ML20211H866
| ML20211H866 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/20/1987 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-1575, NUDOCS 8702260312 | |
| Download: ML20211H866 (394) | |
Text
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OR G NA. GefST-/5Z4 m UN11EU STATES U
1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO:
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS SUBCOMMITTEE ON WASTE MANAGEMENT O
LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D. C. PAGES: 218 -450 DATE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1987 l
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Official Reporters 444 North CapitolStreet Washington, D.C. 20001 8702260312 870220 (202)347-37C0 PDR ACRS DR I~157D NATIONWIDE COVERAGE
(} PUBLIC NOTICE BY THE UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONERS' ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1987 The contents of this stenographic transcript of the proceedings of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), as reported herein, is an uncorrected record of
~
the discussions recorded at the meeting held on the above date.
No member of the ACRS Staff and no participant at
() this meeting accepts any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies of statement or data contained in this transcript.
O .
1 )
CR29880.0 BRT/sjg 218 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA gm
( 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS SUBCOMMITTEE ON WASTE MANAGEMENT 4
5 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Room 1046 6 1717 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D. C.
7 8 Friday, February 20, 1987 ,
9 The subcommittee meeting reconvened at 8:30 a.m.
10 ACRS MEMBERS PRESENT:
12 DR. DADE W. MOELLER, Presiding 13 DR. MAX W. CARBON 14 DR. J. CARSON MARK 15 DR. FORREST J. REMICK 16 DR. PAUL G. SHEWMON 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 O 2s ace-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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Q l PROCpED ,I, N,G ,S, 2 DR. MOELLER: Good morning. The meeting will 3 now come to order. This is the second day of the meeting 4 of the ACRS Subcommittee on Waste Management. I'm Dade 5 Moeller, the. Subcommittee chairman, and we have with us 6 essentially the same team that we had yesterday; Max-Carbon, 7 Carson Mark and Paul Shewmon are the other Subcommittee 8 ACRS members here today. Sitting in as consultants are 9 R. Dillon, W. Kastenberg, K. Krauskopf, F. Parker and 10 M. Steindler.
11 The agenda for today has the following topics.
12 We'll open with a discussion of hydrology programs, 13 domestic and international, as related to the work of the 14 Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. Then we'll move 15 into a continuation by the same office of a presentation on 16 the NRC's waste package corrosion program. Th'en we'll 17 break for lunch and this afternoon we'll cover low-level.
18 waste, discussing the standard review plan and the standard 4
19 format and content package, as well as low-level waste, 20 long-range plan. Then we'll conclude the afternoon with an 21 executive session in which we will go over the two written 22 reports which are being developed on the basis of yesterday's 23 meeting. These written reports are, one, the comparison of 24 risk associated with the operation of a*high-level waste 25 repository versus a nuclear power plant; and the second I
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() 1 document will be some comments on the Staff's effort to 2 develop a definition for "high-level waste."
3 DR. MARK: Mr. Chairman, I shall have to leave 4 about the time of the scheduled break.
5 DR. MOELLER: Okay. Thank you.
6 Before I introduce the first topic, are there 7 any questions, comments or suggestions from members of the 8 Subcommittee or the consultants?
9 okay, we'll move into the first topic. The 10 Staff tells me that they would like to change the 11 distribution of time on the first two topics, giving a 12 little more.to the first topic and a little 'less to the 13 second one than shown on the schedule. Frank Costanzi, who 14 is shown as leader for this opening session, is unable to 15 be with us this morning and Bill Ott and Dick Grill are 16 filling in for him; and the speakers will include Don Chery, 17 Tom Nicholson, Tom Randall and Tim McCartin. We'll now 18 call on Mr. Ott to open up.
19 MR. OTT: I'll just make a couple of really 20 brief remarks before Don starts. We are going to review 21 the hydrology and corrosion programs, going to highlight 22 four components of the hyorology program today. Don Chery 23 is going to talk first about our saturated flow work being 24 done by a contractor called In Situ, Incorporated.
25 Then Tom Nicholson is going to be talking about O
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- . (_f 1 work that has been done and is going on now at University 2 of Southern California on unsaturated flow.
3 The third speaker is John Randall. He's' going 4 to discuss the modeling work going on at Sandia for a 5 number of years, to take the information on 6 characterization and parameterization and measurements and 7 put.it into realistic models. John just came in.
8 The fourth speaker will be Tim McCartin, and 9 he'll be discussing what has been occurring in a project 10 called "Hydrocoin." This is an international modeling 11 effort which we will be participating in with seven'or 12 eight other countries, modeling groundwater-flow systems to r~s 13 compare the codes that are being used around the world and
(
14 try to get a better handle on certainties and reliability.
15 It is a very interesting project and has provided a lot of 16 good results that we feel are very valuable.
17 Then, after we are done with the hydrology part, 18 Mike McNeil will come in and talk to us again about 19 corrosion. He'll try to give the status of where we are t' 20 now and some idea of where we intend to go.
21 Don?
22 MR. CHERY: Thank you, Bill, members of the 23 Committee. I want to describe a project that the Office of 24 Research has going, that I think is relevant to your 25 interests.
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) 1 (Slider.)
2 In development of field data on the movement of 3 radionuclides in the environment, under realistic field 4 conditions.
5 (Slide.)
6 The unique aspect of this project is we have a 7 field site, which would be getting some data to test models.
8 The title, " Flow of Groundwater and Transport of 9 Contaminants Through Saturated Fractured Geologic Media
- l. 10 from.High-Level Radioactive Waste.'" That just means'we are 11 _ going to look at fractured rocks saturated with water. It 12 has the purpose of providing the NRC with some research 13 products to support specific Staff technical positions an~d J
O 14 provide a capability to evaluate the DOE submissions to us 15 for licensing.
16 DR. MOELLER: Excuse me, did you say -- you said f 17 it quickly -- you were doing it under realistic conditions 18 .cr something?
19 MR. CHERY: I'll go through it as we go'through.
20 That's the purpose really, to demonstrate the project to 21 you, explain it to you and show you that.
22 (Slide.)
23 Let me explain the task of the project. There
- 24 are seven formal tasks. They are to evaluate methods of 25 assigning eff,ective parameter values to fluid-flow and ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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(,); '
.1 contaminant-transport models.
2 Characterizing important hydraulic-flow and 3 contaminank-transport features.
4 Provide NRC with technical guidance on certain 5 saturated flow models; investigate methods for reducing s
L 6- uncertainties in measurements of effective porosity; test theoriesfhrspatiallyprojectingdispersioncoefficients; 7
8 . develop and test methods for effects of matrix diffusion 9 and.d velopment methods to field-calibrate models using
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10 radiogenics and selective tracers. ,
4 11 4 (slide.)
12 '-I think I have simplified it a little bit. Let
<~g , 13- me give you another listing of the tasks in just a reduced G
14 form.
15 (Slide.)
[ 16 I'll emphasize'this again: Evaluate 17 relationship of field sampling and measurements to model 18 param6ter and variables. There-is getting the relationship i
19' betw'een the field and the model parameters.
I think it 20 expresses it a little more correctly.
,s J21 The importance of field features such as faults, e
22 boreholes, shafts, dikes, on the configuration of models.
23 One of the major aspects of this study is to
,x 24- test the appropriateness of each discrete fracture or a m
25 continuum model. We have two different conceptual ideas x
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(,/ - 1 for models, and this study is going to try to-test that 2- against realistic field conditions. And then' investigate 3 the calibration of models with radiogenic dating and 4 nonradioactive tracers. ,
g y 5 DR.-MOELLER: And is all of this done by one
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y 16 group or is it done by a multitude of organizations?
7 MR. CHERY: No. This is one contractor. You
'8 might pick it up ap;ain here.
9 (Slide.)
10 It's In Situ. They are a small firm with 11 corporate offices or. headquarters in Laramie, Wyoming and a 7
12 subsidiary of fice in Denver, Colorado. I think they have a 13 quite good staff, though. We aro quite pleased with the p)/'
14 staff doing it.
15 DR. SHEWMON: The product that you get will be a 16 program or a set of reports or people you can consult or --
17 MR. CHERY: It will be reports to start with.
18 We see three major reports right now, as the way it is 19 coming out, on different aspects of the study. That's the 20 way it's basically shaping up but there will be reports 21 that address those seven tasks that I listed in that one i 22 Vugraph.
23 (Slide.)
24 Yes?
25 DR. MARK: You referred to field work. Where is O
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2 MR. CHERY: I'll show you. You are getting 3 ' ahead of me here. Quickly let me lay out the organization 4 of the study and then I'll show you that.
5 DR. MOELLER: How much money are we talking 6 about?
7 MR. CHERY: A little over a $1 million project.
8 DR. MOELLER: Over how many years?
9 MR. CHERY: Three years. We are just into it 10 one year and that has gotten the field site established, 11 set up, and now we are just -- we have got an experimental 12 design that I'll explain a little bit.
g 13 DR. MOELLER: This is perhaps a small company, 14 but well established and a good record and so forth?
15 MR. CHERY: When the contract was selected we 16 were satisfied tho*. they had these credentials; yes.
17 DR. STEINDLER: What special characteristics did 18 this group of people have in this field that attracted you 19 to them and allowed you to go ahead and be confident that 20 they can give you technically sound answers? What sort of 21 track record in this field did they have?
22 MR. CHERY: Since you are asking that question, 23 let's see if I can bring up a sliae with the staff on it.
24 Maybe I can go over that with you.
25 DR. STEINDLER: The names per se wouldn't mean O
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~() . 1 much to me.-
2 MR. CHERY: I know but that would-help me.
3 MR. OTT: The contract in this case was let 4 through the RFP process. In Situ was the successful bidder; 5 they had the greatest technical _ abilities of all the 6 potential bidders. Don was one of the selecting panel. We 7 were unfamiliar with In. Situ before'that. 'The Staff rating 8 panel was fully satisfied with their credentials after the 9 rating process. .I don't think there would be any benefit 10 going-into In situ's capability right now. We really 11 wanted to' describe the program.
t 12 DR. STEINDLER: The reason for my question is an 13 attempt to evaluate at least to some extent the quality of' 14- work you are getting out of it. Obviously, it's going to 15 be a subject of contention.
16 MR. OTT: Why don't I suggest that we send a 17 copy of the credentials document from the' bidding --
18 DR. STEINDLER: I've seen that.
19 MR. CHERY: The director is Dr. Tim Steele.
20 (Slide.)
21 A good record of groundwater chemistry, 22 hydrology, work with USGS, CSU, and now the consulting firm l 23 -- Colorado State University has those credentials.
24 The others: Dr. Way; Dr. McKee; Dr. James Kunkel, 25 a hydrologist. These are the major people on the contract.
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c 29880.0 227 BRT 1 I think they all have quite good credentials. We are quite 2 satisfied with it.
3 (Slide.)
4 Also the contracting office --
5 DR. MOELLER: The question is not that we have 6 any doubt, but as a matter of record and for the benefit of 7 the Subcommittee, it's helpful to know the facts you 8 brought to our attention.
9 MR. CHERY: I can describe the credentials of 10 the people later on. They have structured their study in 11 this way here. They will be doing the conceptual aspects, 12 theoretical and modeling studies, parallel to the site fg 13 investigations.
V ~
14 I just throw this up for you to get a feel how 15 the' study is structured. And then you see how they address 16 the tasks that are in -- were in the request for proposal.
17 They addressed it here and then.they've got the field 18 studies over there.
19 (Slide.)
20 Okay.
21 DR. MOELLER: Did you tell us where the field 22 studies, geographically, are being done or you are showing 23 us?
24 MR. CHERY: Here we are.
25 (Slide.)
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1 ,) 1 The field site is just south of Preston, 2 Washington,~60 miles to the south of Spokane, Washington.
3 They had proposed this site because there were already 4 existing a lot of -- some wells, some geological 5 exploration in the area, and so that had been the proposed 6 site. They in this past year have gained control of the 7 access to the property to be able to do the studies and 1 8 also had drilled two of their own wells to refine the 9 definition of the subsurface area.
10 From those wells we modified the study area 11 slightly. I'll describe that.
12 (Slide.)
- 13 That shows you the rough orientation or location,
(]s 14 where the area is. Let me give you an idea -- see if we 15 can see these. What we are talking about are fractured 16 rock, saturated fractured rock. This is a basalt area.
17 This is a road cut -- I mean the river cut of the Columbia 18 River north of the site, a few miles north of the site. So 19 you can see, this goes back underneath the field study area.
20 This is the type of rock that will be underneath, fractured 21 basalt.
4 22 MR. DILLON: This is chosen for relevance to the
. 23 Hanford area or is there some serious concern about 24 building something off the Hanford area?
25 MR. CHERY: That was a site they proposed. It d
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() I happened to wind up being fractured basalt. I think you 2 have to look at this study in conjunction with some other 3 studies that we have that are also in saturated fractured
~
4 granite and combine these to studies to get the total 5 picture of modeling flow in saturated fractured rock. But t 6 this' turns out to be a saturated fractured basalt study.
7 DR. STEINDLER: Which part of the basalt flow is 8 it?
9 MR. CHERY: We are going to do the study in the 10 Roza Formation.
11 MR. PARKER: Which part, the top?
12 MR. CHERY: It will both be interior and flow 13 top. I'll show you that.
i These
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14 This is just now coming down on the site.
15 are some exposed formations near the site where we'll be 16 doing the work, 17 (Slide.)
18 This shows a vesicular flow top here and the 19 dense interior. So it gives you an idea of the 20 stratigraphy of a flow.
21 DR. MOELLER: This was a naturally exposed study 22 or artificially dug?
23 MR. CHERY: No, this is a stream cut. You are 24 looking at an~ exposure here. This is what is in the 25 prerapids formation. There are several of these small q
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,BRT 1 flows with vesicular top. There will be another one on top 2 of this back a little further. But I'm just showing you-3 this to.give you some feel for what the situation is there.
-4 (Slide.)
5 This is~ coming in closer and focusing on the 6 study. The study is looking at the flow in these fractured 7 basalts. Now we are getting down to the particular rock we 8 are looking at, basalt. Looking down, this-is an exposed 9 surface of the columns in the basalt. (Indicating.)
10 You can see looking down from the top and to the 11 side.
12 (Slides)
% 13 This is the same formation. The surfaces were w
14 eroded back a ways; you can see the vertical columns and 15 the fractures. Okay? This just gives you a feel for the 16 type of rock, and how it is fractured, in which the study 17 will be done.
18 (Slide.)
19 One last photograph. The actual field site is 20 going to be right out here in this flat area and we are 21 going to be going down 400 feet below the surface there, 22 working in a basalt formation there.
