4888
459 1 test and in situ stresses. 2 In situ stresses are telling us that-the rock is ( 3 stressed at limit in places. Small increases of either poor 4 pressure or either decreases of a stress by extension must 5 be introducing the permanent slip. 6 But we do not know whether there is certain 7 permanent displacement on the basis of stress measurement 8 alone. 9 However, when we introduce the slug test, I think 10 they are telling us that that rock is not only stressed at 11 limit but is quite dilated in shear. 12 DR. SHEWMON. You are setting up this head of 13 water out there on the mesa some place and watching it come 14 out the bottom somehow?
)'15 What is this column of rock? How is it defined 16 that you are talking about it?
17 DR. SYZMANSKI: Well, it is defined arbitrarily. 18 Usually it is -- 19 DR. SHEWMON. This is experimental data, is it 20 not? 21 DR. SYZMANSKI: Yes. 22 DR. SHEWMON. Okay. So there is a column of rock. 23 How long is it and where is it? 24 DR. SYZMANSKI: Well, this one -- 25 DR. SHEWMON. Yes. Heritage Reporting Corporation _(} (202) 628-4888 L
460 1 DR. SYZMANSKI: -- is at depths 911 through 972 There is about 6;0 meters of rock isolated about a ( ). 2 meters. 3 kilometer from the surface. 4 DR. SHEWMON. So you put a pressure on one end. 5 And as the pressure falls, after the stress goes down, it 6 opens up? 7 DR. SYZMANSKI: When the stress is high, the rock 8 opens up. And remains open until it reaches that point. At 9 that point, the rock begins to close because what happens is 10 that the hydraulic head decreased. 11 DR. SHENMON. Okay. And then it opens up again? 12 DR. SYZMANSKI: Yes. But you see there are two 13 types of openings. Maybe we can come back to our Moore 14 diagram. (G _/ 15 (Viewgraph presented) 16 There are two types of openings. In this , 17 particular case we've got them both. 18 You see, this tail opening marks where that 19 distanco becomes greater than zero. The first break, 20 corresponding to about 220 meters, that one is zero. 21 The difference is this is what we call a normal L 22 dilation,of hydraulic. In other words, there is an opening 23 like that. 24 Where that one is a shear dilation. There is a 25 kinking of that rock. Heritage Reporting Corporation () (202) 628-4000 i l
461 1 DR. SHEWMON. Okay. Fine. L( 2 DR. SYZMANSKI: So, you.see, what I think the 3 three typos of curves are telling us that replaces that 4 circle is more than-500 metes equivalent stress away of the 5 rupture. That is our first example. 6 There is another one whereby that circle is very 7 close to the rupture. This is where we have these two humps 8 on the curve. And finally there is a third one whereby that 9 stress, that circle, is very small in size and shifted all 10 the way here. 11 In other words, we are not seeing the tail that we 12 are seeing on the second one. But I just wanted to show 13 this as an example. There is some basis that probing this 14 data can be a very profitable undertaking.
)15 Now we also are just simply imagining what is 16 happening. The rock is stressed. There is an opening. The 17 response of such a rock to stressing as a dynamic effect is 18 completely different then when the rock is unstressed.
19 And again it is a very good example of it, the 20 response of the water table to pore pressure. This record 21 is about six or seven days after the detonation. 22 And the bore holing which we are observing has 23 built up some pore pressure is about 3 to 4 km from the 24 detonation site. 25 Now of interest is this very erratic behavior of Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 620-4888
462 1 the pore pressure. The interpretation of it, in my (~) v -2 judgment, is quite straightforward. What we are seeing is a 3 situation whereby detonation, the system becomes unbalanced 4 and is searching for an equilibrium point. 5 And that is why such a dramatic drop of water 6 table. Increasing the pore pressure was sufficient to open 7 the fracture. 8 But in a system, mechanical system, this type of 9 behavior is quite important and to be expected. We are 10 talking about 15 inches of water. 11 The second part which I would like to talk about. 12 DR. MOODY: I have a question of time. Okay. 13 We've got a time period there, 1200 hours. Does that change 14 as a function of a month, a year, five years later? Does it (Oj 15 come back to what it was before that detonation occurred? 16 DR. SYZMANSKI: Some places I understand it does; 17 in some places, it doesn't. 18 Now later we will get into this because there are 19 two various settings which are. justified, and one is 20 permanent but in some it is transient. 21 In this case, we are talking about a transient 22 effect. What we are essentially seeing is the time changes 23 in the hydraulic storativity in the rock. 24 It is two components, like husband an wife. The i 25 wife dies or the husband dies and she is kind of out of Heritage Reporting Corporation
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I5 463-1 balance. This is a very similar eituation.
; () 2 There is a second aspect which I think is quite-
'3 important, thich is the temperature. And again I would like 4 tx> focus your attention on the data we have obtained from 5 WT-10 or WT-1. We have about two of those.
6 WT stands for water table. In other words, we 7 drill the hole to know how deep is the water. And after 8 that we will measure temperature in this rock. 9 Now this is the result. This is the depths. Of 10 importance I think is the difference in the temperature from 11 one point to another. 12 I was actually impressed about this number. It is 13~ 15 degree C. And if you take a look at the map between hole 14 No. 10 and No. 1, all we have is about two miles. ( 15 In one spot, the rock is warmer about 15 degrees C 16 than the other. Well, one would ask why is it. I think 17 that it is very reasonable to suspect that there ir a 18 nonhomogeneous heat flux through the base of this thing and 19 that is why these rocks are warmer, since more heat is 20 flowing over here; and over here it is less. 21 It is not difficult to imagine what in reality we 22 are seeing is a system which convects in the saturated zone. 23 MR. MOELLER: These depths are from a fixed level, 24 not the depth from the surface? 25 DR. SYZMANSKI: It is from the surface. Heritage Reporting Corporation
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464 1 MR. MOELLER: It is from the surface. Well, is () ^ 2 the. surface flat? 3 DR. SYZMANSKI: Of course not.
-4 But we can quite safely assume that for the 5 elevations involved, that zero is really isothermal surface.
6- Or a fe' > vt e r below, I-would say 10 or you'could argue 15, 7 you will have a temperature which is equal to average annual 8 temperature. 9 MR. MOELLER: Yes. 10 DR. SYZMANSKI: However, as we go deeper and 11 deeper you can see that the gradients are changing. 12 MR. MOELLER: Right. 13 DR. SYZMANSKI: And that is what is important. 14 Now our second graph is telling us a bit more ( 15 about the temperature in the saturated zone. 16- (Viewgraph presented) 17 Again, at some depth we are seeing the 18 fluctuations. The water on the north and west side seem to 19 be a bit more warmer than the waters in the repository. 20 Now you can actually, by looking at the map where 21 the cross sections are, you will see that this step occurs 22 in parallel to the step in the water table. 23 But I brought these examples, and they are just 24 selective examples, to demonstrate I think the point that it 25 is not such an abstract thing to initiate a bit more Heritage Reporting Corporation () (202) 628-4888
465 1 interest in the_ temperature and the stressing of these rocks 2 and what do'they mean in' terms of hydrology. ([ ) 3 I think we have real data. We have good examples. 4 And all we have to do is to understand it. 5 So that is essentially my problem. What I am 6 really interested in is the post-closure performance 7 objective, all of them. There is a very important player, 8 which _s hydrology. 9 So I would kind of like to zero in, the tectonics, 10 hydrogeological system, how they are related and see what it 11 means in terms of our performance assessment. 12 In other words, a conceptual understandir.g of 13 tectonics environment would be a useful thing to know, to 14 understand what that connection might be. And finally one ( 15 could speculate on the nature of that. 16 Once some logical scl.eme of things is developed 17 which is justified by first principles, I think we can start 10 looking into that. 19 So in terms of developing my perception, I had 20 this general approach. I was focusing upon the question is 21 it possib.le rather than is it true. 22 I am not an experimenter. I have to live with the 23 data which are available to me. And some of these data was 24 not obtained surgically. Therefore, it is rather difficult 25 for me to get that point. Is it true? Heritage Reporting Corporation () (202) 628-4888
a a & 2 466 1 11' Now for the second one I said to myself well, it 2 is reasonable assurance that is required here'and does not f( ) 3 mean absolute assurance that either the site or the site 4 characterization logic contains a fata3 flaw. 5 And finally I think the fatal flaw is very 6 important and I think we have to know explicitly what are we-7 looking for. 8 The question has to be explicit. Otherwise, we can 9 bury them in terms of the bureaucratic language meaning of l 10 which is not known anyone, least of all to people like 11 ayself. 12 The second nart I would like to get the conceptual 13 understanding of tectonics environment. That is our first 14 understanding of the system. . ( ) 15' 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
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D 467. l' DR. SYZMANSKI: Finally,-I would like to {)2 synthesize these things and say well what is all this 3l information telling me in a manner which is simple and 4 useful and I can use this thing to establish what my 5 governing _cquations are, what are the states and so-on. 6 (Viewgraph presented) 7 So the first viewgraph is the location of the-8 site. I am interested in the overall hydrologic system 9 situated in the Great Basia. 10 The Great Basin is quito anomolous in structure in 11 the United States which has very well defined 12 characteristics which are readily available. They are 13 known. 14 The first one is an isostatic anomoly map, gravity ( ) 15 measurements. Our place is somewhere here. 16 (Points to spot on map) 17 And as you read the label, you will see that this 18 means mass deficiency.- In other words, that the 19 gravitational attraction over this area is less than in the 20 standard area. 21 Now there are two ways to explain such a thing. On 22 one hand, we can assume that the crust is thin and the 23' mantle is of decreased viscosity. Therefore, that is why we 24 get the less mass. 25 Or, we can assume that the crust is thick there. Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202i 628-4888
468-1 There.are two various compensation mechanisms. ()~2 In order to distinguish which one is the case, we 3 have to know or we have to obtain'aome measurements of the 4 thickness of the crust. 5 And there it is. It is a recent seismic 6 reflection survey. And again it is seen that in our region 7 the thickness of the crust is low. 8 Therefore, on these two observations we can expect 9 that our mass deficiency, the origin of it, is in the 10 mantle. 11 Now in order to confirm such a thing, it would be 12 nice for us to know what is the velocity of seismic waves in 13 the mantle. 14 (Viewgraph presented)
)15 Well, we've got it over here. This is based on 16 deep seismic soundings, nuclear detonations and earthquakes, 17 This region is of int.erest to us. And again the 18 mantle velocity is reduced from normal 8.2 or 8.3 to 19 somewhere on the order of 7.8. Just to give you a ,
20 comparison, the mantle underneath Japan would have a 21 velocity somew' are of the order of 7.7 km/second. , 22 The;e is another characteristic of this area. It 23 is a surface heat flow. We know the area is quite 24 increased. It is 2.5 heat flow units. 25 Now putting these four characteristics -- that is, Heritage Reporting Corporation () (202) 628-f888
I 469
~1 ~ mass daficiency, thin crust, lou seismic velocity in the
() 2 mantle, high heat flow -- it is easy to guess what is the 3 raw picture of the geological system. 4 And such a thing was developed by Scholz and 5 represented here. 6 (Viewgraph presented) 7 The mystery is readily explainable by assuming 8 that the mantle is partially melted. Well, if it is so, I 9 have performed an analysis or computation of the stability 10 of such a thing. 11 The critical number for such analysis is the 12 viscosity. 13 (Viewgraph presented) 14 Now I have assumed that it varies somewhere (O_/ 15 between 10 to the twentieth to 10 to the twenty-first poise. 16 That is a very important assumption. I think it can be 17 justified. 18 Now we also know on the basis of various 19 computations that the critical ratinn number for the mantle 20 is somewhere on the order of 1700. 21 Frora that it becomes quite easy for us to compute 22 what are the requirements for the convection in the mantle 23 to be initiated. 24 And again for various viscosities which we will be 25 talking about later, which is about 100 km thick, 10 to the Heritage Reporting Corporation () (202) 628-4888
470 1 twenty-first poise, e.11 we really need to initiate this g3 2 thermal instability is 200 degrees C difference between d 3 upper / top and the bottom, 100 km. 4 That is a pretty darn reasonable number, I think. 5 New this computation is telling us that an assumption of 6 convection, thermal convection in the mantle, is reasonable. 7 It would be a miracle if that thing wouldn't be 8 convecting. So the next step is whnt does it mean for us, 9 for the hydrologists, which I think is Judith's question. 10 Heat flux, which is heterogenous there, and there 11 is a continuous introduction of strain energy. 12 (Viewgraph presented) 13 I would like to examine the local characteristics 14 of our area as we know them, oh, in the shallow depths of a few kilometers. I would like analyze what is the history of { } 15 16 strain accumulation and there are information which pertain 17 to long-term, geological, short-term, which is years, and 18 very short-term, which is weeks. 19 And I think it is quite constructive to review 20 this information. 21 It is interesting to see that the very long-term, 22 like this one, is essentially the strain rate was derived on 2.? the basis of geological records. It is not terribly 24 dissimilar to what we get from the second one, which is on 25 the basis of geodetic measurements, a few years. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
j 471 1 And it is quite comparable to what we get from
~
()
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2 earthquakes. Now there is another interesting aspect to this 3 one which is the shear strain in the horizontal plane. 4 Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to measure it 5 and all we can really do is paleomagnetic studies. It was 6 surprising to me, this 30 degree rotation. I think it is a 7 very substantial number. It is not trivial by any means. 8 There is another rotation which occurs about the 9 horizontal a: tis and it is a tilting of the area. It is 10 quite obvious that the area is strained, that it is being 11 strained. 12 It is an interesting diagram or strain measurement 13 which wae achieved through measurements with strain meters. 14 The occasion here was an event in 1970 at the Nevada Test ( ) 15 Site and someone was very wise nnd decided to keep the 16 strain meters operating. 17 (Viewgraph presented) 18 Of interest is this record that essentially 19 indicates a very substantial straining which occurs on all 20 of them in a very short period of time. 21 MR. MOELLER: Is there a reason to use this 22 particular year or two months? 23 DR. SYZMANSKI: No. These measurements are quite 24 difficult to make. 25 MR. MOELLER: I see. Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
g - - & $ 472 1 DR. SYZMANSKI: It is unique. I think that there [~ %/
) 2 may be only one other place on earth which has more than 3 one.
4 MR. MOELLER: Okay. I see. 5 DR. SYZMANSKI: They are quite, quite 6 sophisticated measurements. 7 _This just happens to be when these instruments 8 were operating. 9 MR. MOELLER: Okay. 10 DR. MGODY: So again, Jerry, you are saying there 11 isn't anything more recent since that two-month time period 12 which you are showing up there? 13 DR.'SYZMANSKI: Right. 14 DR. MOODY: Have they stopped measurements after ( ) 15 that? 16 DR. SYZMANSKI: What I am trying to show here is 17 that it is reasonable to assume that this area is being 18 strained on a continuous basis. 19 We have enough information to say that. 20 MR. M3ELLER: Okay. 21 DR. SYZMANSKI: How it happens is not so terribly 22 important. But if one verifies that statement in light of 23 geological observation, a few years geodetical measurements, 24 very short-terms, all are telling you it is being strained. 25 Well, the second characteristic is essentially all Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
473 1- things related to heat flow. 2 (viewgraph presented) d(~s 3 And of course we know that Yucca Mountain is a 4 place which is unique because it is located in the area 5 which is known as a eureka low in terms of heat flow. 6 The eureka low means there is near-surface 7 hydrological disturbance. In other words, a picture of the 8 heat flow which we would obtain on a basis of very near 9 surface measurements is likely to be misleading. 10 Therefore, I look at other aspects of it. The 11 first one is the volcanic. And of course of interest to me 12 is this area here. 13 Now if anyone would care to make these two maps in 14 the same scale, I don't have anything to make it in the same scale. But one would like to correlate where these volcanos ( } 15 16 are with that. 17 Now what that thing is, at the Nevada Test Site we 18 do operate about 53 or 54 seismic stations essentially 19 distributed through this large area and they' are shown here 20 as triangles. 21 (Viewgraph presented) 22 On this particular map which we had is a plot of 23 seismic delays in a seismic velocity of teleseismic waves. 24 Now the etrthquakes are coming from far away like Chili, 25 China, whatever. Heritage Reporting Corporation i (202) 628-4888 i
T 474' 1 At that place, they have already very low 2 frequency. So we can measure them quite precisely. The j
)
3 objective is here to know what is the' velocity between these 4 two points, these two points, and so on. 5 And you compute the average velocity and see which 6 ones are higher or which ones are lower and so on. But of 7 interest I think io this feature here plus two features like - 8 that. It is kind of circular areas. 9 I don't think it is unreasonable to interpret that 10 these things could be magma bodies where the rock is molten, 11 for one. And there is another aspect of it that in general 12 the rocks at the depths of about 50 km in this area are a 13 bit warmer than outside. 14 Now of course in order to be certain -- it is a (O_f 15 very important conclusion -- one would like to confirm that 16 with electrical measurement. We don't have these things 17 yet. 18 So therefore I will be assuming that this anomaly 19 here in the QA velocity is caused by temperature. It i 20 doesn't have to be. 21 DR. STEINDLER: If you are correct, should you be 22 able to calculate your electrical measurement results on a 23 contour? 24 And if you do that, can you provide some way in 25 which that can be relatively easily tested? Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888 l
475
- 1 -DR. SYZMANSKI: Yes. It is kind of a standard
(~') 2 technique. All you have to do is you have to go deep, 15-20 N_/ 3 km. And what you will see if indeed this is high 4 temperature, the' electrical resistivity will just suddenly 5 drop,. 6 Well, we don't have them-so I have to assume them. 7 But I have assumed there are two things. The area is being 8 strained continuously and there is a local, localized small 9 dimension heat source. 10 It is a relative heat source. The two conclusions 11 become important. The conclusion 1, it is being deformed. 12 It is deforming. And the second one, about the heat. 13 Diagrammatically, I think we are getting a 14 connection over here that Judith was talking about. ()15 (Viewgraph presented) 16 And that can be viewed as a conceptual model of a 17 system. There are two boundary conditions. There is one 18 which is expressed as shearing on a horizontal plane here. 19 What I am saying is that shear stress is variable in space. 20 And there is also the fJux of heat which is not 21 equal from one point to another. Having this shear stress 22 acting and being complied, we can conclude that the 23 deforming fractured medium is involved. 24 Therefore, we would like to start thinking in 25 terms of time dependence or stress gradients. By putting Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 {}
476 1- more strain energy we will be straining this thing more and
} 2 we will be changing the strees picture as a function of 3 time.
4 But the second feature we would like to talk about 5 is time. dependence of geothermal gradients. And that takes 6 us.to essentially the third part of my presentation, which 7 is a conceptual model. 8' It is kind of common sense putting these two 9 assumptions together. So flow system, we are talking about 10 conceptual understanding of it. And I would like to get 11 into two topics. 12 Ones are assumptions, and I would like to state lL3 them explicitly so everybody can argue with them. And after 14 this I would like te present the synthesis, what does that p) (, 15 mean. 16 That is, I will present the conceptual model in 17 terms of the behavior of this fluid here. 18 Now I have assumed there are three factors. 19 Conceivably there are four but I am not a chemist so I don't 20 know much about chemistry. 21 But there is geohydrologic, which I will be 22 calling H. There is a heat, which I will call T. And there 23 is strain energy, which is mechanical (;M) . 24 Obviously they are interactive. Now I have 25 assumed that there is two-way interaction. That is, Heritage Reporting Corporation l (202) 628-4888
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1
477 1 geohydrologic can-affect , st flow. Heat flow can affect 2 geohydrology. 3- 'I want to simplify my problem and for strain 4 energy I have assumed that the relationship is one-sided. 5 There is no feedback relationship. 6 of course, that is a fallacy but I am not a
- 7 computer. I just work with'my drawings. It is much easier 8 to draft them that way. However, the point.is made.