. 23 (Slide.)
24 This gives you -- okay? These are the two holes 25 that were drilled, and they had some existing wells, that's i
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). I also where the information was used from those two.
2 Originally the study was going to be in the upper, more 3 shallow areas. After having done the exploration they 4 located this formation here, the Roza Formation, which is 5 just one flow itself of dense interior with the flow top on 6 top of it, so the study will go from this bed to this bed, 7 essentially working between two claystone isolating beds.
8 It turns out to be a nice field situation. It's isolated, 9 quite well saturated. The water is under pressure. If you
- j. 10 drill a hole the water will come up to about 30 feet of the 11 surface. The Columbia River is to the north about 20 miles.
12 DR. SHEWMON: What way are we facing there?
1
) 13 MR. CHERY: You are facing about west on this 14 line here, sort of north-northwest, so the Columbia River 15 would be to the north.
16 These beds -- and another way to look at it, 17 these beds sort of dip to the south and go to the Columbia 18 River.
19 MR. PARKER: Is the Uptanum in the Grande Ronde?
20 MR. CHERY: Yes, sir. This is only one bed. By 21 the time it gets to this end of the flow fields there's 1
22 only this one flow of the Grande Ronde in this part.
23 (Slide.)
24 Now, just to come back and describe the studies i 25 a little bit more, what will be done in that formation, i C)
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-29880.0 232 BRT there will be a series of field tests. There will be pump:
- (G_/. 1 2 tests that will investigate communication between 3 formations, storage coefficient, dispersion coefficient ---
4 multiwell tracer test, we'll look at dispersion coefficient, 5 effective porosity, and single-well push-pull test.
6 DR. MOELLER: What are the tracers, for example?
l 7 MR. CHERY: They are going to use to start with i
, 8 chloride tracers, because they will measure them l 9 immediately.with probes that they will put down in the 10 wells. That's going to be the first set.
11 DR. MOELLER: What would chloride simulate?
12 Like, tritium would characterize the movement of the water,-
n ss 13 14 whereas I guess chloride simulates radionuclides that could be adsorbed?
15 MR. CHERY: Right. There will be evaluation of
. 16 how well it moved with the water, but it will be 17 representative of some radionuclide or something traveling 18 with t.ie water.
19 MR. PARKER: Won't chlorides-be simulated 4
20 nonsodium rather than sodium?
21 MR. DILLON: Yes.
22 DR. MOELLER: That was my question. So it 23 simulates the ruthenium or something like that? Nitrates 24 -- okay.
t i
25 MR. CHERY: The design of the well field is --
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)- 1 here's a preliminary design of the series of wells that 2 will be put in out there.
3 (Slide.)
4 This is the one already there. That will be 5 used as an observatioin well. Then there vill be a pumping i 6 well'here and a series of observation wells radiating out 7 at increasing distance to evaluate -- to.be used for 8 observation. Also, tracers can-be injected at both the 9 16-4 and 16-3. You see the estimated flow field is in this 10 direction, and these have been oriented in a downstream 11 directi3n from there to test how rapidly the injected 12 tracer will move through the system. Then the far holes n - 13 will also be used for push-pull tests, pump tests.
'~'
14 MR. DILLON: These are for measurement of flows 15 along a stratum? or do they include any kind of vertical 16 motion?
17 MR. CHERY: Basically it will be the horizontal 18 flow, but we had -- we will also be looking at, across the 19 vertical flow into -- from the ground to the rapids so we 20 can monitor that also. We'll put shallow wells in just 21 above the Grande Ronde and see if there's any flow in a
- 22 vertical direction across that claystone formation.
23 DR. SHEWMON: Is this chloride or radioactive 24 isotopes, or are you just following any change in chloride 25 level, period?
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29880.0 234 BRT-( )- 1 MR. CHERY: Right now they'll just be injecting 2 chloride; not radioactive. No. 'They'll also take water 3 samples and test for the naturally occurring' tritium for 4 the longer-ranged picture to establish what is the age of 5 the water in the formation, .and that type of thing will 6 also be evaluated.
7 MR. PARKER: Excuse'me, I didn't hear whether or 8 not they took core samples as they drilled?
9 MR. CHERY: Yes, they did.
10 MR. PERRY: And they'have been examined or they 11 will be?
12 MR. CHERY: They have already been examined.
13 What else are you interested in?
! ( 14 MR. PERRY: I was wondering if there's any 15 observation of vertical cracking.
16 MR. CHERY: Oh, yes. In fact that's one way of 17 counting fractures is to count them in these cores and to 18 get the statistics on fractures. They do it from these 19 cores, both the 16-C -- the 16-C was cored. That's what
. 20 the C is for. These other holes that they drill, we are 21 going to -- several of them will be cored and they'll just 22 core the Grande Ronde. They'll drill down to the top of 23 the claystone, and then core through the formation in which 24 we are doing the study so there will be several more cores.
25 MR. PARKER: What's the background concentration ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 29880.0 235 BRT f 1 of those chlorides in the water?
2 MR. CHERY: I don't know. But they'll collect 3 that.as they do the study. The study is just getting set 4 up so I don't have data, specific data for you like that.
5 (Slide.)
6 The only two -- in fact in the study site, the 7 only hole that's in there now is that one exploratory cored
]
8 hole is there, and they are drilling right now the other 9 holes. This is just some_ proposed -- give you some idea of 10 the type of instrumentation that they have that they will 11 be using. They also are a firm that makes their own 12 monitoring instrumentation, water level instrumentation.
gg 13 (Slide.)
U 14 That just gives you an idea of how that will be 15 set up. I think, in the modeling analysis, as they collect-16 this data then they will be going back and looking at model 17 length scales, comparison of alternative models, and model
'18 applications. I'll sort of develop the first two ideas 19 here a little bit, length scales and model comparisons.
1
[ 20 (Slide.)
21 Looking at model length scales, they will be 22 looking at what is a representative elementary volume; they
^
23 will be looking at how to describe fracture sets and l 24 characterize fracture sets and how to characterize discrete I
25 features, faults, boreholes and so forth for models. Yes?
l (2) l l
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() 1 MR. PANKER: Can you tell me what is unique 2 about this study? This kind of work has been going on for 3 a long time.
4 MR. CHERY: Well, just.that we've got a field 5 site where we are really going to be making those specific 6 measurements.
7 MR. PARKER: How does that help you evaluate a 8 specific' site that.you are going to have to license?
9 MR. CHERY: Because you verify your models. You 10 have more confidence in your models.
11 MR. PARKER: But these kind of studies -- as I 12 mentioned, there are numerous studies of this kind.
i 13 MR. CHERY: Maybe when you can listen to the 14 international effort on Hydrocoin and you hear the 15 difficulty with which they found that they had in getting 16 data to assess models, you will appreciate why there is 17 real interest in going out and getting a field site in
.i 18 which you can really specify what you want to collect and 19 be able to even get more when you want and refine your 20 collection of information for the specific models that you 21 are evaluating. It has turned out to be very difficult to 22 verify the field data, existing set of models that we have.
23 I also am involved with the Natural Research 24 Council Project in which' this very question is being 25 addressed. There isn't a lot of confidence against field O
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(_), 1 verification for these groundwater models.
2 MR. PARKER: The problem is-the other way around, 3 isn't it? It's the models that don't work.
4 MR. CHERY: I think you can make a lot of models 5 work if you have confidence that you can calibrate them, 6 you know, get your parameters in and assigned properly; but 7 we don't have a lot of situations in which we can develop 8 that, can develop our confidence in assigning those 9 parameter values or having real confidence in them.
10 MR. OTT: It is very often the case that data 11 were collected to either look at specific models or for 12 some individual, small-range purpose. And a lot of the 13 data that were collected were collected on high-flow
{-)!
u-14 systems.
l 15 The nature of our problem is we are looking at l
16 very low-flow systems because we want to isolate -- so our l
i 17 unfamiliarity was basically with low-flow systems, and 18 comprehensive data sets that can be used to evaluate any 19 model. Most data sets are not complete and the models 20 that have been developed over the last 10 years using 21 low-flow systems are, in many cases, as you'll hear later, 22 people don't have adequate data systems for validating 23 models.
24 MR. CHERY: It's the fracture flow, too. A lot 25 of the data have been developed in porous media and not G
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'BRT I)- 1 concerned with fractured rock. So it's both the fractured r
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2 rock and low-flow situation.
.i 3 Previously, all the groundwater work had been 4 done for production, water production.
5 MR. PARKER: People have been concerned with 6 repositories for exactly the reasons you talk about for 7 quite some time. It's not just the last couple years they 8 have been looking at fractured systems and low-flow systems.
9 MR. CHERY: Okay. That's so. But this is where 10 we are getting to after these years of working on this.
11 (Slide.)
12 There's been a lot of work in developing some 13 models and here is a suite or set of models that now exist, 14 but we still need some more information from the field to 15 assess whether they apply in our situation and to decide 16 whether we need the discrete fracture model or whether we 17 define our representative elementary volume such that we 18 use the continuing model and so forth. So we still have a 19 few of these questions to answer. -
20 (Slide.)
4 21 Just to give you a little idea, these are some 22 different models. This is sort of a chart that tells you 23 some of the differences between the models, and we hope i
l 24 that the field site evaluations can help us judge which one 25 to use under which circumstance more appropriately.
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29880.0 239 BRT 1 So, that's where -- this is where the study --
2 we hope to have the study end up giving us a better idea of 3 how to use models from in the field on field situations so 4 that we have more reproducible data, more accurate modeling, 5 we are more certain about what we are doing. I think 6 basically that's what we are trying to get to.
7 Yes?
8 DR. SHEWMON: These same people.that get the 9 data do the modeling?
10 MR. CHERY: Yes. They will be doing evaluating 11 the modeling, too. That was parts of the study. If you 12 remember there was the field aspect of the study and there 13 was the theoretical and conceptual part of the project.
14 DR. MOELLER: But I guess they did not develop 15 the models or are not in the model development business?
16 MR. CHERY: No. Except for one. The FRAQ model 17 is a development of theirs.
i 18 (Slide.)
19 But all the rest of them -- members of the Staff 20 worked on that FRA0 model, i 21 But the Swiss model is the stuff -- for instance.
22 You'll hear about those later on.
4 23 DR. MOELLER: To follow up on Frank Parker's 24 question, you are doing this I presume in response to a 25 request from the Department of Waste Water Management on --
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. 1 is this-on your own?
2 MR. CHERY: Yes.
3 ~MR. OTT: A user need letter was put out several 4 years ago.
5 DR. MOELLER: Presumably, and this doesn't make 6 it right, Frank, but presumably the Division of Waste 7 Management staff has determined that they have a need for 8 the work that is under way. We probably should quiz them 9 as well as this group.
10 MR. GRILL: I was just going to interject that 11 whether or not there's a perceived need -- there's a 12 perceived need for this kind of information. There's 13 information from other research projects like Hydrocoin --
O 14 that indicate what we need to develop is an independent 15 method of assossing whether or not the models that these
- 16 people have been aware of for many years and have been 4
17 working on can be independently assessed to be correct.
18 And we don't have that confidence. International work 19 indicates that when you try to couple field data sets with 20 a model, they just don't work. This is an attempt to have
- 21 a very precise, discrete set of input so .that we can work 22 these models and see if we really can have any confidence 23 that we can evaluate the DOE's application when it comes in.
24 MR. PARKER: Isn't that a question of lack of ,
! 25 understanding of the fundamentals? How is this study going
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() 1 '.to help you understand whether or not you actually_have 2 matrix diffusion?
3 MR. GRILL: No, but perhaps it will tell'us 4 where the biggest uncertainties in the models and our 5 assumptions are.
6 MR. CHERY: You combine this type of field work 7 with laboratory work in which you will do the diffusion-8 studies on the rock, so forth, but then to get the overall 9 functioning of the model you will -- under a field 10 situation, a very complex situation, you take it at a place 11 like this and see how well you can predict for a tracer or 12 something like that.
13 MR. PARKER: You know already from the European O 14 experience, Hydrocoin, it doesn't work out very well. You 15 can't predict. I'll agree with that.
16 MR. CHERY: But that's because the data wasn't '
17 focused. Tom, or Tim, maybe, can explain, some of the 18 limitations on the data. The experiment there was designed 19 for something else and then they picked up those data to 20 try to validate a model.
21 There are still serious questions about exactly j 22 some of the measurements that were made, for instance. So 23 we want to try to refine that; we want to have more control 24 and make it focused for our specific problem -- getting 25 field data for a specific problem.
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) l' MR. PARKER: For example, how do you know what 2 the fractures are there? The fracture orientation in the 3 two wells that you have?
4 MR. CHERY: Those are big questions. Part of it 5 is.with every core. _You count them.
6 There's other geophysical methods for going down, 7 logging each well to give you measurements that are 8 associated with fractures. You know? So there's a suite 9 of things like that that are either directly measured or 10 associated with fractures. They will be doing those type 1
11 of things, those geophysical methods. They will be logging 12 their wells. They will be doing gamma / gamma probes, 13 neutron probes and so on.
14 MR. PARKER: That only works for the' fractures 15 that they intersect, right?
16 MR. CHERY: They work over -- some of those work 17 over volumes so you are representing things in a volume 18 about the borehole. And those are the type of parameters 19 that we have to use, those type of measurements to go into I
20 models.
21 Now, it depends on how, then, you put those 22 parameters into your model, and this is the type of thing 23 that we can give the waste -- supposedly, you know, we do 24 this, decide -- it is looking at all these different 25 parameters and seeing how -- testing the series of models ace FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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) 1 under this type of field situation and under another field 2 situation that we have another contract with and we can 3 begin to tell under which circumstances, how the parameters 4 ought to be measured and which parameters we ot ght to give 5 the most confidence.
6 You are never going to characterize in an 7 absolute physical sense all the fractures. I think-that's 8 what I hear you saying.
9 MR. PARKER: Right.
10 MR. DILLON: I have a' basic problem with 11 discussing this thing in terms of f ractures when you've got 12 these flow tops where, presumably, flow is much more 13 readily accomplished than through the cracks in these dg-~
14 various columns and so on.
15 Do these models distinguish between flow that is 16 primarily along those flow tops versus what goes on at 17 cracks between columns of basalt?
18 MR. CHERY: Part of the study will be assessing 19 that type of question because we have a very well isolated 20 both the flow top and interior situation. We'll be looking l 21 at it in total and then they will be taking it in parts and 22 looking at the component flows in each of those.
23 MR. DILLON: You can determine where you inject l 24 the chlorides with respect to the flow tops; you can have 25 these injections in the middle of a pioco of competent rock?