9 I also make three other assumptions; that the 10 changes in the tempereture distribution at some depths, say 11 20 )ans , as a function of time are insignificant. 12 In other words, I have a steady state geological 13 process which operates continuously. And for my purposes, 14 that operation is a steady state. Nothing changes there. ( ) '15 Such a convection mantle would provide that t 16 unchanging situation. I have assumed that the amount of 17 -water contained and flowing through the system is not 18 related to time. 1 19 What I have done here really is I have assumed 20 there is no change. And finally I have assumed there is a 21 very controlling factor here, the stress. 22 There is the mechanism that is known as seismic 23 pumping. In other words, when our stresses were increasing 24 or our gradients were getting more curved, what we were 25 actually doir.7 was reaching shear stress on the fault, the Heritage Reporting Corporation [} (202) 628-488d
478 1 actual curves, analyzing and drawing the conclusion that a (~) 2 large expulsion of fluid must take place. V 3 And the mechanism is known as seismic pumping. 4 For my purposes, the seismic pumping by itself is not 5 important. 6 I is important only in the sense that it will be 7 responsible for the large- scale change in stress. So let's 8 probe into how this thing looks like. 9 (Viewgraph presented) 10 And I have developed a few block diagrams. 11 The fracture consists of two components. One is a 12 re'sidual fracture. And a definition of that is that that 13 aperture is independent of stress. It doesn't really matter 1/. what happens to the stress. It remains at some constant ( ) 15 value. 16 But this of course holds only true to a given 17 level which we call the closure pressure. If we still 18 decrease the effective stress, the aperture starts 19 increasing and we are getting a normal dilation component of 20 the aperture. 21 There is another part here which is shear 22 dilation. Now -- 23 DR. STEINDLER: Now does that model assume a 24 homogenous medium? 25 DR. SYZMANSKI: Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
479 1 This is essentially kind of a conceptual model to 2 see in a qualitative sense how these thinge might be ( ). 3 changing. 4 It is also important to know what is the coupling-5 between hydrolic and the temperature. And of course the 6 candidate here is the buoyancy, a really straight-forward 7 thing. 8 And as we increase the temperature of water, its 9 density decreases and there is some tendency toward upward 10 component of flow, thermally driven. 11 It is interesting, I think, for some hydrologists 12 to take a look quite easy, at how easy it ~is to convect 13 fluids. , 14 There are two parts to it. Very small temperature ( ) 15 gradients are required to initiate the convection. There is 16 another point which is very important. That is, 17 understanding that the convection, the process of convection 18 in fractures is completely different than in a porous 19 medium. 20 The difference is essentially that a porous medium 21 can be a steady state process; convection in fractures is 22 transient. 23 And in the way this transiency expresses itself is 24 the gross rate of convection is a function of two things. 25 One, it is a heat transfer function; how much heat is taken Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
400 1 out from the convecting water and introduced into the rock. 2 But there is a second important aspect, which is [GD 3 our. aperture. In other words, by increasing aperture, we 4 are increasing rate. 5 Now just imagine what will happen when our. pore 6 pressure comes, a separation develops. Obviously we have 7 changed quite a bit the aperture of a single fracture, which 8 is the fault. 9 And by doing so we have dramatically affected the 10 gross rate of this convection's stability. Putting things 11 together, this essentially conceptuc1 model of flow -- 12 (Viewgraph presented) 13 --it is two dimensions, there are two features l 14 here. One are these things, which are essentially the A (_) 15 boundary conditions along the horizontal plane. And I will 16 be putting variably distributed heat flux to the base and 17 variably distributed fluid flux to the base. 18 What is important is that that boundary condition 19 in a system like ours, it is a very strong likelihood that 20 such a boundary is a flow boundary with respect to both 21 fluid and heat. 22 Another important aspect of 3t is the daehed line l 23 in this drawing. The dashed line is the depths which is j 24 dependent on space and time. 25 Now what that thing represents Js a division of l i l Heritage Reporting Corporation i (} (202) 628-4888 l I
481 1 our flow domain into two parts. The upper parts are . vf"} 2 hydrolic and thermal parameters and are dependent on stress
;3 and the pore pressure which together form the effective 4 strees.
- 5. But below they are now. Now during a tectonic 6 deformation, one can imagine that these depths migrate from 7 some shallow position at the top early in the straining 8 cycle to some maximum and comes back to its previous 9 position.
10 What I wanted to illustrate what is happening to 11 the hydrologic system, such a thing, so I assume we have a 12 well. 13 (Viewgraph presented) 14 This is a distribution of pore pressure as a ( ) 15 function of depths. And I have assumed that there is a 16 horizontal flow only. And there is a water table at this 17 level. 18 And my depth is z-sub-x-of-t, somewhere very 19 shallow. And then start the deformation at the time of t-20 sub-0. The second part is essentially the same drawing. 21 (Viewgraph presented) 22 The difference is that I introduced this deeper. 23 But still about the water table. If you compare these two 24 plots you will see that the water table remains in the same 25 position. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
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1 482 1 And the third step, I have migrated these steps (} 2 all the way down. This dashed line over here is telling us 3 where the water table was. And that one outside, where it 4 is. 5 In other words, what we have done is taken that 6 potential and reduced it by that amount and we have changed 7 the shape of this fault, this curve, from a line to this S-8 shaped curve. 9 In other words, a system like ours -- I mean a 10 deforming system, should have two characteristics. The one, 11 the distribution of the pore pressure as a function of depth 12 should show this as curving. 13 And if anyone would be observing this point in 14 time, one would detect changes in it. Again, it is a very ( ) 15 easy way to distinguish whether such a system existed at 16 Yucca Mountain. 17 Now we do have information from three holes which 18 can be fed into this S-shape and they are telling us that 19 that delta P here is at the minimum 68 meters. 20 Recently I am analyzing the data which pertains to 21 changes in this point in time and they seem to be quite 22 distinctive changes. There is a lowering of the water 23 table. 24 How at the end when our depths come back, the 25 formation now is very shallow. Our S-shaped curve is Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
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483 1 transformed to this curve, plus there is some addition of () 2 the water released from the start. 3 In other words, we have temporary distribution of 4 the pore pressure like that. Now if you would be observing 5 this thing in time, this would be a system like that. 6 of course, of importance becomes is it a system 7 like that, No. 1, and what is this in terms of years. And 8 what is this amount in terms of meters. 9 Now there are other characteristics which are 10 thermal which likewise can be deduced from following this 11 reasoning. And it is essentially temperature. This 12 temperature should do the same thing as our hydrolic 13 potential. 14 That is when the rocks are unstrained and should ()15 be high. However, when they are strained, the potential 16 should be reduced. 17 Well, the fourth part are technical issues. Again 18 I see three points. 19 (Viewgraph presented) 20 Is tectonic rise possible? What is the magnitude 21 of this rise? And what is the frequency of occurrence, 22 which is the bottom line question here. 23 And again the answer to the question "is it 24 possible" is it is purely a matter of conceptual model of 25 the flow system. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
484 1 If we envisage this as a purely gravitational 2 syctem like most hydrologists do, of course not. That by 3 definition won't do anything. 4 However, if we increase the amounts of components 5 which play a role or increase the coupling, the answer of 6 , course is yes, yes and yes. The more elements, the more 7 sensitive such a system is. 8 Now what is the magnitude of it? I think that 9 there are three components for a system which is composed of 10 three elements. 11 (Viewgraph presented) 12 There is this overpressure that is S-shaped, the 13 distribution of the pore pressure. There is this one which 14 is the water released from the storage. And there is a
/^ 15 convective component thermally-driven.
O) 16 How we know the one at Yucca Mountain is 68 meters 17 or more. We know that 68 meters for sure exists but the 18 question is did we go deep enough to know the maximum. 19 Two other holes have this thing. One is about 42 20 meters and the other one is 22 meters. Now water that is 21 released from storage is essentially a dynamic effect. 22 The third aspect of it is the frequency, and of 23 course this is related to the conceptual model of that 24 system. And in my case the main player is the aperture. 25 And that is related to stress. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 i
485
- 1. Therefore, the frequency is a function of faulting
() 2 frequency with this rangt in terms of an earthquake. The 3 duration is a function of another parameter. It won't be a 4 day. I think it can be measured in terms of hundreds of 5 years. 6 But that is essentially all I had to say. 7 MR. SMITH: Jerry, in your report issued in 8- November of 1987, in the conclusion you made the statement 9 that the conceptual model of the flow field indicated by the 10 currently available data from the Yucca Mountain site points 11 towaras serious limitations of this site to effectively 12 isolate radionuclides. 13 I wonder if you still feel that way. I am looking 14 for a relationship between everything that you have said and ( ) 15 the feasibility of deep geologic depositories storing 16 nuclear waste. 17 DR. SYZMANSKI: Yes, I understand that. 18 Dh. SYZMANSKI: Right. If this model is correct, 19 it offers very nerious limitations. Because essentially it 20 removes our main attribute which is the very limited amount 21 of water. 22 DR. STE.I11DLER : Can I follow that? 23 At one tin,e there were three repositories, one of 24 which was effectively underwater. That was a viable l 25 candidate up to rei.atively recently, not perhaps the best Heritage Reporting Corporation gf (202) 628-4888 i
486 1 but certainly a viable candidate. 2 I have trouble with that giant step that you take
-( )
3 between saying that we have lost an important attribute, 4 namely unsaturation, and your conclusion that there is 5 serious question. 6 Can you give that connection? 7 DR. SYZMANSKI: Sure. It can be done on the basis 8 of number of performance objectives. Probably the most 9 meaningful would be travel time. 10 As you probably know, the site which was being 11 invectigated had a very long travel time in the saturated 12 zone. 13 At Yucca Mountain, the travel time today is 14 certainly not measured in thousands of years. Perhaps in ( ) 15 tenths of years. 16 MR. MOELLER: This is the water? 17 DR. SYZMANSKI: For water. For water. 18 DR. STEINDLER: In the saturated zone? i 19 DR. SYZMANSKI: Yes, in the saturated zone. l 20 But you see the most sticky aspect of this 21 situation as I have envisaged would be expulsions of water 22 on the surface because of the convective aspect of the total 23 flow system. 24 In other words, we are talking about very short 25 flow paths somewhere on the order of 300 meters. And these Heritago Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
487 l 1 waters would convect and intersect the earth's surface. 2 .There is another aspect of it which was in my 3 mind: how do you handle mathematically such a system? In f 4 other words, whether the mathematical models can be 5 developed with sufficient certainty to be used in 6 licensing. That in my mind was a serious question. 7 Fractures is a subject which is very poorly known 8 and mathematics is quite difficult. 9 MR. MOELLER: Other comments or questions? 10 Dr. Moody? 11 DR. MOODY: I was just going to ask you to talk a 12 bit more about that. One of the things that is exceedingly 13 important, of course, is the structural tectonic region that 14 Yucca Mountain is. And just articulated the way you said it, on and ( ) 15 16 off, but articulate what you also think the structural peak 17 is not only in terms of earthquakes but movements along 18 faults, the major impact that that will have in terms of 19 water movement. 20 DR. SYZMANSKI: Well, I think I did enough 21 talking. You see, the movement by itself, 1 don't think it 22 will be of any consequence in terms of fluid field. What is 23 very important, however, is that the movement on the fau?t 24 at Yucca Mountain will be a trigger to changing the 25 conductivity structure of the rocks. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 C~)S
,a 488
?O, 1: In-other words, an earthquake is an indirect cause 2 Lof the rise of the water table.
- Think in terms of 3 conductivity in these apertures. It is indirect. It is not 4 direct.
5 DR. MOODY: That 10 what I was heading at. 6 MR. MOELLER: All right. Well, thank you for your ; 7 presentation. 8 And I am pleased that the staff could be here and 9 hear it. Because certainly from my standpoint I have read 10 about it but not heard it. 11 1 Ed, why don't we turn back to you and hear your 12 suggestions for the rest of the day. , 13 MR. WEEKS: In view of the lateness of the hour, 14 we have been throwing less than completely essential 4 ( ) 15 viewgraphs in the waste basket.
- 16. I believe that ins could complete the remainder of 17 our presentation in about 25 minutes. Jerry Frazier would 18 have about a 10-minute presentation.
19 That would be followed by about a 10-minute 20 presentation by Don Alexander discussing how we are using 21 scenarios and summarizing our activities on alternative 22 conceptual models. 23 And a very short presentation by Steve Brocoum 24- which will summarize precisely what it is we will be doing {
- 25 in the SCP to accommodate these.
l Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
L'a . agg ,%$0ib
',~ I think they would be quite useful presentations.
sh
., g2 I would hope you will be able to hear them.
3 MR. MOELLER: Let's go ahead with them. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / 11 12 13 14 h 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 lieritage Reporting Corporation g (202) 628-4888
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< 490 T7rct 1 MR. MOELLER: And you are going to give us a f 'I 2- preliminary look-see at what the peer review has said, is v
3 that it? 4 MR. FRAZIER: I am going to give you a little bit 5 of insight into the peer review. I am actually focusing on 6 a little-tiny piece of it. I am trying to synthesize many 7 of the physical factors that Jerry has got, and get it down 8 and we will get our arms around it to see how to deal with 9 it. 10 MR. MOELLER: Okay. Thank you. 11 MR. FRAZIER: I have travelled with the peer 12 group. We have had several meetings of a half a dozen to a 13 dozen scientists in the room. We have done this for three 14 weeks time now, in which Jerry and the reviewers have (Q_) 15 interacted with comments. So we have multi-discipline 16 science talking going on. 17 And let me just comment, and it is a subjective 18 statement on my part, that this has been very useful. It 19 has helped to get this scientific communications going and 20 so forth. 21 (Viewgraph.) 22 MR. FRAZIER: I am going to shortcut what I was 23 preparing. This is a little synopsis of some of the issues 24 that have come up where we have agreements and 25 disagreements. Basically, we have agreements down the left Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
a
. f i
491 :
-1 side here. Let-me just point out a couple of highlights 2 here. Thore ir agreement that there is tectonic hydraulic 3 interactions. There is agreement on that subject, and we 4 are working on it. It is ASCP.
5 The questions that we are dealing with is what is 6 the significance of this. There is also relatively good 7 agreement that the SCP is pretty comprehensive. Now you 8 know, I can fiddle around or anyone can fiddle around and 9 find something missing in the document, but you are not 10 going to find very much nissing. It is fairly 11 comprehensive. The questions that we are dealing with here 12 are strategy priorities and things like that. l 13 That is also a little bit of a brief synopsis of 14 what it would be that I was going to present here. What I () 15 have done is drawn some sketches. I actually did this on i 16 the airplane coming out here last night. 17 This is roughly a north-south cross-section. Here i l'8 is the ground rise to the north elevation. It decreases to 19 the south, and drainage to the south. Here is the present 20 groundwater table. The repository is setting up above it 1 21 some 200 to 400 meters. At about three kilometers to the ! t 22 north, there is an elevation rise that brings the i 25 groundwater up two to three kilometers about at the 24 repository level. ; i 25 Now one scenario that would be of concern where [ , Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4886
,m =, 4--< , , - , e---m e-n+- - ,- w
I . 492 1 tectonics might interact with groundwater and cause us some 2 disturbance would be if somehow whatever is causing this 3 groundwater rise would migrate down there to the site. 4 And what I have commented on this is that it 5 certainly appears at this time, and there is general 6 agreement on this, that to have that sort of thing happen is 7 that you would have to stop the conductivity here at the 8 site somehow. It would require major and widespread 9 reduction in the hydraulic conductivity parameters. You 10 have got to build a dam down here somewhere arou.9d in the 11 center of the Yucca Mountain to get the water to back up in 12 that area. If the conductivity is low, the thing is going 13 to keep flowing. 14 The flatness of this water table. This water only - () 15 loses about tens of meters down at the southern end of 16 Armagosa Valley some thirty or forty kilometers away. That 17 low elevation change in the water table 3-dicates that it is . 18 generally taken to be that there is high conductivity here. 19 The fact that this rises says that there is low l 20 conductivity. So somehow, you have got to get low 21 conductivity in here. 22 Jerry's model is one way that one might drop the 23 conductivity. I think that there are mechanical ways to get 24 at how widespread could that drop be. But there is one , 25 scenario there that we are looking at. 4 I i Heritage Reporting Corporation i I (202) 628-4888 ()
493
- 1. Now the next in the handout that I gave you is a 2 summary. The top part is roughly what I just went through 3 with you, and the bottom part of this is some parameters 4 about the tectonics.
5 Regional strain rates, Jerry went through. There 6 is general agreement on this, the faults. I think that this 7 is important. Jerry was kind of dealing with this at the 8 end. What it looks like in the 1cical faults is that we are 9 seeing stuff up to on the order of tens of centimeters on 10 the order of tens of thousends of years. There is just some 11 data here to help you understand what we are dealing with, 12 because I an. sure that a lot of you are not familiar with 13 it. 14 The thought is that we are seeing something like (} 15 16 magnitudes of six and a half approximately, or I think that it is a little bit less than six and a half on the order of 17 tens of thousands of years, something on that order, 18 Probably, we were looking at something up around seven or a 19 little bit bigger by looking at the local faults. 20 The volcanic rates in the area. If you take an 21 area about this size of the control area, we are getting a 22 return period on vulcanism. The volcanics are on the order 23 of a millitn years or more. And that is sort of a 24 dimension. These are just srae rough estimates of looking 25 at the tectonic processes. Heritage P.eporting Corporation (202) 626-4888
494 1 Now I have sketched out what I think is an () 2 interesting way to think your way through this. You see, 3 you can think it through in soveral different ways. The 4 reason that-I appreciate this way is that what I have done 5' is that I have divided the system into two parts, and it 6 seems like a complete set to me. 7 On the left is what I call an inverted tree 8 structure in conductivity. On the right, I call it a 9 no inverted tree structure. What is significant about 10 dividing it this way is that with the tree structure system, 11 when you squeeze the earth by an earthquake, some sort of 12 squeezing mechanista, you amplify the groundwater movement. 13- Because you have got a lot of available volume here, and you j 14 are squirting it up through a fault like that. l r l (_) 15- So if you have an inverted tree structure system 16 in the conductivity, which appears like we do at the site, 17 you have an opportunity to squeeze it to cause the water to 18 go up. But on the other hand, you have a mitigating 19 circumstance. iown below our water table, it looks like we 20 have high condt ivity. So that means that indeed that j 21 things are probably connected pretty well. But on the other i 22 hand if they are connected and you squeeze it, it looks like l 23 you have got a drainage system. l 24 So the more conductivity that you have down in 25 there area, you might be able to squeeze it and cause 1 Heritage Reporting Corporation () (202) 628-4888 i i
495 1 something to squirt up here, but then it has oot a way to I'T 2- drain back off again.
%I 3 So at least in my mind, that is the why that I 4- think about this kind of a system. When you have got that 5 kind of inverted tree structure, you have got a mitigating 6 circumstance to go with it.
7 What concerns me personally that I think that we 8 need to look into a little bit more -- and when I say that 9 it concerns ue, I cannot totally mitigate all aspects of 10 it -- and that is what happens if we have situation with a 11 fault that penetrates to great depth. Now we have got a 12 circumstance where if it goes deep enough. I am saying here 13 that it is going to have to go, and I think that I can argue 14 thie fairly strongly, that it is going to have to go to (% (_) 15 depths greater than ten times the amount that you are going 16 to rise.