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, () 1 MR. CHERY: Yes.
2 MR. DILLON: And then you could do the same 3 thing up in the flow top region, presumably? .
4 MR. CHERY: I'll give you one' example. They 5 have packed off in 10-foot increments through that, about 6 100 foot strata of rock, that Roza Formation, and measured l 7 the conductivities. Maybe if I can find that quickly I can 8 show you.
9 (Slide.)
10 They have already started some testing. They.
11 can put the dyes in this way, do the total, the top part --
12 but that shows you where the conductivity is in that 13 formation. It's in the top 10 feet right now. _But that's,
.) 14 you know, repetitions of this type of system, of course, l 15 that they have at the Hanford site.
i 16 MR. DILLON: Then you conclude the vertical 17 movement is something related to the horizontal movement in 18 the lower portions of the chart there?
19 MR. CHERY: We'll be able to come back in the 20 lower part here and see if there's vertical flows up 21 through this section.
22 (Indicating.)
1 23 We'll also be able to lose across the boundary 24 here to the next area above. So they are planning those 25 observations in this study.
O 1
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(N) 1 As I say we are just getting started on that at i 2 this point.
3 MR. OTT: I would like to make one point clear.
4 This is one of four projects we have this morning, and 5 there are some projects in the hydrology program which we 6 aren't talking about this morning and others which are 7 planned in the future. There's a lot of stuff that is 8 unknown.
9 It would be unfair to this project to assume it 10 was going to answer all our questions. It is not.
11 Specifically it is going to address some of the flow 12 questions in the basalt.
gs 13 You have finished, haven't you, Tom?
e )
(_/
14 MR. CHERY: I finished what I had planned to 15 give.
16 MR. OTT: Probably in the interest of time we 17 ought to move on to Tom Nicholson. He only has two 18 vugraphs, a fair number of 35 millimeter slides. We will 19 be talking about measuring techniques.
20 DR. MOELLER: Well, thank you, Don.
21 MR. NICHOLSON: Good morning, thank you very 22 much for your indulgence. I apologize that the things 23 weren't ready and wasted your valuable time. I was asked 24 by my branch chief, Nick Costanzi to come in and talk with 25 you people about a project we have going with the (3
w.)
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() 1 University of Arizona. This project has been going on for 2 approximately five years and the present work that I'm 3 going to discuss now was basically written by the Staff.
4 We put together a statement of work based upon 5 the research needs of the licensing staff in reviewing the 6 Yucca Mountain work, and we put together a statement of 7 work which then we gave to the University of Arizona; and 8 they put together a research proposal which we then 9 approved, and I sent down to Owen, here, a copy of their 10 work plan. Hopefully you people will see this. It goes 11 into detail with regard to what the work plan is.
12 So, what I would like to do this morning is to 13 quickly run through some slides with you and to give you an 7-s b 14 appreciation of the work that is being done at the 15 University of Arizona.
16 My name is Tom Nicholson. The principal 17 investigator on this project is a gentleman by the name of 18 Daniel D. Evans.
19 (Slide.)
20 What I would like to discuss just briefly is the 21 types of work they are doing. First of all, the work at 22 the University of Arizona is to be all-encompassing with 23 regard to looking at the unsaturated zone, not only deep 24 percolation but also infiltration, evapotransportation.
25 The work we are going to be discussing this morning is the O
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29880.0 247 1BRT 1 deep percolation work and the subsurface moisture content, 2 and this was a diagram put together by the: University of 3 Arizona people to try to explain some of the phenomenon.
4 (Slide.)
5 The second Vugraph basically talks about how we 6 can use geochemistry as a way to try to understand 7 hydrology. In the unsaturated zone we aren't so lucky as 8 Don Chery's group is, to be able to go out and make the 9 measurements. It's very difficult to look at unsaturated 10 flow and transport. We are trying to get to the 11 geochemistry, and this is a new area we are trying to 12 develop.
13 What are the unique aspects of the unsaturated 14 zone?
15 (Slide.)
16 First, as Don pointed out with regard to work at 17 In Situ, we also'have fracture and matrix flow, however, 18 the flow in the fracture and matrix is not as easy as it is 19 to describe with regard to saturated flow. We have 20 negative water potentials in the unsaturated zone, 21 hydraulic conductivity is not a constant. It's a function 22 of water content. Also drying and wetting conditions, 23 sampling for chemical analysis -- geochemical is very 24 difficult in the unsaturated zone to actually obtain a 25 chemical sample and this is new work in this project. You O
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I( ) 1 also have to think about vapor transport. This issue has
-2 been coming up over and over over the last couple of years.
3 Our contractors have been doing some work on that. Finally 4 the temperature gradients, both the natural temperature 5 gradients in the unsaturated zone and also the temperature 6 gradient that may be imposed.
7 Yes?
8 DR. SHEWMON: Is that vapor transport.of 9 something that came out of the waste package or vapor 10 transport of water?
11 MR. NICHOLSON: Both. One aspect is obviously' 12 the vapor transport aspect of a water balance and also g 13 vapor transport with_ regard to what happens if a volatile V
14 aerosol were to come out of'the canister.
15 DR. SHEWMON: Does a negative water potential' 16 mean you are above the water table?
17 MR. NICHOLSON: Yes.
18 DR. SHEWMON: That's a fancy way to say it.
19 MR. NICHOLSON: Finally, temperature gradients.
i 20 (Slide.)
21 I apologize for those who already know this 22 stuff. I want to kind of give an overview, and I'm going 23 to go into this, perhaps a little elementary. One of the
- 24 most crucial aspects of the unsaturated zone is that 25 pressure head is a function of water content and so, i
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~( ) I therefore, you have what are called " moisture-release i
2 curves." This is. extremely important when you go to model 3 the unsaturated zone. This work has been done.- It is 4 conventional knowledge with regard to porous media soil 5 scientists, but no one has done this so far with regard to 6 consolidated unfractured media.
7 Similarly, one of the most important parameters 8 is hydraulic conductivity, and that's also a function of 9 water content, and here are three typical curves.
10 (Slide.)
3 11 So the first aspect we have to think about is 12 how to we go about characterizing the matrix, meaning that 13 area between the fractures. One of the most important 14 aspects is the pore size' distribution, the moisture 15 characteristic curve which I just described, the hydrolic 16 conductivity versus water curve and dispersion coefficient.
17 (Slide.)
18 In conventional soil science, Dr. Evans and a 19 lot of people that are working in this area came from the l
- 20 soil science background, and of course they are quite l 21 familiar with looking at flow and transport in 22 unconsolidated porous media, soils. However, when we get 23 into more difficult situations such as fractured 24 sedimentary rock or solution limestone it is less well 25 known; and the most difficult, of couroc, in to look at 1
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l 1 igneous rock such as a welded tuff, and try to understand 2 how flow occurs both through the matrix and the fracture 3 system. ,
4 (Slide.)
5 In looking at an actual site -- this is a site.'
(*
6 that they are doing some work in, and I'll show you some 7 aerial Vugr'phs of those.
8 Here we have a welded tuff unit. The field site 9 is near Globe, Arizona, near Tucson, 120 miles and due east 10 of Phoenix. They chose it because it is identical to Yucca 11 Mountain. Not identical, but similar. Here we have the s
12 matrix and here are a set of fractures and here is the 13 surface interface. The question people tried to ask 14 themselves is, how does water move across this interface, 15 down through both the fractures and the matrix, beyond the k
16 root zone into deep percolation, and how do you ago about --
T 17 question? y 18 DR. SHEWMON: Where is the secretary? I mean is 19 this at 1/100? Or 100 magnification? Is that taken from 20 an airplane or a microscope? i 21 MR. NICHOLSON: I'm sorry. This is probably l
22 about a foot across. - v ,
23 DR. MOELLER: This is a cross-sectipn?
24 MR. NICHOLSON: This is a cut. It's a fracture i
25 plano you aro actually looking at. If you can get to the i
i
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) 1 top here you might get some better perspective. There we 4
,. 2< go. It is simply a picture of an exposure of a welded tuff 3 unit in the field. This is a field view.
, 4 (Slide.)
~
5 So, now getting down to the important question, 6 assuming that we have a good handle on the fracture 7 c'haracterization, we know an awful lot. But that's the
( 8 question you asked earlier which is so difficult: How do 9 you know where the fractures are?
10 Obviously, if you want to look at it in a 11, ,
regional sense we want to worry about fractures, faults and
- Y?S'I
?
j2W joints. This is extremely important. ,
13 :(Slide.)
O 14 Two ways of doing it is to go through an
\
15 individual fracture characterization, if you are looking o*
16 what are called " discrete fracture models." These have 17 been developed for saturated flow. Now people are looking
,1$' at it for unsaturated flow. There are a variety of 19 parameters people want to look at if you are actually going
-' 4 3, 20 to come up vith an individual fracture characterization.
'- -21 So, cegter[ location, special extents, orientation, aperture i 22 -- the thickness of the aperture, and we have a term called 23 " effective aperture" which actually describes the actual 24 water aspects of the fracture, mea'n'ing that tira fracture 25 does not contribute to flow entircl'/, but onl'c partially.
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29880.0 252 BRT I Fracture surface roughness, fracture hydraulic 2 conductivity, channeling within a fracture -- I won't read 3 through the rest of them, but you can understand for a 4 discrete fracture system you have to collect a tremendous 5 amount of data. The second aspect is to go back and look 6 at it on a system standpoint: density, fracture sets, 7 hydraulic conductivity of fracture system and solute 8 transport.
9 The people at the University of California are 10 the first ones to develop a three-dimensional fracture 11 generator. It is basically taking very few because there 12 isn't very much, but taking information from holes, and you r~s 13 understand in that individual borehole in which you V The 14 collected the core what the fracture system is.
15 question is, how do you project that? So, there are people 16 now developing what are called " stochastic ncdels" trying 17 v to de'etop it. It's in the developmental stage. The
. 18 earlier work done at the University of California at 19 Berkeley, Paul Witherspoon's people have a two-dimensional t
20 fracture generator. These people are developing a 21 three-dimensional fracture generator to understand where 22 the fractures are and then describe how water moves through 23 those fractures.
24 (Slide.)
25 Now, getting into the specific techniques, I was O
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1
.( ) 1 told by my branch chief, Mr. Costanzi, that he would like 2 you people -- you people would like to know something about 3 the types of instrumentation that are available to try to I
4 characterize this and how it gets fed into models.
5 The models for the unsaturated zone are very 6 much in the developmental phase, and there's been virtually l 7 -- well there has been no work really on validating 8 unsaturated media with regard to such things as welded tuff..
9 Work has been done with regard to porous media, but with 10 regard to unsaturated fractured media that work is still in 11 its developmental phase.
- 12 First of all, what are the parameters that we I 13 are talking about and what are the properties? Well, first 8 i
14 of all, as I said before, water content is extremely 15 important. That is what drives the system. We have water I
16 potential and then of course we can get into the aspects of 17 f)ow, liquid permeability and air permeability.
( 18 The first thing with regard to water content,
) 19 it's called THETA. You measure it, it's a volumetric ratio.
l 20 one of the first items I'll talk about is a very i
21 conventional method called a " neutron probe." You all know l
22 about the neutron probe. 1; ys been used in porous media.
l 23 It hasn't been used in fractured media, and our people at l
l 24 the University of Arizona are trying to develop this 1
25 methodology for fractured media. The difficulty is getting l
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() I a borehole in and isolate the fracture and then to take the 2 readings.
3 With regard to the neutron probe it's in counts 4 per minute and its accuracy is good in both soil and rock.
1 5 The difficulty with regard to fractured media is you have 6 to develop a calibration curve to relate the counts per 7 minute back to the moisture content, and this is very 8 difficult; and this is the aspect that hasn't been resolved 9 yet.
10 (Slide.)
11 MR. PERRY: Is the Department of Energy using 12 these type of testing techniques?
13 MR. NICHOLSON: That's a very good question.
14 They are looking at the neutron probe and the gamma probe.
15 Before I get into answering the question, I 16 should recognize we have an expert from NMSS, Dr. Teek 17 Verma here, and he could probably answer these questions
! 18 rather than me but, yes, the people at Department of Energy 19 are aware of these, and correct me if I'm wrong, Teek, but 20 they are using a neutron probe with regard to the field 21 characterization plans. So that's fairly conventional. No 22 problem there.
23 (Slide.)
24 Here is the core itself. ..t our site the Apache 25 Leap Tuff site; they have taken cores, and you take samples
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() 1 back to the laboratory and do studies on it such as the 2 gamma probe.
3 (Slide.)
4 It was developed originally for porous media.
5 You usually would take a core sample, a shelby tube into a j- 6 soil, collect it, and then you'd put a radiation source 7 across here, and then you would measure the moisture 8 content and relate it to, again, counts per minute back to 9 the water content through a calibration curve.
10 (Slide.)
i 11 Now, another important aspect, if we are 12 measuring water content, is the gravimetric sample. I 13 don't want to go into that. It's conventional,-a
() 14 laboratory technique the DOE is using. It's simply the 15 weight difference divided by the weight, and that is fairly i
16 conventional.
17 Getting into water potential, which drives the 18 whole system, I have listed three separate devices here.
19 The first one is a porous cup tensiometer. This 20 is very conventional. People have used this in porous 21 media. The question though is how do you get the seracic 22 contact in close enough equilibrium with the rock you are 23 measuring to get the water potential and that's the 24 difficult thing. So the tensiometer was designed for soils 25 when you were in the very wet range where you had suctions O
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() 1 just less than atmospheric so it was 0-0.8 bars. Negative 2 pressure. As I said before it's good for soils.
3 Work is under way at the University of Arizona 4 to develop an osmotic tensiometer. They haven't had much 5 success, but,the reason is to try to fill the gap between 6 the tensiometer and the thermocouple psychrometer. There's 7 a range in which you want to get readings, and you 8 obviously need all three of these to get the full range of 9 negative potentials.
10 This measures hydrolic mesh. It's under 11 development. They have been getting some drift in their 12 measurements and the reason for that, as I said before in 13 the osmotic tensiometer, instead of using a porous cup they 0
14 use a membrane and the membrane unfortunately leaks, and 15 they are having difficulty developing that.
16 (Slide.)
17 Then you get into the thermocouple psychrometer.
18 This technique has been developed. You can go out and buy 19 them. The concept here is you have two different metals, 20 and what you are doing is by putting electric current 21 across this you are then inducing condensation at the point 22 at which it reaches condensation, then you've got an 23 equilibrium. 1, 24 The difficult thing with this technique -- it's 25 a very fragile piece of equipment.
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29880.0 257 BRT 1 (Slide.)
2 The people at University of Arizona have had 3 difficulty. They perform experiments in the lab to make 4 sure it works perfectly. Then they put it in the field, ,
5 and of the three they put in the field, two worked, one 6 hasn't.
7 The two the people at -- well, they have put 8 more than two in. They have usually one and -- usually is
> 9 the three or two, Teek? Two. Using them at Yucca Mountain 10 they have unfortunately not been getting any readings.
11 When you isolate it using silica flour it makes it 12 difficult to get equilibrium with the rock outside. It's s 13 again under development. The technique is available but b 14 the actual installation and use of it is quite difficult.
15 Then we get into other methods.
16 (Slide.)
17 There's an absorber method in which you use 18 filter paper and the filter paper is put in contact with 19 the rock, and then measure the moisture content and back 20 out the water; you have a pressure extractor such as this 21 where you have two different gauges to handle different 22 pressures. You put the sample here and then measure it as 23 a function of water content.
24 This is an interesting photo.
25 (Slide.)
(
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.( ) 1 This is a picture after a psychrometer sample 2 chamber. You take the little cores and you put them in 3 these little devices. You put them in here and then you 4 actually lift them up and here is where the measurements 5 are actually made. This is a relationship between moisture 6 content and measure. This is what DOE has used up at P&L 7 on the samples for Yucca Mountain. Most of their data is 8 based on this device. It's a laboratory technique that has 9 been well used. The question, though,.is how 10 representative is information that you get on this smaller 11 scale with regard to the field, and that is what we are 12 going to get into next.
13 (Slide.)
O 14 The other technique I brought along is a 15 technique called the "Tempe cell." You get now into the 16 area of liquid permeability. You want to measure the 17 movement of water through the unsaturated zone, so one of
. 18 the parameters we have to talk about is hydraulic 19 conductivity as a function of either theta moisture content 20 or PSI water potential. You put the sample in here and 21 then measure the flow coming out the bottom. The 22 difficulty with this one of course is again at the bottom, 23 the contact of the sample with the liner.
24 (Slide.)
25 This is probably going to be the more 0
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() 1 interesting aspect of this talk. We are now going to get 2 into the field. The difficulty with the field work is none 3 of this has been developed in the past. It's all under 4 development so some of this is homegrown effort from the 5 standpoint of being developed for this project, and some of 6- it is existing soil physics, a technique that is being 7 adopted to the field.
8 This is what is called a fracture rock 9 infiltrometer. Basically what it-does, it's based on the 10 conventional double-ring infiltrometer where you isolate a 11 fracture and then what you do is you can either use air or 12 water across that interface to try to measure the flux rate 13 across that surface, so it is actually cubic centimeters
'O 14 per second per square area -- centimeters squared area.
15 It's a flux we are trying to measure, and from that flux we 16 are going to back out.a hydraulic conductivity for that 17 interface.
18 (Slide.)
19 Now getting down to the heart of it. We have to 20 ask ourself, we know something about the laboratory 21 techniques, where are the field techniques? So the field 22 test to derive these field scale parameters, water head, 23 water content, pressure head, water infiltration and water 24 quality, this is the geochemistry, is extremely important, 25 so that really is what this work is all about now is O
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'8RT l( ) 1 getting into the field and asking whether we can actually ,
2 do these four items.
3 (Slide.)
4 This is the field site. I'll turn this off so
. 5 we can get a better view of it.
- 6 A little human error here -- this picture was 7 taken by a graduate student from the University of Arizona I- 8 literally hanging out of an airplane. I really appreciate 9 this shot. This is the field. area right down here and if 10 you notice you can actually follow the fracture system 11 across here. If'you look at the picture you can actually 12 see these fractures and the
- whole reason, of course, for 13 this field study'is to identify the fractures and then do i
(:) 14 field -- down hole field testing on this unsaturated welded i ~ 15 tuff unit here. Here is a closeup of the site itself. I-
- 16. . apologize if this thing -- let me raise it up'here because-
- 17 this is an important picture.
r-18 Here is the field site-itself. These little
- 19 squares are concrete protection around the boreholes
! 20 themselves so there are actually nine of these boreholes.
l 21 You can actually 'see the fracture system here. The idea, 22 of course. is to try to put in-a system that identifies the
- 23 fractures and to characterize these fractures, this is a j 24 very small scale experiment. We are talking here about f 25 maybe 200 feet between here and here. So you get the size.
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( 1 We are just going up to one larger scale. We are not going 2 up to, obviously, Yucca Mountain side, but we are getting 3 out of the laboratory and into the field.
4 One of the things that we've discovered was that 5 at Yucca Mountain and other places where people have put in 6 boreholes, they have put them in vertically and two 7 problems with that. The first problem is that when you 8 collect the cores you want.them described with the 9 orientation of the fractures and the second problem is you 10 want to put in a geometry as such that you can encounter 11 the fractures and do cross hole testing. If you have 12 vertical fractures you won't be able to accomplish that, so 13 we've put the boreholes in at a 45 degree angle to take
(-}
v 14 advantage of it.
I 15 Here, again, are the boreholes. This is a 16 closer view now showing them.
17 We have leveled the area and they have put 18 material over top of this to reduce a:.y infiltration that 19 would affect the quality of the readings they are getting.
20 (Slide.)
21 This is a diagram put.together to try to show 22 you how the boreholes are arranged. We thought about this 23 for a very long time period and we had Jack Damon's
, 24 students who are pretty good geologists out there studying 25 the site first and we tried to understand from a regional ACE FEDEP.AL REPORTERS, INC.
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29880.0 262 BRT f) I sense where the fractures and joint systems were and then 2 we designed this monitoring system to try to take advantage 3 of the specific site. This may not -- may not be what you 4 want to do at other sites. This is a site-specific 5 monitoring scheme. They are boreholes we put in and then 6 first of all, we collect the core and then from the core 7 you are going to then understand the fractures at depth and 8 then try to put together a three-dimensional frcef.ure model.
9 Then we are going to do specific tests in these boreholes 10 looking both for water and air transport, contaminant 11 transport starting at the surface and working the 12 contaminant down and then packing off our fracture
> 13 intervals and understanding how the contaminant is moving O 14 down through here and then look at temperature regime in 15 all of these and understand if there's a vapor phase, a 16 convective flux up through the system. Even though there's 17 no waste at depth, it's the natural gradient.
18 (Slide.)
- 19 Here I have the site covered with the plastic 20 covered and these are the boreholes and there's going to be I
21 a drainage system outside to try to pceclude any recharge 22 into the system.
23 (Slide.)
24 So, previous work and work that is ongoing is 25 very close. This is about less than a quarter of a mile ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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(_) I away. This is in what's called the Queen Creek Road Tunnel.
2 It's an unlined tunnel that was an earlier road system.
3 Now this is well above us and you can actually again see 4 the joint and fracture system in the welded tuff unit.
5 In this tunnel, the University of Arizona people 6 have been doing specific studies to understand neutron 7 probe measurements which have been taken in here, they have 8 done a heater study in here, they have done thermistor 9 studies, they have done air permeability and water 10 permeability studies in this material by putting in 11 horizontal boreholes and then using packers, isolating 12 those.
g3 13 (Slide.)
L) 14 So that's the next thing we want to talk about 15 is how do you go about doing studies in the field? It is 16 not very easy.
17 As Don was pointing out in his talk, the idea, 18 of course, is to try to understand the fractures, isolate 19 them and then do what are called " cross hole tests" using a 20 packer. We have an observation borehole here, an injection 21 borehole. We can do it both for air and for water.
22 So, here we are in the permeability. We are 23 going to be doing packer tests. As you can see it's good, 24 but that's a qualitative good. If you can actually isolate
- 25 the system and understand the fractures, you are actually i ("'1 V
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1 doing the work.
2 We also can do air permeability using the 3 infiltrometer and the packer tests, and that's what they 4 are doing in those nine boreholes I was showing you.
5 (Slide.)
6 Okay. We will now get into some other 7 characteristics of the unsaturated zone. This is an air 8 permeability study they were doing using nitrogen gas they 9 were putting in the packer and then isolating the packers 10 and then measuring in the other borehole the flow across 11 .and trying to get a permeability value on that.
12 One of the techniques is extremely important and g- 13 this is well' understood.
V) 14 (Slide.)
15 This is a laboratory technique, besides the core 16 analysis which I talked about before you actually measure 17 the aperture of the fracture, you can also look at the pore 18 size distribution. The laboratory equipment available to 19 do this, this is a mercury porosimeter. The brand name is 20 Poresizer. We put that up so we don't get infringement on 21 our copyright.
22 We are trying to measure the pore size 23 distribution. The device gives you a printout.
24 (Slide.)
- 25 This is the small end, the very small pores and i
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() 1 you can get a distribution of the pores. This is the 2 residual.
3 (Slide.)
4 I really apologize for taking so much time, but 5 one of the last items which is the most important I 6 remember when I talked to this group, I guess, about two 7 years you asked the question why go through all this 8 discussion of flow. Why don't you get right to the heart 9 of it, what is radionuclide transport all about? Can't we 10 describe all of that?
11 Well, the assumption at the unsaturated zone 12 sites such as Yucca Mountain is you have a repository at 13 depth. Here is the land surface. The conventional thought 7) kJ 14 is the flow is going to be down to the regional water table, 15 then through the saturate zone to the accessible 16 environment. The real question is how do you go about 17 analyzing both infiltration coming down into the repository, 18 the flux coming in, and then the subsequent transport and 19 travel time to this regional water table. It is not clear 20 that the flow would be straight down and may take other 21 directions. Other directions would have to do with the 22 heterogeneity of the material.
23 We have a research project at MIT, Dr. Gelhart 24 and those people in a field project related to that for 25 low-level waste shows that you could get significant O
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! ,q l i ,i 1 lateral transport as well as vertical transports in the 2 unsaturated zone depending upon the heterogeneity involved.
3 This is a simplistic view. We want to understand how do 4 you sample that?
5 The second phase is you have a vapor moving up 6 through here. We had a talk at the University of Arizona 7 from a fellow from Idaho about two years ago who was able 8 to show a forced convective flow of air up through 9 fractures in the basalt in Idaho. Ed Weeks went back and 10 looked it and showed there was an upward flow of air there.
11 He actually looked at the fractures and showed that the 12 fractures actually are breathing, air is moving in and out en 13 depending on the temperature regime both in the rock and in 14 the air, so that is becoming a more interesting aspect, the 15 actual movement of air up through this system. We don't 16 know the depths such as at Yucca Mountain and other places, 17 the depths at which it may occur. It may be only 100 feet.
18 Groundwater chemistry tells us whether we 19 understand the hydrology well or no. If we can use age 20 dating and look at groundwater chemistry, it will be an 21 independent validation of our conceptual model and models.
22 Really, in this area, we are not in very firm foundation.
23 The basic phenomenon is now developing so, therefore, 24 chemistry will be a very important aspect to us.
25 And so we can use such techniques as this i
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1 chromatograph.
2 (Slide.)
3 Looking at both concentrations: liquid 4 concentrations and gas concentrations, this is extremely 5 important in the unsaturated zone.
6 (Slide.)
7 Another aspect is how do you go about collecting 8 a sample in the unsaturated zone?
9 DR. SHEWMON: Tell me about what important gas 10 phase transport you can imagine for the isotopes will be in 11 this, would you?
12 MR. NICHOLSON: Okay. When we first thought fs - 13 about this we had to think that question through. Since we 14 don't know whether the Department of Energy is going to go 15 with spent fuel or reprocessed waste, the assumption has 16 been we have to consider spent fuel, so therefore carbon-14 17 is a major culprit in this. We have to think about that.
- 18 We also have to think about --
19 DR. SHEWMON: How is the carbon-14 produced?
20 MR. NICHOLSON: All I know is'I have been told r
21 by people who are knowledgeable in waste management and 22 materials that carbon-14 could come out of spent fuel. So, 23 therefore it could go both into the liquid and into the 24 vapor phase.
! 25 MR. PERRY: Nitrogen transmutation from the l
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29880.0 268 BRT (m I covert gas in the fuel bins, is where it comes from.
(_)
2 DR. SHEUMON: That sure can't be a major 3 component, of what comes out of the site.
4 MR. MC NEIL: My name is Michael McNeil. The 5 carbon-14 activation product may not be a major component 6 in terms of the total activity in the site. Unfortunately, 7 it appears to be sufficient to give us trouble -- to give 8 potential difficulties in terns of the EPA standard, and so 9 it merits particular attention. The problem is, you see, 10 it has a gaseous corrosion product, so it can go right out 11 once it is oxidized.
12 DR. SHEWMON: So once you have lost the 13 integrity of your containment, then you are postulating 3
G 14 that this could --
15 MR. MC NEIL: Once you lost the integrity of the 16 container you have CO2, gaseous, which can go all over the 17 place.
18 MR. NICHOLSON: When we developed a rule and 19 pulled it out for comments, we thought people would come 20 back and say you people are worrying about nothing. We 21 have never got any negative comments back with regard to 22 looking at vapor phase transports, so, in the rule, that's 23 one of the requirements that DOE has to assess the 24 potential for vapor trace transport, so we have to think 25 about laboratory and field techniques to try to understand O
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29880.0 269 BRT 1 both liquid and vapor trace transport. How do you go about 2 getting a. sample in the unsaturated zone? It's very 3 difficult in the soil. You can use a suction cup lysimeter-4 where you draw the water in the bottom of the cup and you 5 can auger a hole in the soils and get that good contact and 6 withdraw it in the high moisture range.
7 How do you do it in fracture media? This is 8 very difficult. The work is under development right now.
9 As you can see, it's fair with regard to soils, both the 10 precision and accuracy. But it's under development for the 11 rock. The idea, of course, is to inject water out in the 12 surrounding media under pressure and then to reverse this 3 13 and put a suction on it and withdraw the water back out.
(G 14 That's very questionable with regard to the 15 chemistry. You have to understand the chemistry of the 16 water you are injecting, you have to understand how much 17 water you put out into the material and how much you 18 recovered back. They are having difficulty with this right 19 now because as you inject water out you can actually deform 20 the media if you are dealing with a porous media. With a 21 fracture media you, of course, won't have to worry about 22 that, so this is one idea.
23 (Slide.)
24 Another idea is to actually induce condensation 25 at depth. The rock, even though it's unsaturated, you have ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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() 1 extremely high moisture content, around 99 percent humidity 2 at depth. Even if liquid. water isn't present, you have 3 high moisture content, so you could actually condense water 4 and recover that water and this is another idea under 5 1 development. This is not a proven technology.though. This 6 is a thermopile type of thing with regard to try to induce
< 7. condensation and recover the liquid sample.