-17 So if we are trying to make that groundwater rise 18 up on the order of 300 meters, we are going to be down there l 19 at three kilometers or greater. And seismologists and 20 geophysicists are not accustomed to thinking about water 21 connected fractures running down to those depths. We are 22 not sure that there is water down there in the area of the 23 Great Basin and at what depth, five kilometers or ten 24 kilometers. It is a little speculative about how deep it
! 25 goes. Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 {~ }
1 496 1 But if there is no conduit down there to five or ten kilometers somehow, then I think that you have got a way
.( ) 2 3 in which you could have an earthquake, perturbed local 4 syctems. And I outlined them briefly in the lower 5 left-hand corner here, how I would-envision what could
'6 happen.
7 One is that you could squeeze the rock. And if 8 you squeezed it enough and had enough crack here, you could 9 get it to poke up the crack. The other or.e is that when the 10 earthquake occurs and you have got large heats down here, 11 and you might have some trapped fluids down here at a high 12 temperature, and the earthquake could break loose, the 13 conductivity due to the heat imbalance and the density 14 differences. You could enter a conduction cell and bring up D) (_ 15 water that way. And the same thing roughly with 16 hydrochemical. 17 If you have got materials down here where the 18 chemistry is different than it is above, you could get 19 density imbalances. And when you open the conductivity, the 20 density imbalance can cause a buoyancy effect, and up comes 21 the water. 22 So this is a very quick talking outline of some of 23 the ways, sort of a synopsis I think of the sort of things 24 that Jerry is talking about in his report. I have ! 25 summarized it here rather cleanly I think. I have broken it Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888 l
.i 497 1 into three parts. Let me jump rather quickly. j 2 The first says that we have got high conductivity
( }) 3 that looks like a mitigating circumstance at this site. The 4 outstanding thing, as Jerry points out, is that it is 5 possible that there are ways that the tectonics might reduce 6 that high conductivity under a site. If that were to 7 happen, then all bets are off are our high conductivity 8 mitigation. 9 The second factor here is this idea that you could 10 get this local rise to come up a crack, up a fault of some 11 kind, if that fault were to reach deep enough into the 12 earth. On the order of three kilometers or more in my 13 judgment for conservation of mase considerations. Coming at 14 it in a couple of different ways, I could come up with this. () 15 So you are going to have to have cracks pretty deep in the 16 earth, and then you can have localized water coming up a 17 fault. 18 And finally, I summariznd once again these 19 factors, the mechanical squeezing, the hydrothermal 20 confections and the hydrochemical convections. And just 21 sitting there thinking, all right, how do we constrain these 22 where we have not seen mechanical squeezing with ground 23 water hundreds of meters before. It has not been observed 24 to my knowledge. About the largest numbers that we have 1 l l 25 ever seen historically is on the order of fifty meters. Her3 tage Reporting Corporation l {) (202) 628-4888 l l
498 1 Now the data that we have are mighty poor. When
~T 2 an earthquake goes e!f, we see seismic waves all over the (G
3 earth, but we do not have monitoring devices ~for groundwater 4 all over the earth. We.have those in very selected 5 locations. So our data are sketchy here. They are not 6 conclusive at this time. 7 We can get a handle on the strains that are 8 generated by earthquakes. And froc this, we can get some 9 mechanical constraints on how many cracks can you close and 10 how much can you close them. And so we can constrain this 11 mechanical squeezing by those kinds of things. 12 Hydrothermal convection. It looks to me, and I am 13 not expert in this business on how to do this, but it seems 14 to me that you go dig around in the faults and you find out () 15 what are the mineralization characteristics, and what are 16 the alteration characteristics, and try to get an estimate. 17 Obviously, the veins in the faults were generated 18 by hydro processes of some kind. What were the temperatures 19 that they were generated at. We still do not have a tight 20 grip on that subject it seems, but we are making progress. 21 And we need to get busy, and look harder at those is my l 22 judgment. 23 And I think probably that with enough experts that 24 I think that there are things around that we can look at, i
- 25 and try to identify those factors and find out.
l i Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 [} l ! I l l
499 1 It is the same with hydrochemical. I mean I do f) s~J 2 not know that business, but it seems to me thr.t there is 3 going to have to be some foreign material in those faults. 4 And if something down there, if a density imbalance occurs, 5 you'are going to find some foreign compositions there. I 6 think that we ought to check that out carefully. 7 This is just a final thing. And it a little bit 8- addresses the question that you are asking. An approach to 9 evaluating site suitability. I tried to outline some 10 thoughts. We are doing it. I would like to see us focus on 11 it a little bit personally. 12 This is just my impressions. And these are hand 13 done. They have not even been project reviewed. I showed 14 them to the people this morning. What it looks like to me () 15 is that what we are doing and what we need to do is to focus 16 our investigations. And I really trigger on the word 17 understanding. You see, it makes me nervous focusing 18 everything on regulations. I think that we need to focus on 19 understanding. And of the geologic and hydrologic 20 environments related to repository performance. 21 Let that drive us. Find out what is hanging out, 22 what is more relevant to those uncertainties, and then bear 23 down on those subjects. Begin with judgment. I think that l l 24 just by judgment. What Jerry has done is that he has pulled 25 out things that he thinks creates reasonable suspicion. IIeritage Reporting Corporation [} (202) 628-4888 l l l l
500 1 So use our judgment, find out what those are, and
/^Y 2 follow it up with some quantitative assessment, so that we V
3 can get very solid about what are our uncertainties and what 4 is the range of uncertainties. And then when we find that 5 out, we characterize. I think that you do not just jump 6 from knowing the uncertainties to a result. I have been 7 scratching my head to how do we deal with some of the 8 problems that Jerry had brought up. I think that we have to 9 characterize, and we have to get them out in black and 10 white, Option A and Option D, what is creating these 11 uncertainties, and refine our strategy for going after it. 12 It seems to me that that is an interaction among 13 scientists. We need to get scientists together to do that. 14 And one of the way to form strategies, it seems to me, is to () 15 ask questions. If you ask the right questions and get them 16 ordered properly, I think that that helps us a lot. 17 So we need to get the strategy together, and then 18 we need to get on with the investigations. Or we will tit 19 here and talk forever, and we will not know the answers, 20 And I also have a thought on this last item here. 21 I am suggesting that it seems to me that there may be a need l 22 to increase priority for conducting relevant scientific 23 inquiries. 24 Now that is just my opinion, and I am not certain l l 25 that is the case. But I find that for some raason that Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
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501 1 scientists are not resolving these issues. I have been t'"% _ 2 aboard this project for almost two years now, and I have not
\_)
3 seen a lot of progress. So something is impeding trying to
~
4- resolve these very complicated subjects. You know, if it is 5 not QA, it is some sort of procedures, writing a site 6 characterization plan, I mean something has happened. I 7 think that we may need to pump up the priorities a little 8 bit. That is my opinion. There is a brief summary. 9 MR. MOELLER: That was very well done. 10 Are there any questions or commento for 11 Mr. Frazier? 12 DR. STEINDLER: I have one comment. Let me just 13 comment that I think that that last viewgraph may well lead i 14 you to a 300 man-year exercise in experimental work in order () 15 to get a handle at the level that you are calling for. And 16 one of the additional bullets that I would add to that pile l 17 is to recognize that with constraints of time and perhaps l 18 even resources that the adjudication of order of priorities t 19 probably needs to recognize that ultimately you are going to 20 end up with some empirical models rather than that full 21 understanding that you keep looking for. And that unless 22 you focus in on that, you are not going to meet the year 23 2010 deadline. 24 MR. FRAZIER: I totally agree. And I really am l 25 surprised that we might have any disagreement here, l Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 O l
502 1 Hopefully, we are on the same wavelength. What I am looking 2 at is those processes relevant to repository performance. (~ } 3 And I am advocating, it seems to me, that we ought to 4 actually use performance assessment, this quantitative 5 assessment of performance, to tell us what are our 6 outstanding items, so that we can bear down on those. 7 (Continued on next page.) endT7 8 endrce 9 10 11 12 m3
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() 15-16 17 18 19 20 21 l 22 23 ! H24 25 j Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 4 i
503 1 MR. MOELLER: Thank you again. ( 2 MR. FRAZIER: So next we're going on with Don 3 Alexander, whom you met earlier. 4 MR. MOELLER: Fine. Thank you. 5 MR. FRAZIER: Dr. Alexander. 6 DR. ALEXANDER: I think there are several key 7 points, in fact I know there are several key points that we 4 8 need to cover in o: der to bring our thinking more closely 9 together. 10 Where I'd like to start is I'd like to back up for 11 a moment before I talk about scenarios and talk about 12 conceptual models. 13 (Viewgraph displayed) 14 DR. ALEXANDER: A conceptual model is a A (_) 15 representation of a system that includes descriptions of 16 processes and events affecting that system. 17 I want to emphasize that the conceptual model 18 includes working hypotheses, and where the data are 19 insufficient, in particular where the data are insufficient 20 to make a single interpretation that's definitive, then 21 alternative conceptual models should be proposed to describe 22 the system and the processes and events under consideration. 23 A scenario, on the other hand, is a sequences of 24 processes and events as we use this terminology that may 25 affect the release or radionuclides. Heritage Reporting Corporation l (,) (202) 628-4888 t
504 1 And a scenario describes the effects of (} 2 characteristics important to waste isolation for safety. 3 The scenario is based upon a particular conceptual model of 4 the system, and for the processes and events postulated to 5 occur o that'particular rendition of the system. 6 A complete set of scenarios considered should 7 address all alternative conceptual models appropriate for 8 the system. 9 Jumping ahead through my package, and you might 10 want to go back and look at some of the slides I'm omitted, 11 one of the key points that I want to make is that the 12 scenarios flott down from conceptual models. And if you look 13 carefully at the SCP you will find that there is more than 14 one conceptual model that's posed in the document. f') (_j 15 (viewgraph displayed) 16 DR. ALEXANDER: There are many conceptual models. 17 And I want to talk about that in the next few minutes. 18 For the testing program, I think the point that 19 we're all trying to get to is that for the testing program 20 we want to make sure that all of the processes and events, 21 the information that we need in order to understand any 22 potential conceptual model that we might come to in the end, 23 and the set of scenarios that go with that, are covered, and 24 that we have the data in order to evaluate that particular 25 conceptual model. Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888 i l t
505 1 Next slide. 2 (Viewgraph displaye d) {} 3 DR.' ALEXANDER: Now, I'm taking you back to my 4 talk this morning, and I want to poiat out a little bit 1.c 5 about this nominal case. 6 If you read the SCP on issue 11, you read about 7 this nominal case which may have appeared to some as being a 8 single conceptual model within a series of scenario classes 9 being evaluated that were operative on that particular 10 single conceptual model. But if you look carefully you'll 11 find that that conceptual model envelops numerous, or I 12 should say this nominal case envelops numerous conceptual 13 models. 14 And there are a number of examples in the text () 15 that I can talk with you about later, but I want to assure 16 you that we were not trying to restrict ourselves to a 17 single conceptual model. 18 DR. ALEXANDER: Now, what this mean in terms of 1 l 19 .the testing program? The SCP/CD treatment of the total 20 syste.i. performance was structured around a set of scenarios. 21 The testing program in the SCP is intended to address the 22 full range of site characteristics relevant to those 23 scenarios and we feel that based on the discussions we've l 24 had on this topic today that the GCP being revised should l l 25 clarify the relationship between the site characteristics Heritage Reporting Co rp- bion (} (202) 628-4888 , 1 l l l _ . _ -
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506 1 and the alternative conceptual models that serve as the
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V 2 basis for the scenarior We're in-the process of doing just 3 that. 4 (Viewgraph displayed) 5 DR. ALEXANDER: As a part of this summation that 6 we've been doing, if you look at a scenario the way we do, 7 and assume that it's a set of processes or events which are 8- important for waste isolation or safety, then you come up 9 with a set of classes or scenarios. The exxes indicate 10 scenarios that we're looking at. Specifically in the SCP 11 there are about 53 sets of scenarios. 12 Within a scenario class as I refer to them you 13 will find that there are a number of variations on that 14 particular theme within that set of scenarios. () 15 Next slide. 16 (viewgraph displayed) 17 DR. ALEXANDER: This is a cartoon to try to drive 18 home the point. This is the conceptual model of the Yucca 19 Mountain site. We could put a' lot more information on it. 20 But basically what it represents, should represent to you, 21 is an image of the site as it's known today with all the 22 variation that's possible and all the interpretive fariation 23 that's possible based on the existing data. 24 Next slide. 25 (Viewgraph displayed) Heritage Reporting Corporation j- j} (202) 628-4888
507 1 DR. ALEXANDER: Now, that set of conceptual 2 models, if you think about the variation in the information (.J') 3 that's available which allows you to come up with a range of 4 concepts for that particular geologic setting, there are a 5 number of scenarios that can operate on that particular 6 conceptual model. 7 This is a cartoon that I've put together which 8 shows fluctuation in the groundwater table assuming a 9 maximum wetting event. And.as you've heard today, b2 sed on 10 'information we currently have in hand, the maximum wetting 11 event would probably only affect tens of meters in the upper 12 part of the system. 13 Now, of course that needs to be evaluated and 14 investigated through time and as I've indicated, we
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. (_) 15 recognize that the flux through, along a fracture would 16 likely bc much greate , of course, than the flux within the 17 matrix. And we don't know what the petitioning coefficient 18 is for the flux in the fracture versus the flux in the 19 matrix. That needs to be determined through site 20 characterization.
21 Next slide. 22 (Viewgraph displayed) 23 DR. ALEXANDER: Now, one of the scenarios that one 24 might consider, one of the many that comes off this matrix 25 that I showed you a moment ago, would be a niaximum wetting Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4888
508 1 event due to an extreme climatic event. f3
. %.)
2 And this is just another rendition of that kind of 3 thing. All these scenarios need to be evaluated as a part 4 of the process. 5 Next slide. 6 (viewgraph displayed) / 7 DR. ALEXANDER: Therefore, in my opinion, there 8 need to be some changes for purposes of clarify in the SCP. 9 The first is that the text needs to be added to relate the 10 testing program to the alternate conceptual models, as I've 11 just defined them. 12 Scenarios that will be tested will be more clearly 13 explained. Scenarios that have been screened out -- and this 14 is an important point that the staff has made, the NRC staff () 15 has made -- scenarios that have been screened out and will 16 not be tested will be explicitly discussed, and a rationale 17 for why they've been screened out will be presented. 18 The text will be added to clarify the relationship 19 between the testing program for processes and events to the 20 scenarios. And then no changes to the structure of the SCP 21 described earlier is required. That was a question that 22 came to us from the staff. I wanted to tell you that the 23 sections of Chapter 8, 8.1, 8.2 through 8.7, need not change 24 in order to make this clarification. 25 Next slide. i j Heritage Reporting Corporation l (} (202) 628-4888 l l
509 1 (Viewgraph displayed)
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. q, 2 DR. ALEXANDER: Therefore, in conclusion, because 3- of the focus on performance objectives and design criteria, 4 the emphasis on waste isolation'and safety, sits 5 characterization is structured to address release scenarios.
6- our focus is on release scenarios. 7 The site investigations altso need to consider 8 legitimate alternate conceptual model s. We recognize that. 9 If you look at some of the riides that I've used 10 myself today you'll find in the current CD that there's 11 discussion about alternative hypotheses and scenarios and 12 some have been screened out and will not be tested and those 13 will be discussed in the SCP. 14 Information obtained during site characterization () 15 will be used to ascertain whether particular models can be 16 confirmed or removed from consideration. 17 That's my talk in a nutshell. 18 DR. STEINDLER: The implication of the third 19 bullet is that any rational hypothesis or scenario that 20 somebody else could think of should be covered somewhere in , 21 the SCP? l 22 DR. ALEXANDER: Go back to that set of scenario 23 classes. Yes. We believe that, Dr. Steindler, and what we 24 have been soliciting, trying to solicit, are holes in our l 25 current program, areas where testing would be absent, areas l t ( Heritage Reporting Corporation {} (202) 628-4888 l l
510 s. 1 where scenarios are left unidentified, et cetera. Yl V-2 What we have put together here is our first cut at 3 a resolution where,this part of the ACM problem, and we have 4 identified areas'where we'think there are credible classes 15 of' scenarios that need to be evaluated. 6 What Steve Brocoum is going to talk about for the 7 next several minutes are tables that will go in the back of 8 the document which will correlate with the testing in 9 Section 8.3 and will go into detail on alternatives that 10 we're going to consider, beyond the scenarios that we cculd 11 consider. 12 MR. MOELLER: Thank you. 13 DR. ALEXANDER: You'ra welcome. 14 (Continued on the next page.) (f 15 16 17 18 L 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 l Heritage Reporting Corporation () (202) 628-4888 I
511 h' DR. BROCOUM: I'm just going to briefly go over l 1 l (~) 2 the treatment of alternate hypotheses in the SCP.
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3 (Viewgraph displayed) 4 DR. BROCOUM: My first viewgraph is just a summary 5 of the objection -- I won't go over it, since we know what 6 that is -- on alternate conceptual models. It's a summation 7 of it. 8 (Viswgraph displayed) 9 DR. BROCOUM: The second viewgraph was just a 10 history of the meetings we had, which were mentioned 11 earlier, the meetings in March on the point papers, the 12 meetings in April on the alternate conceptual models. 13 The basic agreement that came from the alternate 14 conceptual model meeting was that the DOE agreed to provide () 15 tables that more clearly describe alternate conceptual 16 models in the SCP. 17 (Viewgraph displayed) 18 DR. BROCOUM: In response to that, in our SCP 19 completion, we had created a wo'rking group which is 20 responsible for addressing these concerns of the NRC. And 21 the modifications to the SCP will include in Chapters 1 22 through 5 to clarify DOE's consideration of alternate 23 conceptual models. 24 In Section 831, the section described in testing, 25 iu will be expanded to include DOE's philosophy about Heritage Reporting Corporation
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Lj) (202) 628-4888 i i
t 512 1 consideration of alternate conceptual models. It will have 2 a road. map to explain the manner in which alternate ( 3 conceptual models are presented in the site programs. It 4' will provide linkages between the alternate conceptual 5 mode ls in the site program and numerical models used in the 6 performance, assessment and design portions, and it will 7 provide alternate conceptual model tables in Sections 831 8 through 817, and these tables will be comprehensive for the 9 geohydrology, the geochemistry, the climate and tectonics, 10 and there vill be additional tables in some of the other 11 sections. 12 And some of the overview sections will also be 13 expanded to include the DOE's philosophy on alternate 14 conceptual models. () 15 Now, I had hoped, wh3n we were planning this 16 meeting, to have an actual table for you. But as of today, 17 we haven't closed on the exact format of our table. 16 (Viewgraph displayed) 19 DR. BROCOUM: So I have a viewgraph that describes 20 what the table will address but it's not an example of a 21 table. And the exact number of columns and exactly what the 22 headings will be has not been finalized yet. 23 So this is really an outline rather than a table. 24 ror each element, it will describe our current understanding 25 or representation and for each element it will identify and Heritage Reporting Corporation {} (202) 628-4888 _ _ ~. __ - _
513 1 evaluate the significance of the uncertainties in the Ii 2 assumptions underlying that element and for each \._/ 3 uncertainty, it will identify alternate interpretations or 4 assumptions that are consistent with our present 5 understanding of the data, and for each of these 6 alternatives, it will identify, it will list or identify the 7 activities that are planned to be undertaken to discriminate 8 among the alternatives. 9 So that for each alternative, we should have a 10 study or an activity. And in completing these tables, we 11 will reach an understanding as to whether we have all the 12 activities needed to understand and discriminate among all 13 the possible alternatives. These tables are being 14 constructed or created right now. () 15 Also, the activities will be prioritized in two 16 ways. And first is to resolve a major concern. And this 17 will be done in, I think it's Section 85 -- is that right, 18 Don, where we have the networks -- and also in Section 84, 19 where possible interferences among tests or activities will i 20 be considered, to make sure we don't preclude the ability to 21 characterize the site by an earlier activity. 22 So, the last bullet just again repeats what was on 23 the previous viewgraph where the major tables which' include 24 geohydrology, geochemistry, climate and tectonics, will be 25 included in the SCP. Heritage Reporting Corporation (} (202) 628-4808 m
514 1 Additional tables will also be present, but they (~ - .v) 2 will probably, to a large measure, reference back to these 3 tables. 4 So that is the status of the tables for the SCP on 5 alternative sectional models. 6 Any questions? 7 MR. MOELLER: That sounds to me like it will be 8 very helpful. 9 Any comments? 10 (No response) 11 MR. REIGNER: In closing, I would simply like to 12 emphasize that we are committed to conduct a thorough 13 investigation of the site which will enable us to evaluate 14 if these are conceivable conceptual models which could () 15 influence the licensability and jffective function of the 16 site, and to evaluate the other questions which have been 17 raised, and emphasize that we will be responding to all of 18 the objections and concerns raised in the NRC point papers. 19 Let me say that we certainly appreciate that 20 critique we've gotten today.