8 (Slide.)
9 -DR. STEINDLER: That kind of sample doesn't do 10 you any good for getting chemistry, does it?
11 MR. NICHOLSON: Right. It's very difficult 12 because the question is what have you-done by condensing 13 the' vapor if you change the chemistry, but right now O 14 everybody is struggling-with the idea of how do you get a 15 sample at depth? You could recover the vapor directly or 16 try to induce condensation. As.I said,.this area is 17 extremely new and we are looking for ideas. Every time we i
18 put on an American Geophysical Symposium in San Francisco, 19 we have been trying to solicit ideas from the geochemical 20 community. We don't know. We are having a geochemist 21 working on the project. Right now, that position isn't 22 filled, but that's going to be an important aspect of this 23 work.
24 (Slide.)
25 So another important aspect is to understand the rm U
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() 1 temperature regime at depth and, therefore, we are using .
2 this these thermistors. l 3 (Slide.)
4 When I talked about the convective aspect of air 5 moving through trying to get an idea at what depth, the 6 phenomenon is assumed to be related to the size of the 7 fractures, connection and temperature gradient. If a 8 temperature gradient doesn't exist, then perhaps there will 9 not be much convective vapor movement below let's say, in 10 this case, 10' meters. Bu't you know that's another question 11 we have to ask.
12 (Slide.)
13 So, finally, I would like to end my presentation 14 and simply say that containment of transport vapors is 15 still a big unknown. We have to worry about air filled i 16 pores and' mechanisms such as diffusion and convection.
17 Thank you very much. Sorry to take so much of 18 your time.
19 DR. MOELLER: Do we have questions now?
20 MR. KRAUSKOPF: What do you expect to do with 21 the chemistry besides get the age of the water?
22 MR. NICHOLSON: One of the things we don't know 23 yet is what are the chemical conditions in the unsaturated 24 zone? The assumption that DOE has been using is if they go 25 down and collect a sample in the water table directly
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(_) I beneath the area they are interested, say a repository, 2 that sample they collect in the saturated zone in the water 3 table is representative of what is above it. We don't buy.
4 off on that. We don't really know what the chemistry is, 5 so what we would like to do is think of techniques; you 6 could actually collect water or vapor samples and try to 7 understand what is the chemical regime in the unsaturated 8 zone and then start developing transport models based upon 9 that understanding rather than go with the assumption that 10 it is the same as saturated flow we can use the same KDs 11 and same chemical phenomena. We are not sure that that is 12 a correct assumption.
13 So, part of it, you are right, is to look at age 3
J 14 dating and they have already done that both with regard to 15 oxygen-16, -18 ratios to understand recharge rates, but 16 also the residence time of the water at' depth and then get 17 into the question what is the chemical regime in the 18 unsaturated zone? It's a new area, hopefully someone will 19 come up with some guideance?
20 DR. STEINDLER: What do you see for trace 21 element transfer?
22 MR. NICHOLSON: We have a study we are trying to 23 develop now in the Inouye dike system in California on the 24 other side of Yosemite that looks at trace element movement.
25 That's an interesting project. We do not have an analog as ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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() 1 such for the unsaturated zone. Even though the water table 2 is deep, it would be in the saturated zone. We really 3 don't know. We are thinking we have gotten some ideas from 4 people such as Dr. Brockins at the University of New Mexico 5 and Dane Evans and others -- it isn't mine. I'm not 6 wearing one -- we are trying to understand this and one of 7 the ideas is if we can find a natural analog of the 8 unsaturated zone, some place like you had an impact crater 9 due to an impact, and try to understand how the trace 10 elements move, then-we'd have an idea how it moves in the 11 unsaturated zone, but right now we don't know. The answer 12 is I don't know.
13 Any other questions?
14 Thank you very much.
15 DR. MOELLER: Well, one from me. Back at the 16 ranch, what is DOE doing while all of this is ' going on? I 17 mean are they totally ignorant of all of those questions?
18 Or are they duplicating what you are doing? Or what?
19 MR. NICHOLSON: Let me be fair and answer the 20 question. I have very strong opinions on this,-but we have 21 some people from DOE here in the room and I don't want to 22 be too nasty. We also have Teek verma here from Licensing.
23 He could probably answer that question better than I can, 24 but based upon my understanding, every year we put together 25 a workshop and we invite people from Sandia and Lawrence l
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1 Livermore Laboratory and'everybody and we get an 2 understanding'through their research people where they 3 stand with regard to this question you ask.
4 How can I put this politely? DOE has not done 5 the types of field work we have done. They have not.gone 6 through the understanding of the individual' processes and 7 techniques. .Their emphasis is on characterizing Yucca
[
, 8 Mountain. What they are doing basically is doing
. 9 techniques and technologies to understand Yucca Mountain j 10 and our project is to try to understand what are the basic d
11 . mechanisms that control flow both from the liquid and vapor I
l 12 phase, what instrumentation is available to do that, if it i 13 isn't available, is it available in the soil science i.-
O 14 community and how difficult would it be.to adapt to the 15 fracture media, and then what are the total gaps-such as 16 the two questions people asked already with regard to the
- 17 geochemistry. Those are total gaps.
18 We are developing this field' site because we i
19 wart to get people out of the laboratory where it's easy to 20 do work and into the field and try to understand the 21 relationship between the fractures, the matrix, the surface ,
22 water hydrology and the infiltration and the movement at-23 depth and containment transport. I would have to say in 24 all honesty, that DOE, they know about this work because we 25 reported on this as the AGU, but I don't think because of a 1-O i
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( l variety of bureaucratic ~ regions, stop work quotas, whatever, 2 they have haven't been able to progress in this direction.
3 Teek, would you like to comment?
4 DR. VERMA: The only comment I would have is
~
5 whatever work we are doing, we do make it available to them 6 for their information. To what extent that would be 4 7 reflected in their site characterization plans, we don't 8 know that yet.
9 DR. MOELLER: Obviously, if you develop-an 10 instrument that can be used to make a measurement more 4
11 accurately of a given parameter, you, as you have just said, 12 you make it known and perhaps DOE can go out and buy one.
13 MR. NICHOLSON: Well, some of these techniques 14 that are presently under development, they aren't 15 commercially available.
16 DR. MOELLER: You pointed that out.
17 MR. NICHOLSON: But the emphasis on this project 18 -has never really been on developing hardware. Basically 19 the people develop the hardware because there's big data i
20 gaps and if they are going to model it, how are they going 21 to know with regard to water potential between the two, 0.8 22 and 2 bars. They go to an osmotic tensiometer, so what 23 they are doing is developing technology or using technology 24 to try to answer the questions. Using a systems approach 25 to understand flow in transport in the unsaturated zone. .
l i
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,j 1 In the course of doing that, they get into this area of 2 hardware development or hardware modification.
3 I think the most important part of this process, 4 this project I'm quite proud of, is the understanding of 5 the fracture system. Now we are struggling with the
, 6 relationship between the matrix and the fracture because 7 what do you characterize? When you put in a monitoring 8 device, do you put it in the fracture or the matrix and 9 what is the relationship between those two? DOE's 10 assumption, assuming LVL, that the flow moves through the 11 matrix, not through the fractures. That's another big 12 assumption, the one that Dr. Krauskopf asked earlier about
,s 13 geochemistry. Is it correct to assume that what you
( i 14 collect in the saturated zone is the same as above it and 15 the same goes can we assume it moves in the matrix? If it 16 doesn't move through the matrix, but the fractures, you 17 might get much more rapid travel times and it might make a ,
18 big difference with the groundwater travel times and flux 19 rates.
20 So this area, I wish I could give you all the 21 answers, but basically it's very much under development.
22 There's a lot more work that has to be done.
23 DR. MOELLER: Some more questions.
24 MR. KASTENBERG: Could i ask you a rather naive 25 question? Is there much interaction between the community
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( (_p) I that works in this area, that is radioactive waste and t
2 related questions, and the larger area, group of people
- 3. that work in groundwater flows for other reasons?
4 MR. NICHOLSON: Yes. That's what the'American 5 Geophysical Union is all about. Wd were approached by a 6 gentleman by the name of Cyril Cerusian who was in charge 7 of the hydrology group. He asked us to put the symposium 8 on in San Francisco just to solicit the idea to get the 9 geochemist and geophysicists and everybody to sit down and 10 talk with us. It's a new developing area. Up until this 11 point, nobody cared to look at unsaturated flow in 12 fractured medias, especially in the depth concerns.
13 In soliciting proposals or contributions to that
'b-m 14 symposium, we did get some interesting papers and topics in 15 the petroleum engineering area and also with regard to 16 people that are looking at other areas such as geothermal.
17 So there are ideas out there. It's just a matter of us 18 having the smarts to go out and find these people and it 19 taken a lot of work.
20 MR. PARKER: You forgot to mention one other 21 confounding effect, hysteresis.
22 MR. NICHOLSON: Those curves I showed, those are 23 cartoons. As he pointed out you have a scanning curve. A 24 wetting curve is different than a drying curve and so you 25 have nonunique relationships. Those functions I was ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 describing, hydraulic conductivity versus water conduct, 2 pressure head versus water content, those aren't unique :
i 3 values. As' Frank points out, they vary. i 4 Thank you. I l
5 DR. MOELLER: Thank you for an enthusiastic 6 presentation. I think we've reached a stage where we need 7 a recess, so I'll declare such.
8 (Recess.)
?
3 9 DR. MOELLER: The meeting will resume and we'll 10 call on William Ott to introduce our next speaker.
11 MR. OTT: Our next speaker is John Randall, who 12 is going to talk to you about our project at Sandia on a
13 modeling.
' ~
14 MR. RANDALL: I just wanted to clear up one 15 thing on everybody's mind this morning. I am not running g
=t 16 for president.
17 (Laughter.)
18 Anyway, I wanted to talk about hydrological 19 modeling research at NRC. The first thing I wanted to do 20 was make the point that these other contracts that you have 21 heard about this morning, and some more in addition to 22 those, do have an impact on modeling.
~
23 (Slide.)
24 I wanted to go through what that is without' 25 getting specific about particular projects. You have heard ,
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3 The University of Arizona has pdojects on A e ,
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g 7 look at site characterization / methods,with respeg to how 8 youyget parameter measubements"that you can use n models
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- a 9 . and make-some sort of;predicSion of repositdt;y behavio'r i
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- 10 thatyoucanhahecbpidencein. In order to do that a lot g , ;l s s i
11 ^of? fundamental work has needed to be done. A lot of it is dw(s i
.12 ongoing and a lot of these issues ? w that are listed here are
- 1. N. _ as s r 13 still unresolved but they are all being looked:~ atf.' '
~'I J '- ,14 Q (Slide.)
, y (- s N15 We need to know from yy
'a site charact.erization s 3 '<3
_ h)_j exercise what types of models ou$hth to be used to predict
' y ., s 3
x -17 2 how a repository would behave at that particular site.
- 5 s .
- 18 There is some questibn nowadays with the Fickian
,e N-19 j f y preference towards s,ites, whether Fickian is the proper 3 3 . 3 - ':7 P 20'.J'way to model dispersion. Current Fickian models look like 4 Y ui ?
21 I fixed log diffusions.N They;are. There's been a lot of 5 +
22 centroversy in past-data reviews at the sites and elsewhere
'i 23 in hydrology about the nature of effective porosity. ,
24 Effective porosity measurements seem to vary all over the 25 lot. It may be that they are not being interpreted 1
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2 One possibility is effective porosity maybe be a 3 tensor, maybe you just have to handle the tensor they come 4 from. Now it's' viewed as a scalar, and so it appears to.be 5 a quantity that's very uncertain, and it has an impact on 6 the models because it's what is used in the final analysis 7 to predict how fast groundwater moves from the waste or 8 disturbed zone to the accessible environment. It also has 9 an impact on-how radionuclides move, in the same way.
10 One of the major problems in modeling these 11 systems is you can't characterize them all. You can't 12 characterize a whole system without destroying it. You 13 can't design it ahead of time, so you don't know what it 14 looks like; it is just a given that is out there. The way 15 modeling parameters are estimated from site 16 characterization nowadays is to measure dependent variables 17 that show up in the models, for example concentrations or 18 pressure heads, and to back out what various flow and j 19 transport coefficients ought to be, an exercise that's 20 called " calibration." Mathematically it's an inverse 21 problem. Mathematically you would like to start knowing 22 what those coefficients are, what initial conditions are, 23 what boyndary conditions are. In reality you don't.
24 DR. SHEWMON: When you talk about checking this 25 Fickian hypothesis, as you put it, what do you use for ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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() 1 concentration?
2 MR. RANDALL: That's a tough question. I wish 3 my contractor from California was here to tell you. I 4 assume he's going to use " concentration" as it's generally 5 understood, but he may not.
6 DR. SHEWMON: But you are talking about things 7 that are adsorbed, so there's a variable adsorption 8 tendency. So pretty soon the concentration becomes a very 9 confusing thing to try to use.
10 MR. RANDALL: He's planning to concentrate on 11 the physical concentration of non-sorbed species to_begin 12 with but there's an interaction between geochemistry and 13 dispersion that's not well understood and we are not O 14 looking at it very well. We should.
15 The final issue that i:s being looked at 16 throughout these projects is how does one identify the t
17 dominant flow and transport mechanisms and pathways for a 18 particular site? Which ones really matter?
19 If you are doing site characterization, you 20 measure a rock that appears to be fairly tight, is there 21 anyway to detect from those measurements if there's some 22 more dominant pathway nearby? Are you going to miss i
anything during site characterization, and if you are going 23 24 to miss it from direct measurements is there a way to find 25 out from indirect interpretation of the data, those i
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) 1 measurements, if there are dominant flow and transport ,
t 2 pathways.
3 All that has an impact on how you set up models 4 to do a performance prediction.
5 (Slide.)
6 I would also like to comment that everything I 7 said so far pertains to media that don't involve salt, so 8 obviously when I'm talking about Hanford's basalts, and s
9 welded tuff -- that's what they always pick -- we also 10 picked a salt site.
11 We have had no hydrology program similar to 12 what's at Arizona and In Situ to support our understanding 13 of the models, how water and contaminants might move in 14 salt repositories, except to say the rock formations that 15 surround the salt, we have some understanding derived from 16 those other projects.