- 21. If you have any follow-up questions, or additional 22 information,.please feel free to contact me.
23 And I would say in closing that we anticipate that 24 today's discussions will be the initial part of a continuing 25 interaction tthich will be very constructive. Heritage Reporting Corporation (} -(202) 628-4888
515 1 .I believe that this type of process will be
~(~) 2 beneficial in ensuring that a safe -- let me emphasize U
3 that -- safe repository is put into operation. 4 Thank.you. 5 MR. MOELLER: Well, thank you. And certainly on 6 behalf of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, I want to 7 thank you and the members of your DOE staff and its 8 contractors for coming here and making the presentations for 9 us today. 10 I know that such presentations do not just jump up 11 out of'the ground. They reflected a lot of hard work on 12 your part and good organization, and certainly very good 13 audiovisuals, which are very helpful. We appreciate them 14 and also appreciate having the copies provided to us. () 15 So we look forward also to continuing interaction 16 with you. 17 Thank you again. 18 MR. REGNIER: You are certainly welcome. Thank 19 you. 20 MR. MOELLER: I believe with that I also should 21 thank the NRC staff for staying with us once again and 22 seeing it through. 23 Let me thank our Reporter for her hard work this 24 afternoon. 25 And with that, I will declare today's session Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4880 (}
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[ - l' adjourned. i -- l ~ 2 . (Whereupon, at 6:31 p.m., the' meeting'was ['
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,_ g REPORTER' S CERTIFICATE
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2 3- DOCKET NO.: 4 CASE TITLE: FIRST GENERAL MEETING
,' HEARING DATE: . June 28, 1988 6 LOCATION: Washington, D.O.
7 8 I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence 9 are contained fully and accurately on the tapes and notes 10 rep rted by me at the hearing in the above case before the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY CdMMISSION. 12 Date: June 28, 1988 13 14 f
. is
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Official Reporter 16 liERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATILN 1220 L Street, N.W. 17 Washington, DC 20005 la 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 l l Heritoge Reporting Corporation
O O A'Q l DOE BRIEFING TO THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE
SUBJECT:
TRANSLATION OF HYDROLOGIC SETTING TO PERFORMANCE MODELING APPLICATION DATE: JUNE 28, 1988 ! PRESENTERS: DR. SCOTT SINNOCK 1 i l PRESENTERS' TITLE /0RGANIZATION: SUPERVISOR: NNWSI PROGRAM INTERFACE DIVISION, SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES
! PRESENTER'S TEL. N0: 1. (505)846-0081 4
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l O PRESENTATION TOPICS
- SUMMARIZE GENERAL RELATIONS AMONG DATA GATHERING DATA REDUCTION MODELING AND PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT MODELING
- DESCRIBE AND SHOW SELECTED EXAMPLES OF THE COMPONENT CONCEPTUAL ELEMENTS OF PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT MODELS aO
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o O O t CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR THE TOTAL SYSTEM e A CONCEPTUAL MODEL IS A REPRESENTATION OF A SYSTEM AND INCLUDES DESCRIPTIONS OF PROCESSESS AND EVENTS AFFECTING THAT SYSTEM e A CONCEPTUAL MODEL INCLUDES A SET OF WORKING - HYPOTHESES e WHERE DATA ARE INSUFFICIENT TO PROVIDE UNAMBIGUOUS INTERPRETATIONS, ALTERNATE CONCEPTUAL MODELS . (ACMs) MAY BE PROPOSED TO DESCRIBE THE SYSTEM AND l THE PROCESSES AND EVENTS UNDER CONSIDERATION l I ACNW.8RF 6,78/1003
O O O j UNSATURATED-ZONE HYDROLOGY COMPONENT OF ' THE GEOHYDROLOGY PROGRAM ~ HDDELS MODEL COMPONENTS PARAMETER C A TEGORIES
~ GEOLOGIC SEE SECTION FRAMEWORK 8.3.t.4
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- 8. 3.1. 2 - 3 s
O O O SCENARIOS i e i A SCENARIO IS A SEQUENCE OF PROCESS'ESS AlDxEVENTS THAT MAY AFFECT THE RELEASE OFIRADIONUCLIDESh A SCENARIO DESCRIBES EFFECTS OWGH-ARACTERISTfCS - l IMPORTANT TO WASTE ISOLATION OR SAFETY e A SCENARIO IS BASED UPON A PART!CULAR CONCEPTUAL l MODEL FOR THE SYSTEM AND FOR THE PROCESSES AND ! EVENTS POSTULATED TO OCCUR e THE COMPLETE SET OF SCENARIOS CONSIDERED SHOULD ! ADDRESS ALL ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUAL MODELS APPROPRIATE FOR THE SYSTEM j ACNW.0Fif 6/28/1988
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O O O F PERFORMANCE ALLOCATION FOR "NOMINAL" i i i AND "DISTURBED" CASES i 1 ISSUE 1.1 LIMITING RADIONUCLIDE < RELEASE TO ACCESSIBLE ENVIRONMENT J 1 o /
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j NOMINAL DISTURBED DISTURBED DISTURBED
# CASE CASE CASE
., / ICLASS ell (CLASS #21 (CLASS #71 l v I
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WATER GAS PATHWAY PATHWAY - i; COMPLETE COMPLETE COMPLETE I PERFORMANCE COMPLETE COMPLETE PERFORMANCE PERFORMANCE PERFORMANCE ALLOCATION ALLOCATION ALLOCATION PERFORMANCE I ' ALLOCATION ALLOCATION e o e e o e e
- e e e e ST ATETHi-10/2/87-VA I
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l l l FOCUS OF THE TESTING PROGRAM G 3 e THE(SCP/CD) TREATMENT OF TOTAL SYSTEM PERFORMANCE WAS STRUCTURED AROUND A SET OF SCENARIOS i e THE TESTING PROGRAM IN THE SCP/CD IS INTENDED TO ADDRESS THE FULL RANGE OF SITE CHARACTERISTICS RELEVANT TO THESE SCENARIOS i e THE SCP SHOULD CLARIFY THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN - l THESE SITE CHARACTERISTICS AND THE ALTERNATE j CONCEPTUAL MODELS THAT SERVE AS THE BASIS FOR THE SCENARIOS i ACNW.URF 6/28/1988
O O - O SCENARIO CLASSES UNDISTURBED PERFORMANCE (A) UNDISTURBED PERFORMANCE OF ALL NATURAL BARRIERS DISTURBED PERFORMANCE (B) DIRECT RELEASE (C) PARTIAL FAILURE OF UNSATURATED ZONE BARRIERS: CHANGE IN FLUX IN UNSATURATED ZONE RISE IN WATER TABLE
- CHANGES IN UNSATURATED ZONE ROCK HYDROLOGIC PROPERTIES OR GEOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES (D) PARTIAL FAILURE OF SATURATED ZONE BARRIERS:
- APPEARANCE OF DISCHARGE POINTS WiTHIN 5 KM DOWNGRADIENT OF CONTROLLED AREA OR CHANGES IN FLOW DIRECTION IN SATURATED ZONE
- INCREASED LINEAR WATER VELOCITY IN THE SATURATED ZONES, CHANGED ROCK-HYDROLOGIC PROPERTIES, OR CHANGED GEOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES (E) PARTIAL FAILURE OF ENGINEERED BARRIERS j w,4 ear man 988
O DISRUPTIVE SCENARIO CLASSES BEING EVALUATED FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN
....;,........... NT
'"'O,"jj,',jC DIRECT CH ANGE IN R AISE WATER CHANGE UZ NEW CHANGESZ- CHANGE EBS
,,,,,,,,,,3 RELEASE FLUX IN UZ TABLE PROPERTIES DISCH ARG E PROPERTIES PERFORM.
ene:ts:onav =v % POINTS EXTREME CLIM ATE X X X X X CHANGE OFFSET ON X X X X X X FAULTS X VOLCANIC X X ERUPTION X X X X X IGNEOUS X INTRUSION TECTONIC FOLDING. X X X X UPLIFT OR SUBSIDENCE [' EPISODIC CHANGE IN STRAIN X X X X X X X SUBSIDENCE OF MINED ROOMS FLOODING OVER X SE Af.ED SH AFTS X EXPLORATORY X D RILLiN G X X X EXTENSIVE X X IRRIGATION X X X ENGINEERED X X IMPOUNDMENTS X X X EXTENSIVE I X MINING X X G R OUN D.W ATE R X WITH D R AW AL O ,,,,.........