17 We don't have much confidence in current models 18 of migration of brine inclusions or larger brine pockets.
19 The difference here is just a question of scale, length 20 scale -- size.
21 We don't have any models that are rested, of 22 what formation of flow and transport pathways might be, by q l
23 dissolution. We just haven't put much resources into that. )
i 24 We don't have the resources so we prioritized them towards l l
25 the other sites. l l
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(_ 1 We have a fair understanding of what salt creep 2 might do to these pathways, and also -- a fairly limited 3 understanding. And also, from information we have gotten 4 from the WIPP site and their In Situ testing program, we 5 found another load of water movement that hasn't been 6 . looked at very seriously in the past in addition to these 7 two, is that water can move along clay seams in a salt site.
8 The WIPP site is pretty pristine in that way, 9 but still has clay seams in it. They are at some sites 10 drawing water in at much higher rates than they expected to 11 had the salt been pure.
12 WIPP sites are especially cleaner than the 13 Paladoro site, so I think that's a real problem.
O- 14 DR. SHEWMON: Can you move the Vugraph up an 15 inch on the projector?
16 MR. RANDALL: There you go.
17 I just wanted to point out that these other 18 programs, those that exist and those we wish existed, have 19 an impact on the modeling -- have an impact on our 20 confidence in the modc]s.
21 (Slide.)
22 What I'm going to do for the rest of the talk is 23 discuss computational methodologies that have been put 24 together for us by Sandia National Laboratories over the 25 past several years.
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ts_) 1 What Sandia's mandate is, is to go out and take 2 whatever the current scientific basis is for modeling and 3 do the best job they can in trying to put together a 4 computational methodology implementing current mathematical 5 models without developing new models. It gives us an idea 6 of where we are and also gives us some ability to audit 7 DOE's claims of predicted repository performance during 8 this prelicensing phase. Also, we have a clause built into 9 the Sandia contract to backfit and revise models as we 10 learn more from these other projects.
11 Basically they are not charged with trying to 12 reduce uncertainty. They are coming up with ways to 13 calculate it. They are not charged with doing any
~S wJ 14 fundamental research, although sometimes that's unavoidable.
15 The real thrust is to take the current state of the art in 16 modeling and try to put it together in these methodologies 17 that we can use to assess or to audit DOE's claims of 18 compliance with various criteria.
19 MR. PARKER: Before you go on can I ask you a 20 question about the soil -- the salt -- relative to the WIPP 21 site. You implied you haven't got much flows there -- if 22 you looked at the clause -- there's a very dispersed clay 23 rather than integrated beds in the clay, lenses -- I don't 24 know the answer, but I'm not clear it is going to be much 25 clearer.
r~s L]
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29880.0 285 BRT (r~j) l~ MR. RANDALL: It's not clear to me either, but 2 it is something to worry about at this stage and try to 3 resolve it. It may be solved in favor of Seth Smith, I f
l 4 don't know. It needs to be checked out.
5 (Slide.)
6 These show something starting in the mid-70s, 7 developing a methodology for bedded salt. I hope I have 8 indicated already from a few slides ago that methodology is 9 somewhat limited in what it can do with bedded salt.
10 Basically it assumes it's a porous medium, leaving a lot of 11 important things out,.but it was the best available 12 technology at the time it was put together.
13 Following on to that project, a separate one, an 14 alternative geologic -- alternative to bedded salt --
15 Sandia is just completing a methodology for application to ,
16 basalt repositories and is beginning -- has begun in 17 earnest, one for tuff repositories. l l
18 DR. MOELLER: Excuse me, you have lost me at l I
19 this point. These titles say " methodology for risk 20 assessment." To me that's a big --
21 MR. RANDALL: It's a semantic difficulty. The 22 original project, one on bedded salt, was started before we 23 knew what the EPA standard would look like, so they had 24 aspects of a risk assessment methodology. Tools were put 25 together for it to calculate travel of nuclides through the O
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(_) 1 geosphere into the biosphere along environmental pathways, 2 dose to man, the whole bit.
3 Then EPA came along with their standard and said:
4 Well, you don't have to do anything but look at the release 5 table to the accessible environment, but the name carried 6 on. That's why I have changed the description to 7 " computational methodology." Sandia likes to call it a 8 performance assessment methodology but we are talking about 9 the same thing.
10 MR. KASTENBERG: Is that the methodology that 11 they used to generate the examples in their report, 12 " assessing compliance with EPA high-level waste"?
13 MR. RANDALL: Yes. They fell back on that.
14 MR. KASTENBERG: That's basically the same?
15 MR. RANDALL: Yes. In fact, they fell back on a 16 lot of tools developed in this first project to do that 17 exercise.
18 (Slide.)
19 Just to give you some of the general features 20 and limitations of all these methodologies. In the first 21 project various statistical sampling procedures for 22 conducting sensitivity studies, estimating uncertainties 23 and also repcsitory performance were developed. They carry 24 over to all the media so it is generic, as far as 25 application is concerned.
A
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'(_) 1 various regression procedures were put together, 2 in companionship with the sampling procedures, in order to 3 identify dominant effects, sensitivity study tools.
4 Also, precedures for predicting -- for 5 integrating model predictions, performing estimates of 6 performance measures. And there are several of those.
7 It's not just the EPA standard, it's the overall release.
8 Although that's one of them, 60.112 says the EPA standard 9 is the overall performance standard. We also had I
! 10 groundwater travel time and also a requirement that spatial l
11 distributions and contaminant concentrations have to be 12 considered. It's given by a couple of things.
f3 13 one is a specific requirement for rates and
%-)
14 distributions -- rates is the thing to remember here --
15 rates and quantities of release of radioactive material to 16 the accessible environment. That requirement is called for 17 in part 60.21 as part of the safety analysis report. In 40 18 CFR 191, the EPA standard, there's now a groundwater 19 protection requirement which is going to require the same 20 thing and that puts a different emphasis on what model 21 parameters are important with respect to the performance 22 measure.
23 If we just had cumulative release, dispersion 24 wouldn't matter much. It wouldn't be worth norrying about 25 but we worry about it a lot because of these other two p).
't.
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() 1 requirements. There it will have an impact.
2 MR. KASTENBERG: Can I ask you a question about 3 that?
4 MR. RANDALL: Yes.
5 MR. KASTENBERG: Yesterday talking with the 6 Staff we were discussing the differences between parameter 7 uncertainties and model uncertaintics, and they seemed to 8 have a handle on methods for handling model uncertainties.
9 MR. RANDALL: They came from these projects.
10 MR. KASTENBERG: Right. But not a handle on 11 handling model uncertainties. Are you funding any research 12 in that area?
13 MR. RANDALL: We had. What we are -- well, we g
() 14 are doing it in two ways. One,"we had a project at Oak 15 Ridge some years back which was sort of the a priori 16 estimate of this uncertainty picture, and that was one of 17 the things that Oak Ridge called out. If you don't 18 underr ;and what's going on well enough to write down a
+ 19 model you believe in it's an area of uncertainty you can't 20 put a number on. They called out a lot of areas that would 21 have an impact on repository performance, where that was 22 the case, and that's helped us in our planning.
23 Most of our program, of which Tom's and Don's --
24 although the In situ and Arizona project are examples of 25 trying to understand particular processes, hydrology, ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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Iq_) 1 geochemistry, waste package corrosion, all with an eye 2 toward attacking the model~ uncertainty problem. They are 3 trying to cut down an uncertainty or at least see, if we 4 can't do it, how are we going to design' around it. If not t
5 us, how are we going to give guidance to DOE to get around 6 it.
7 MR. KASTENBERG: One of the ways, obviously, to 8 solve the model uncertainty problem is to get better models, 9 but you are going to be butting up against some time frame 10 where the Staff will have to make some decisions and it may 11 come up pretty quickly, so how are we going to help theni?
12 MR. RANDALL: We are going as fast as we can and g s. 13 doing the best we can to get to that problem before r i 14 licensing decisions have to be made. But I think the 15 understanding will still be incomplete. I'think that's the j 16 best answer I can give you. In the best of all possible 17 worlds we could identify all these areas, some of which I 18 have listed, and say we are going to attack every one of 19 those problems. We are not. We don't have the resources.
20 We are trying to get the most important ones.
21 MR. PERRY: Do you think DOE is further along 22 than you are?
23 MR. RANDALL: No, I really don't. DOE has moJe 24 a policy decision that they are going to build a repository.
25 They are going to take what they have on the shelf now.
~
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([ ) 1 They used to support research but they decided to go for 2 the engineering development, so whatever is there they are 3 going to use it. If it's not there they are not' going to 4 worry about it.
That's my impression. If the DOE 5 representatives want to argue with me about it, fine.
6 Other limitations on the models -- well, anyway, 7 I went through all this stuff about generic aspects. There 8 are some overall limitations on all these models. With one 9 exception, the salt case, and even that is fairly 10 simple-minded, there aren't any reflections of mechanical 11 effects in these models. The geochemistry is very simple.
12 It's the distribution coefficient or KD' type of approach.
, ,f-13 One calculates a retardation factor, makes various
(/ 14 horrendous assumptions about the geochemistry and how long 15 these retardation factors laat in time. It's controversial, 16 but it is really the only thing that's implementable right i 17 now in a performance assessment context. It's not Fandia's
- 18 job to change that situation. They can tell us about it, 19 and they have, what the limitations of it are, but it's our l'
20 job to get some other projects going to fix it, and we are 21 trying to do that now through this FFRDC. We are trying to 22 get something started through the FFRDC.
23 Also, any strong couplings of thermal, 24 hydrological, mechanical and chemical effects wca't work 25 well in these models. They work best far afield, although O
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(_)s I they will do some weak thermal and chemical' couplings.
2 DR. SHEWMON: What sort of mechanical effects 3 can you conceive of that might be important?
4 MR. RANDALL: Thermal stresses that could alter 5 fracture permeabilities, that's a possibility. We had a 6 project at LVL that raised that possibility, did some 7 estimations of it. Actually that could work in favor of 8 the repository. It could tighten up fractures. But you're 9 not going to make an estimation of them from these models.
10 It just isn't there. I just wanted to point that out. But 11 that's'true of everything, true of all the models that 12 Sandia has implemented for us.
13 (Slide.)
O 14 I'm going to give you the next three -- four 15 slides, that are a rundown of what the methodologies are 16 like for the three media. The first one was developed for 17 bedded salt. As I told you earlier, trying to take the 18 current state of the art at the time, we asked them to put 19 these methodologies together, so the bedded salt 20 methodology is somewhat dated. It's circa about 1980.
21 Nothing has been done really since then. The liquid flow 22 in porous media -- it is poroua; salt is porous. I have 23 already mentioned some mechanisms that were left out.
24 It does do a fairly decent job on the transport 25 of dissolved salt in water, dissolved to bigger than trace O
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(_)s I concentration, where there's a real feedback on the density 2 of the carrier fluid.
3 It makes an estimation of heat transport by L 4 conduction, convection and dispersion. It does the trace l
l 5 radionuclide transport problem fairly well as long as 6 radionuclide concentrations are small and have no feedback 7 on the carrier fluid's density. All the decay chain f 8 effects are fairly nicely built into that part of the 9 methodology..
10 MR. DILLON: Are you concerned here about the 11 actual chemistry of the brine as it is in the source --
12 MR. RANDALL: The source term is weak. It takes 13 the source term as a given. People like Mike.will discuss 14 that more. Sandia has been charged with doing the 15 transport problem through the geosphere, and they had to 16 make assumptions about what the source term-looks like, 17 what the release of nuclides from the waste packages would 18 be like, and that is something that will have to be revised 19 as we get more useful results out of the research projects.
20 We are getting to that point. They are going to have to go 21 back and do some backfitting in that department.
22 All these phenomena are represented in what is 23 called the "Sandia Waste Isolation Flow and Transport 24 Computer Program": SWIFT. You probably heard about it 25 many times.
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() 1 It is cumbersome. It's a finite difference 2 program. It just maps the whole repository region in terms 3 of finite different cells, requires a lot of different 4 calculations, costs a lot of money and it's not very handy 5 for sensitivity studies. It motivated development of the 6 second program, NWFT, network flow and transport.
7 What that does is allow to you take a few SWIFT 8 runs and try to find out where the dominant flow and 9 transport pathways are and just do the calculation along 10 those pathways. They usually coincide. The effect of i 11 brine is done very simplemindedly; you just change the 12 density in each of the pathways. It looks like a network
- 13 of legs. If that's what Sandia calls it.. Each leg can 14 have a different density reflecting the salt content.
15 DR. STEINDLER: Before you leave that, does it
?
I
- 16 get the right answer?
17 MR. RANDALL: I'm not sure about that. Tim
! 18 McCartin can give you some insight into some international 19 modeling studies. I'd say in general I don't know of any 20 transport model that has been completely validated in any 21 toxic or radioactive waste context. That's something we i
22 have to worry about.
23 DR. SHEWMON: The buildup of brine bubbles near 24 a container is not in this because this is only long 25 distance; is that it?
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() 1 MR. RANDALL: No. This is long distance.
2 The only thing that might come close to that is 3 this last computer program called' DNET, which does the 4 thermomechanical model that I talked about earlier, 5 implements that. There you could make some estimation of 6 brine accumulation, but it has so many one-dimensional 7 phenomena built into it on what are really obviously 8 multidimensional it's pretty crude.
9 It will handle dissolution and precipitation 10 roughly. There's a lot of simpleminded modeling.
11 DR. SHEWMON: Droplet migration is not related 12 to creep. I don't understand your answer. At least I fs 13 never hear it related td creep.
(# 14 MR. RANDALL: This program is designed to try to 15 estimate how soon salt would contact waste packages by 16 creep. How soon will a tunnel collapse, that sort of thing.
17 Some of the inputs, some of the a priori data 18 that have to be given to it, are really consequence data.
19 How many dissolutioning channels are there? That's 20 something -- if you had a really good model, that's 21 something it should tell you. That's something you have to 22 furnish to this thing, so it has its problems.
23 Slide).
24 More recently Sandia went on to the second 25 project I listed earlier, develop the methodology for ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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() I basalt, and came up with -- the state of the art there is 2 roughly 1984. They developed a modification of SWIFT 3 called SWIFT II, of all things.
4 The modification is that they have added a way 5 to seemingly fracture media in dual-porosity media.
6 Basically it's high permeability directional zones with 7 porous matrices embedded in them.
8 Also built into that mathematical model and 9 implemented in the program is capability to simulate an 10 isotropic-equivalent porous media. That may be the way out.
11 It is at least suggested that that is not a bad way to look 12 at some fractured media, that the anisotropy is important, 13 should be in there, but it may obviate the necessity to'go
(-)
%j 14 to discrete fractures, having to know what the whole 15 fracture network looks like.