) O O O i ! TESTING PROGRAM ADDRESSES PROCESSES AND 1 I EVENTS IMPORTANT TO PERFORMANCE i e FLUX IN UNSATURATED ZONE j e RISE OF WATER TABLE t I e PROPERTIES IN UNSATURATED ZONE ROCK-HYDROLOGIC PROPERTIES l - RADIONUCLIDE RETARDATION PROPERTIES l GAS-PHASE TRANSPORT CHARACTERISTICS j - FRACTURE CHARACTERISTICS { e FLOW PATHS IN THE SATURATED ZONE e FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SATURATED ZONE LINEAR WATER VELOCITIES ROCK-HYDROLOGIC PROPERTIES j - RADIONUCLIDE RETARDATION PROPERTIES - ! e ENGINEERED BARRIER SYSTEM PERFORMANCE I LOCAL FLUID CONDITIONS THERMAL HYDRAULIC EFFECTS i
- THERMOMECHANICAL STRESSES i
GEOCH5MICAL CONDITIONS 1 RADIATION EFFECTS ' 1
, ACNW.BRF 6/28/1988
TESTING PROGRAM ADDRESSES POTENTIAL CHANGES TO (J THE SYSTEM f f SCT QN D AA AW(Yi A s' b't, DIRECT CHANGE IN RAISE WATER CHANGE UZ NEW CHANGE SZ CHANGEIBS
,,,,, , ,,g a RELEASE FLUX IN UZ TABLE PROPERTIES DISCHARGE PROPERTIES PERFORM.
paocess on event POINTS EXTREME CLIMATE X X X X X CHANG!
/
OFFSET ON X X X X X X FAULTS VOLCANIC X X X ERUPTION IGNEOUS X X X X X X INTRUSION TECTONIC FOLDING, X X X X UPLIFT OR
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'diNIN G GROUND WATER X X X WITHD R AW AL C217 f445DS 4 914
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O O O PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS EXAMPLES FOR DISRUPTIVE SCENARIOS PERFORMANCE PERFORMANCE - TENTATIVE PROCESS MEASURE PARAMETER GOAL WATER TABLE RADIONUCLIDE MAGNITUDE OF DISTANCE BETWEEN RISE-CLIMATE TRANSPORT RISE F'OR REPOSITORY AND CHANGE THROUGH UZ 10,000 YRS WATER TABLE > 100m FAULT OFFSET RAD!ONUCLIDE PROBABILITY OF < 10-1 CREATES PERCHED TRANSPORT TOTAL OFFSETS WATER OR WATER THROUGH UZ >2m IN 10,000 YRS - TABLE RISE IGNEOUS RADIONUCLIDE ANNUAL < 10-5/YR INTRUSION TRANSPORT PROBABILITY OF THROUGH UZ INTRUSION WITHIN 0.5km
O O - O pm CHANGES TO THE (SCP, ' e TEXT WILL BE ADDED TO RF'JTE TESTING PROGRAM TO ALTERNATE CONCEPTUAL MODELS e SCENARIOS THAT WILL BE TESTED WILL BE MORE CLEARLY EXPL'ilNED e SCENARIOS THAT HAVE BEEN SCREENED OUT AND THAT WILL NOT BE TESTED WILL BE EXPLICITLY DISCUSSED e TEXT WILL BE ADDED TO CLARIFY THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TESTING PROGRAM FOR PROCESSES AND EVENTS TO THE i SCENARIOS e NO CHANGES TO THE STRUCTURE OF THE SCP DESCRIBED EARLIER
\S
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1 O O O \ l CONCLUSIONS l e BECAUSE OF FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES AND DESIGN CRITERIA, SITE CHARACTERIZATION IS STRUCTURED , TO ADDRESS RELEASE SCENAR.lOS '
- e THE SITE INVESTIGATIONS ALSO NEED TO CCNSIDER !
) LEGITIMATE ALTERNATE CONCEPTUAL MODELS i ! e ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES AND SCENARIOS HAVE l BEEN SCREENED OUT AND WHICH WILL NOT BE TESTED l WILL ALSO BE DISCUSSED IN THE SCP l i e INFORMATION OBTAINED DURING SITE CHARACTERIZATION
- WILL BE USED TO ASCERTAIN WHETHER PARTICULAR
! MODELS CAN BE CONFIRMED OR REMOVED FROM j CONSIDERATION - i ACNW.DRF 6/28/1988
; l i ' > ; , -
j _ i - t _ g d E E T T I y m 0 C Y R E O T S S SD I A EN VW D CA
~ N A R EG A IN E E CI H L ST TC OI o
U ES O N G T S N DE GO NI N P AT I C I F S GL E NI I E IC R H TA B T IF S E N F 0 I ,O 0 F S EE E IC S HI E CF H T G0 0 N P I Y T 7 H C 4 AC 2 E O 9 V - I . 6 T 1 8 A 5 N M R U ) E O 2 T C 0 L 0 : 2 A R N ( 8 B O f 8 I O 9 N T 1 A A . T H Z 1 N , P I _ E 8 E N H 2 T A T S G A E R : E N . 0 0 R U R / N T J D E L . T L I E T T
- S S
R S' R R'
- E E E T T T T C N N N E : E E E o
J E S S S B T E E E U A R R R S D P P P
O 9 O l { l l l l l l TREATMENT OF i ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES l IN THE SCP ACNW Meeting (June 28,1988) j Dr. Stephen Brocoum 2 1
l O O O HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OBJECTION 1 OF THE NRC's POINT PAPERS (MAY 11,1988) ON THE CONSULTATION DRAFT OF THE SITE CHARACTERIZATION PLAN STATES THE FOLLOWING: o PERFORMANCE ALLOCATION PROCESS FAILS TO ADDRESS THE INVESTIGATIONS NEEDED TO CHARACTERIZE THE SITE WITH
- RESPECT TO THE FULL RANGE OF ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUAL i
MODELS AND ASSOCIATED BOUNDARY CONDITIONS CONSISTENT i WITH EXISTING DATA.
- WITHOUT IDENTIFYING ALL POTENTIALLY SIGNIFICANT INVESTIGATIONS, IT CANNOT BE DETERMINED WHETHER i CONDUCTING ONE INVESTIGATION WOULD INTERFER WITH AND POSSIBLY PRECLUDE CONDUCTING ANOTHER INVESTIGATION NEEDED TO OBTAIN INFORMATION NEEDED FOR LICENSING.
;
- THE PRESENT PROGRAM MAY FAVOR PROVIDING DATA THAT CONFIRM THE "PREFERRED" MODEL AND BOUNDARY CONDITIONS RATHER THAN DATA NEEDED TO DETERMINE WHAT THE "PREFERRED" MODEL AMD BOUNDARY CONDITIONS SHOULD BE.
0210-0005RJ 6/22/88
0 0 0 MEETINGS AND AGREEMENTS BETWEEN DOE AND NRC ) h f** l MEETINGS HELD TO DISCUSS NRC's CONCERNS: o MARCH 21-24,1988-DOE /NRC MEETING TO DISCUSS NRC's POINT PAPERS. o APRIL 11-14,1988 - DOE /NRC/ STATE OF NEVADA MEETING TO DISCUSS ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUAL MODELS. TRANSCRIPTS FROM THIS MEETING ARE CURRENTLY BEING REVIEWED FOR ADDITIONAL COMMENTS BY DOE. AGREEMENTS FROM ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUAL MODEL MEETING: o DOE HAS AGREED TO PROVIDE TABLES THAT MORE CLEARLY DESCRIBE ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUAL MODELS. 0210-0005DS 6/24/88
. O o \ o ACTIONS TAKEN BY DOE RESULTING
- FROM MEETINGS l CREATION OF WORKING GROUP 8:
!
- RESPONSIBLE FOR ADDRESSING CONCERNS OF THE NRC.
MODIFICATIONS TO THE SCP INCLUDE:
- 1. CHAPTERS 1 THROUGH S
- CLARIFY DOE's CONSIDERATION OF ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUAL MODELS (ACMs).
( j 2. SECTION 8.3.1 l
- EXPAND TO INCLUDE DOE's GENERAL PHILOSOPHY ABOUT CONSIDERATION OF ACMs.
- PREPARE A "ROAD MAP" EXPLAINING THE MANNER IN WHICH i ACMs ARE PRESENTED IN SITE PROGRAMS. .
- PROVIDE LINKAGES BETWEEN ACMs IN THE SITE PROGRAM AND NUMERICAL MODELS USED FOR PERFORMANCE
! ASSESSMENT AND DESIGN.
- PROVIDE ACM TABLES FOR GEOHYDROLOGY, GEOCHEMISTRY, l CLIMATE, AND TECTONICS IN SECTIONS 8.3.1.1-17.
1
- 3. OVERVIEW AND SECTIONS 8.0,8.1 and 8.2 l
- EXPAND TO INCLUDE PERTINENT ASPECTS OF DOE's GENERAL PHILOSOPHY. on-sos um.
\
e % o o O ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUAL MODEL TABLE OUTLINE CURRENT ELEMENT-BY-ELEMENT DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT REPRESENTATION REPRESENTATION OF THE SYSTEM. UNCERTAINTY IN FOR EACH ELEMENT, IDENTIFY AND EVALUATE SIGNIFICANCE OF CURRENT UNDER- THE UNCERTAINTIES IN THE ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING THE STANDING DESCRIPTION IN #1. ALTERNATIVE FOR EACH UNCERTAINTY,lDENTIFY ALTERNATIVE !NTERPRETATIONS, , HYPOTHESES AND HYPOTHESES OR ASSUMPTIONS THAT ARE CONSISTENT WITH SIGNIFICANCE UNCERTAINTY AND EXISTING DATA. TYPES OF TESTS FOR EACH SET OF ALTERNATIVES IDENTIFIED IN #3, PLANNED DESCRIBE THE ACTIVITIES THAT ARE PLANNED TO DISCRIMINATE AMONG THE ALTERNATIVES HYPOTHESES AND/OR TO REDUCE UNCERTAINTY. ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS:
- PRIORITIZATION OF SITE ACTIVITIES IN ORDER TO AVOID INTERFERENCE BETWEEN TESTS AND TO ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE MAJOR CONCERNS WILL BY CONSIDERED.
e TABLES AND SUPPORTING TEXT V:lLL BE INCLUDED IN AT LEAST GEOHYDROLOGY (8.3.1.2), GEOCHEMISTRY (8.3.1.3), CLIMATE (8.3.1.5) AND TECTONICS (8.3.1.8). 0210-00050 S 6/24/88
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