16 It does the brine transport and carries over 17 what SWIFT did, but extends everything to the two ways --
18 well, two possible ways to represent fractured media.
,19 There are other ways to do it. They are not in here. Same 20 with the heat transport, same with the trace radionuclide 21 transport. And the NWFT was modified. Its name has been 22 changed to NEFTRAN, still means network flow and transport.
23 I think everything I said before is applicable 24 here so I won't go through it again. The major departure 25 is this fracture simulation capability.
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) 1 (Slide.)
2 This is the hard one,-unsaturated welded tuff.
3 The state of the art they are using is today's state of the 4 art, and I think Tom has given,you a pretty good idea 5 already that today's state of the art has a long way to go 6 to catch up with what is known about saturated media.
7 There is only one computer program -- well, there are 8 several computer programs they are looking at. One that 9 seems to have the best versatility is one that was a 10 modification of a program called MULKOM. It was developed 11 at Lawrence Berkeley Simulator, and I don't know what TOUGL 12 means, but it was implementing a mathematical model of 13 water vapor, air movement in nonisothermal porous media.
14 So it is not even modified for fractures yet, and nobody 15 really knows how to do that. I'm going to go into more 16 reasons why that's the case on the next slide.
17 There are other programs they are looking at.
18 They just don't do everything that tuff does, so I think 19 that's going to end up being the program of preference and 20 we'll have reservations about it, but there aren't any 21 others that are any better. That's the problem we are up 22 against right now.
23 In none of these programs does it say anything 24 about transport. Just how you are going to represent 25 transport? Physically what it looks like in an unsaturated O
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i 29880.0 297 BRT em is_) I fractured medium is controversial.
2 DR. SHEWMON: Tell me again, what do they model 3 if they don't model transport?
4 MR. RANDALL: They model movement of air, water 5 vapor and liquid water. That's all they do. Some of them 6 don't even do all that.
7 DR. SHEWMON: You are saying they handle 8 transport of water but --
9 MR. RANDALL: There's no simulation of 10 contaminant transport in any of those media -- any of those, 11 of air, water, water vapor --
12 DR. MOELLER: It's the movement of pure water 13 but nothing in the water?
(~
'v) 14 MR. RANDALL: Right. Nothing in the water.
15 That's what we as regulators are really worried about is 16 the contaminant transport, and'in order to get to that you f 17 have ,to know how the carriers move. That's all we've got 18 right now.
19 DR. STEINDLER: I thought we were told a little 20 earlier there is no really good idea of what the mechanism 21 of the movement of water is.
22 MR. RANDALL: Movement of water in a fractured 23 medium. In a porous medium it is better understood. Tom 24 alluded to his project at MIT, and there's a companion 25 project at New Mexico State; and I think there with those O
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(') I two projects they are showing us they have a better handle 2 on how to simulate water movement, et cetera, not 3 contaminant transport but just the movement of these 4 carriers, fluids, in porous media than they do in fractured 5 media. And that's what my next slide is about, really.
6 Really we are up against a much more difficult problem here.
7 I would just like to give~you my perspective on it. Some 8 of it will be the same as Tom's.
9 DR. MOELLER: Was your question answered, Marty?
10 DR. STEINDLER: No, I don't think so.
11 DR. SHEWMON: Perhaps as well as it could be.
12 DR. STEINDLER: Why don't we just let it go.
13 MR. RANDALL: Well, Tom is right. In fractured O 14 media there's an argument about whether liquid water moves 15 along fractures, between -- in the fractures between 16 matrices or across the fractures from matrix to matrix.
17 That's also the same problem with contaminant transport.
18 In a porous medium that is just not an issue. In a 19 fractured medium that's the whole ball game.
20 DR. STEINDLER: I thought the argument was in 21 tuff you have both fractures and pores, and the question is 22 if there is flow in the bulk sense, what's the distribution?
23 MR. RANDALL: Right. Does it ago along 24 fractures or from matrix to matrix? Nobody knows.
25 DR. STEINDLER: If you tell me that's still an ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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()
,cx 1 uncertainty I~can't understand what you are modeling.
2 MR. RAN DALL: We are modeling what's going on in 3 a purely porous medium, no fractures. And that's the best 4 that there is, so it is not very good. That's the message 5 I want to give you.
6 DR. STEINDLER: This is an unsaturated system so 7 you don't have bulk flow? l 8 MR. RANDALL: Right.
9 DR. STEINDLER: What kind of flow do you have?
10 MR. RANDALL: What do you mean by " bulk flow"?
11 Let's go back.
12 The program can predict the existence or 13 estimate the existence of perched water zones, zones and b'#
14 saturations. There's no major slug of water going through 15 the system that is contiguous.
16 DR. STEINDLER: Okay.
17 DR. SHEWMON: A slug is discontinuous by its 18 nature to me so when you say "a slug going through 19 continuously," I don't know what you are talking about.
20 MR. RANDALL: Well, in and of itself, obviously 21 a slug has up front -- there's no reason for it to do that, 22 no reason to expect that.
23 DR. SHEWMON: Isn't that the way the water flow 24 comes usually, every other year you get a rain storm?
25 MR. RANDALL: Get a rain storm in the upper A
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q j 1 alluvial media and spreads out, you get perched water zones, v
2 they break up and move around. I don't think we can 3 resolve that in that time scale. You pointed out another 4 area of uncertainty. These models cover thousands of years.
5 The time steps that the numerical model cover will jump 6 right over annual rainfall.
7 DR. SHEWMON: Let's come back. It seems to me a 8 basic question is whether or not you have a temporarily 9 saturated medium very infrequently or whether you have a 10 totally unsaturated medium all the time when you get down 11 to the places you wanted modeled.
12 MR. RAN DALL: It makes a difference.
- 13 DR. SHEWMON: And you are telling me that your
~'
14 model does what?
15 MR. RANDALL: It doesn't do a hell of a lot.
16 You are uncovering areas where it doesn't do much and 17 neither does any other. What I tried to do is give you a 18 fairly pessimistic picture of what the state of the art in 19 modeling is.
20 DR. SHEWMON: When you are finished, I don't 21 know, I can't hear you and I would like to ask a question.
22 May I ask now?
23 MR. RANDALL: Go head.
24 DR. SHEWMON: Do you know what assumptions go 25 into the model? They do not treat it ever becoming A
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) 1 saturated for a short period of time; is that what you are 2 telling us?
3 MR. RANDALL: You can. You can.
4 DR. SHEWMON: It can?
5 MR. RANDALL: Yes. But you have to be careful 6 to do that during a performance assessments calculation.
7 It may make the performance assessment calculation 8 impossible from a computational point of view, because of 9 the kind of temporal resolution you are talking about.
10 MR. DILLON: I shouldn't think there would be a 11 whole high probability of a truly wet zone around the fuel 12 as long -- around the waste, as long as there is any heat 13 generation at all. I should think that would be almost s
14 guaranteed to be a dry zone.
15 DR. SHEWMON: Then it would just come down and 16 resaturate it part way after it got down that far? Is that 17 what you are saying?
18 MR. DILLON: I can imagine sort of a wet sphere 19 around the waste source, but because of the heat generation 20 I just can't imagine there being much condensed water in 21 the immediate vicinity.
22 MR. RANDALL: There is a possible heat pipe 23 effect. You can get liquid contact.
24 DR. SHEWMON: If this container is good for the 25 first 1000 years and there's not a heck of a lot of heat O
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2 MR. DILLON: Well, you don't need very much.
3 .You know, a few degrees would be sufficient to pretty well 4 establish that the vapor pressure of water in the immediate 5 vicinity of that two or three degrees higher temperature 6 would probably dissipate any liquid water.
7 DR. SHEWMON: I guess my question comes back to
)
8 when the rain comes into you tend to get a whole year's 9 supply of four inches in two storms? Or does it sort'of 10 come in 1/10 inch each month?
11 That I just don't know. Do you know Teek? Or 12 Tom?
13 MR. NICHOLSON: The work of the people in O 14 Arizona is showing the low moisture over long periods that 15 are doing more saturation. Also the snow melt. And the 16 question of whether it ever gets to the horizon on which 17 the repository is to actually saturate to that level no one 18 knows because of the depths involved, but they are slowing 19 that long-term rainfall events -- it doesn't have to be, 20 you know, intense rainfall events -- either perched water 21 conditions --
22 DR. MOELLER: Louder and back up a speck?
23 MR. NICHOLSON: His answer is correct in that it 24 is the long-term rainfall event or snow melt. It is 25 actually the time of rainfall is more important than the O
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(_)j 1 intensity.
2 DR. SHEWMON: But the snow melt will saturate it 3 once a year, then?
4 MR. NICHOLSON: Yes. If there is a snow pack.
5 DR. VERMA: Saturation is not the right word.
6 It may never saturate. It may not have enough water to 7 create saturated conditions.
8 DR. SHEWMON: It will saturate the surface, 9 whether it propagates down or not --
10 DR. VERMA: I think the other thing causing some 11 confusion, if two flows are entirely different, one is 12 moving through the matrix which is considered more like a 13 force flow, is different than what's going through the 3
G 14 fractures. What Tom was saying, all these -- both flows 15 are so much dependent on the amount of moisture already in 16 the system. That's why this is such a complex problem.
17 The work that is being done is just to enhance our 18 understanding of what is really happening.
19 DR. SHEWMON: I guess my concern is the amount 20 of oscillation that you do have as opposed to assuming it's 21 some constant average value all the time. From what you 22 are saying you appreciate, then, that the transport would 23 be appreciably different in those two situations?
24 MR. NICHOLSON: That's a very good point. The 25 timing of the wetting front and the depth of the wetting ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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- BRT j ) 1 front are extremely important. The models people are using 2 are oversimplifying perhaps the flux rate and the timing of 3 the flux rate and transient phenomena as Teek points out 4 whether you gets saturated conditions or not is extremely
" important. As-you point out, it's. extremely important to 5
a 6 understand that oscillation.
i; 7 DR. SHEWMON: Thank you.
f 8 MR. RANDALL: I think we covered the first point 9 on this Vugraph. There is no consensus on just how water 10 and contaminants -- water, air or vapor, contaminants move 11 in an unsaturated fractured medium as opposed to a simply 12 porous medium. Tom made some remarks on-vapor phase 13 transport. Sandia did some bounding studies and they ruled s eC) 14 it out in terms of aerosol formation or also based on a 4
- 15 comparison of mobility factors and transport for vapor and 16 water, in tuff, they just don't think it's going to be-a 17 strong transport medium compared to liquid water.
18 Arizona's position is softer, but they have agreed that 19 Sandia should be putting its resources on transport in 20 liquid water and that's what they are going to do. If i
21 other information comes up that refutes their findings on
, 22 -- vapor transport findings, they will go back and work on 23 it.
24 The resolution of these issues that we already 25 talked a lot about are going to require some experiments.
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) 1 Sandia can't do too much about that on its own. It has 2 funded through a subcontract at the University of New 3 Mexico, a very simple laboratory experiment just to find 4 out if rocks in unsaturated media are -- have a film of 5 liquid water on them. If they did, that would be nice from 6 the geochemical point of view because they could borrow 7 from what is known about saturated media because that's 8 where all the action is, is on the surface of the rocks as 9 far as sorption is concerned. They are trying to get some 10 guidelines where to go next.
11 Arizona's field experiments will help to resolve 12 some of these problems as Tom as pointed out. Also, 13 Arizona has been kicking around an idea that I think they
(~}
U 14 will propose to us eventually formally to build a fairly 15 large scale laboratory apparatus with a transparent medium 16 that is representative of tuff, something like welded glass 17 beads very carefully put together to look like welded tuff, 18 something where you can do visualization and it has to be 19 designed so it is somewhat dynamically similar to tuff at 20 least so you could get the same kind of flow and transport 21 regimes. That would help a lot in terms of designing 22 models, picking the right models if they are already 23 designed, out there. And it needs to be done.
24 I think we are heading very fast toward an 25 impasse on how we are going to do any kind of audit of
,O V
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models that we can believe with welded tuff.
That's my talk.
3 MR. OTT: Thank you, John.
4 DR. MOELLER: Any last questions'for John 5 Randall? Thank you. Okay. Go ahead.
6 MR. OTT: The next speaker is Tim McCartin, he's 7 going to be talking about the effort we are putting into 8 Hydrocoin, an international study. _ Tim is heading up the 9 team that is doing modeling studies. We have another team 10 ~ at Sandia that.is also doing some modeling these days for 11 Hydrocoin. The representative to Hydrocoin is Tom 12 Nicholson who has already spoken to you, he's on the 13 coordinating committee. The Swedish, who began this
( 14 operation, are strongly supportive of NRC involvement and 15 we are doing our best to keep that going.
16 DR. MOELLER: Our only regulatory groups in this, 17 I again ask -- does DOE attend the meetings?
18 MR. OTT: DOE is an active participant. The 19 international arena is one of the few areas where we can 20 cooperate with DOE and both work on the same thing without 21 having any conflict of interest.
22 DR. MOELLER: Thank you.
23 MR. MC CARTIN: I will be talking about the 24 Hydrocoin effort, it's a hydrologic code intercomparison 25 study and it has been mentioned. It is an international O
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(_T j 1 effort. There are 10 countries involved.
2 For the use, both the NRC and DOE are involved, 3 for the NRC we are involved both at the Staff level and we 4 have a contractor, Sandia National Labs, involved also.
5 Let me just go right to the next slide.
i 6 (Slide.)
7 I know time is a little short. The Hydrocoin
- 8 effort, which is designed to understand the state of the I 9 art of hydrologic modeling better, is broken up into three i
10 levels. The first level is a verification level where we 4
- 11 are testing strictly the numerical accuracy of the codes.
12 There were nine problems tested. These problems were 13 conceptually simple although potentially -- not numerically 14 simple, but there were problems where there shouldn't be a 15 debate as to what is the correct answer. So, when you 16 compare the codes you know when a code is. performing 17 correctly and when it is not.
18 -
Secondly, level 2 is validation level of the l
19 effort. In this level we are looking at laboratory l
20 experiments and field experiments and we are trying to 21 simulate those experiments with the numerical models.
l l
l 22 Currently it is a three-year study, roughly, l
l 23 where one year is envisioned for each level. We finish l
l 24 with level 1. We are close to finishing up on level 2. We l
25 will shortly begin level 3.
O l
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i,,_) 1 Level 3 is a sensitive uncertainty analysis 2 where we have seven problems that are somewhat related to 3 the different repository regimes we would be looking at in 4 the various countries. You are looking at the sensitivity 5 of the groundwater models to incorporating diEferent 6 physical phenomena.
7 (Slide.)
8 With that overview, I would like to just give a 9 little closer detail as to what was done in the level 1 10 effort, the verification effort. Because there are 10 11 different countries involved in the effort, each country, 12 for the most part, has a particular rock type that they are
,s 13 interested in, unlike the United States where we have a k.] 14 variety of rock types we are interested in. So there are a 15 number of different flow regimes analyzed. One is 16 three-dimensional regional flow; unsaturated flow; fracture 17 flow; coupled heat and fluid flow; and coupled brine and 18 fluid flow.
19 Each country will do, for the most part, the 20 problems they are interested in as compared to all 21 countries don't do all the problems. But you'll see a 22 number of countries performing at each problem level.
23 (Slide.)
24 DR. SHEWMON: Has each developed its own program?
25 Or is the question taking the same program, can they get it
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1- up on their different machines? Or what?
2 MR. MC CARTIN: Each country uses or each 3 project team uses code or codes that they are interested in 4 testing, so I believe there are 22 different models tested.
5 Some of the differences between these models are 6 slight. Some are more dramatic.
7 DR. SHEWMON: Fine. Thank you.
- 8 DR. MOELLER
- Each country, then, I presume even 9 with a common model, has its own little variations in that 10 model?
11 MR. MC CARTIN: I'm not sure I understand the 12 question.
13 DR. MOELLER: Does each country take a basic 14 model and add a few wrinkles of their own, or, I guess, in 15 intercomparison tests, you all take the same model and run 16 the same problem on it?
17 MR. MC CARTIN: The same problem is run, that's 18 correct. Then you are comparing your results.
19 There is a common input specified and a common 20 output that you are going to compare against. And there 21 could be as many as 10 to 15 different models or computer 22 codes performing the same problem and then you intercompare 23 the results.
24 DR. MOELLER: Are you seeking a university model 25 or group of models?
O i
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29880.0 310 BRT q_j 1 MR. MC CARTIN: No.
2 DR. MOELLER: Okay.
3 MR. MC CARTIN: The main purpose is to get a 4 better understanding of what the important features of the 5 modeling ,re. It is more or less -- although some people 6 have modified their computer programs as a result of how 7 they fared in this effort, we are not seeking a common 8 computer program, more a common understanding of the 9 phenomena.
10 Tom, did you have a question or statement?
11 MR. NICHOLSON: I was going to point out that a 12 lot of time different project teams use the same code, r- 13 SWIFT II, so even though each project team has their own
(_)S 14 suite of codes, we often use similar ones. For example, 15 SWIFT II is one of the more common-used codes.
16 DR. SHEWMON: Let me ask the question on the 17 state of the art. I got into something related to this 10, 18 15 years ago. The same fuel level models code which worked 19 at Argonne and getting it set up on somebody else's machine 20 was a nontrivial task. Are things now 10 years later so 21 well that there's no trouble taking it across the ocean?
22 MR. MC CARTIN: It depends on the effort spent 23 by the developer. There are some codes that I would say 24 don't pose that great a difficulty to transfer from one 25 installation to another and be able to get the exact same i \
%-)
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.() 1 solution. The SWIFT code that NRC has funded is an example 2 of this, that a fair amount of effort was put in to get it 3 up at the Argonne Code Center and it has been obtained by 4 people both in this country and outside this country and,
, 5 as far as I know, successfully run. The Germans run SWIFT 6 II sets. But there are some codes that the documentation 7 isn't there, and they are in va'rious-stages of development.
8 Level 1 verification effort -- a few general comments that were found.
~
9 I
10 Scalar quantities compared very well for the I
11 linear problems. Scalar problems, an example would be 12 pressure head; absolute temperature. However, when we l
f 13 looked at vector quantities such as velocities or
- ( 14 quantities that used vector quantities such as fluxes, 15 differences began to come out.
, 16 The nonlinear problems posed an extreme 17 difficulty for all the codes. There was not one code used 18 that did not have problems with the nonlinear problems and 19 there is the problem with some of this morning's discussion
! 20 with the tuff situation. In an unsaturated media, you are
, 21 dealing with a nonlinear problem. The numerical methods at 22 times suffer sevarely for a nonlinear problem.
l 23 (Slide.)
3 24 The next slide is just an example of the types i
25 of problems that were considered. This is a level 1 O
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() I problem, a verification problem. Where you have no flow 2 boundary condition on these three sides and you had a 3 fracture set, two intersecting fractures. Although it's 4 hard to see on this Vugraph, one is a little bit larger 5 than the other.
6 (Slide.)
7 You are looking at both the hydrologic head at 8 different depths in this system. And they also looked at l 9 travel time, from four release points. They had release 10 points here, here, here and here (indicating.) Where you 11 released a particle and then you kept a track of its time 12 and length through the system until it got out. There were 13 a lot of differences seen in the travel time calculation C1 14 depending on the type of discretization used in the 15 computer code and the type of particle tracking algorithm 16 used.
17 Just briefly, one of the things that was 18 interesting was you have these fractures at different 19 orientations which can be a difficulty for some of the 20 numerical methods and that's why this problem was chosen.
l 21 You can see conceptually it is not a difficult problem, i
22 however, numerically, you want to find out a little more 23 about it.
24 Level 2 was the validation effort.
l 25 (Slide.)
lO 1
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.( n) 1 There, there were a number of proposals from the 2 various project teams from around the world for the 3 validation problems to be used. Five problems were 4 selected.
5 One of the problems you run into with validating 6 some of these computer models is the time scale and length 7 scale and what is currently available in the~ literature 8 today.
9 One of the problems was a coupled heat and flow 10 problem. The time scale was years, the length scale was on 11 the order of 10s of meters.
12 We have a salt convection analog. The time 13 scale was on the order of days. The length scale on the v
14 order of meters.
15 Fracture flow problem, time scale on the order 16 of days, length scale on the order of 100 meters.
17 One of the better problems was a regional flow 18 problem in low permeability rock which you don't find data 19 allowing for validation in low permeability rock very often.
20 It is getting a little better with some of the work at In 21 Situ and at Arizona. But people don't like to look at low 22 permeability rock because it's not economic. But there it 23 was a regional problem. Steady state, however, the life 24 scale is something on the order we would be interested in 25 for a repository, we are looking at 100 kilometers.
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(_) 1 Finally we had an unsaturated flow problem, the 2 time scale on the order of days, length scale on the order 3 of meters.
4 Okay? It's very nice to have these data sets.
5 DR. STEINDLER: Could you explain that last one?
6 Why are you looking at meters when the time scale is days 7 for unsaturated flow?
8 DR. SHEWMON: In unsaturated flow. The last one.
9 MR. MC CARTIN: That's the data set. This is 10 not so much a desire in that the validation problems chosen 11 had to use existing data sets. The data set was an 12 infiltration experiment where the length scale was on the gg 13 order of two meters and the duration of the experiment was L.)
14 on the order of days. The data set covered -- that was the 15 range of the data set.
16 We certainly would like a better data set, but 17 it just isn't available.
18 MR. NICHOLSON: He didn't hear the question 19 properly. This isn't welded tuff. What happened was we 20 got to level 2, we , the NRC, wanted to look at regional 21 flow problems, so the fourth one is the one our project 22 team at Sandia proposed. Since we failed so miserably on 23 the unsaturated on level I we went out and found an 24 agricultural problem that had been done at the University 25 of California at Davis, a very simple soil problem that was
, (
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(} l done by Neilson and Bigger and just so people could 2 exercise their unsaturated codes. This has nothing to do 3 with high-level waste. It's unconsolidated coarse media.
4 If you can't solve this, you can't solve anything.
5 MR. MC CARTIN: This was a much simpler problem 6 than the welded tuff.
7 I would make the point we had something on the 8 order of 20 project teams and these were the best 9 validation experiments in the literature today.
10 (Slide.)
11 With that, the various teams charged ahead and 12 started the validation process and the lessons learned were,
,_ 13 right off: Determination -- an adequate validation data b 14 set does not currently exist. Validation was not achieved 15 for any of those problems. At the outset of the problems 16 it was hoped that all of those would be a measure of 17 validation, but it was not attained.
18 Now, coming from that exercise, there are a 19 number of things that we can say about future validation 20 work. First, it is absolutely critical to have two 21 completely independent data sets for validation. One data 22 set will be used to calibrate your model and then another 23 data set, which is completely independent, will have to be 24 used to evaluate your simulation.
25 Secondly, data collection needs to be O
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f) I sufficiently broad to allow for evaluation of different 2 conceptual models. One of the things you find is that if 3 you go out into the field with a single conceptual model in 4 mind and collect data to prove that conceptual model, you 5 may come back and find out that, indeed, someone else has 6 another conceptual model with a couple of other parameters.
7 If they are allowed to have a couple of free parameters in 8 their model that you haven't gotten the data for, they can 9 adjust those parameters and match your data and it gets to 10 a question that someone brought up earlier: Does the SWIFT 11 code get the right answer?
12 I think here what we are looking at is we want 13 to make sure the program gets the right answer, but for the r-)s
(_
14 right reasons. Because some of these models, with the free 15 parameters, if they are not all specified you can adjust a 16 parameter and get the right answer, but it potentially is 17 for the wrong reasons.
18 DR. MARK: Is my impression correct that all of 19 the money being spent in running codes is a total waste?
20 ( Laughte r . )
21 MR. MC CARTIN: No. No.
22 DR. MARK: I mean I don't object to what you are 23 talking about. You are trying to find out if the code 24 works and you are finding out it doesn't. But there are 25 people off on the side running codes.
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29880.0 317 BRT MR. MC CARTIN: Wait a second, we didn't find
(
) 1 2 that the codes didn't work. We couldn't assess whether 3 they were working correctly. And we learned a little more 4 with each effort.
5 DR. MARK: The impression I get is that sure the 6 code runs like a dream. It only takes an hour. But it 7 doesn't give an answer that means anything.
8 MR. MC CARTIN: I would say you have to be very 9 careful on any modeling exercise to assure yourself that 10 you are doing the right thing. The modeling that we are 11 doing in Hydrocoin to date is trying to understand the 12 processes that are going on. First, we started with the 13 verification to understand how -- where our codes are O 14 working numerically. Then we take them to the field to see 15 how they compare.
16 What we saw here was more a limitation of the 17 field data rather than the codes per se, although some 18 limitations in the codes were found also. We need some 19 better data to do any further model development, is what I 20 would say. I'd be very reluctant to do any further model 21 development at this point until we understand the field 22 situation better.
23 Does that annwer the question?
24 DR. MARK: Perhaps enough.
25 MR. MC CARTIN: Hydrocoin is strictly concerned i
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(_j 1 with groundwater flow. The subsequent project that the NRC 2 will be involved in is currently being undertaken, it's 3 called INTRAVAL. The next two bullets are related to 4 INTRAVAL and it is going to be an attempt to validate the 5 transport in the geosphere models.
6 In this validation there are two points that are 7 very important. One is that they are going to be looking 8 for experimental work currently going on -- now. They will 9 have the ability to model these experiments and go back and 10 take some data subsequent to the modeling. Okay? So it 11 would appear that successful validation will require this 12 repetitive data collection modeling process. In other 13 words, for all the !!ydrocoin validation experiments v
-)
14 attempted, one of the unfortunate aspects to it was all the 15 experiments were finished. Once the model was done, some 16 questions were raised that, gee, could we go back and 17 measure this particular parameter or get a better idea of 18 the error on another parameter?
19 Well, the experiments were over and finished.
20 And there just wasn't that possibility. So the INTRAVAL 21 project, we'll be looking at projects around the world that 22 have this ability that they are going on now and we will be 23 able to suggest some of the modeling -- some of the 24 experimental parametera be taken. The In Situ project is
- 25 one that the NRC is suggesting to INTRAVAL. The Skreco O
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29880.0 319 BTT 1 line in Sweden is an ongoing experiment that will be used 2 in INTRAVAL. Also with INTRAVAL, another aspect that they 3 are looking at that I think, given the problems that people 4 have brought out with the field data collection is that 5 laboratory experiments in conjuncticn with field 6 experiments will be necessary to attain a validation.
7 Okay? So, also with INTRAVAL, you won't have 8 one isolated field experiment as your validation problem.
9 You will have potentially a suite of data sets that you 10 will use to validato a particular process or phenomena, so 11 you would have a field site backed up with some laboratory 12 experiments and potentially some natural analogs.
13 (Slide.)
14 MR. PARKER: While you are talking about what 15 the future holds, will you also participate in the 16 biological modeling, the biomods?
17 MR. MC CARTIN: This effort is strictly related 18 to the groundwater transport.
l
- 19 MR. PARKER
- I understand that, but the next is l
20 the biosphoro modeling and then the studios together going 21 on to the NEA -- are you going to participate in that as j 22 woll?
i 23 MR. MC CARTIN: I'm not aware of an effort along
)
24 those linos. Would wo participato? I don't know.
25 MR. NICllOLSON: To answer your question, Frank, l
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() I the Swedes did approach the Office of Research a year and a 2 half ago and unfortunately, at the present time, research 3 is not involved in that. Obviously it is a logical link 4 between the geosphere transport and the biologic uptake 5 doso, but right now wo are only involved in Hydrocoin. The 6 INTRAVAL is right now at an ad hoc level. It hasn't boon 7 formally introduced to the world yet. Hopefully, it will 8 soon. The other one is an ongoing project. We are aware 9 of it and unfortunatoly -- well, it doponds on who you talk 10 to, but right now rosearch is not involved in it.
11 MR. PARKER: I would suggest that they do join 12 the biospheric modeling group or participato in it.
13 MR. MC CARTIN: Briefly the next graph is just O 14 an examplo.
15 (Slido.)
16 This is one of the lovel 2 problems wo 17 considered. It was a heator experimont in a granito quarry 18 in England. Wo had a heator here and measured temperatures 19 along this borehole.
20 So we had, hopefully, a couplod heat and flow i
21 problem that wo could validato against. Thoro woro
- 22 problems in the data base in how they characterized the 23 hydrologic system and thoro woro problems in the conceptual 24 modol when they collected the data. They did not considor 25 some paramotors that we uso in our modols. That was why i
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) I that particular problem did not attain a full validation.
2 The level 2 work is drawing to a close. We are 3 currently starting up on level 3, which is a sensitivity 4 uncertainty analysis.
5 (Slide.)
6 I just want to highlight briefly some of the 7 problems that will be looked at at this level.
8 One is a low-level waste alternative type of 9 problem where we are looking at an unsaturated flow for 10 near surface disposal. Second is doop disposal in a 11 partially saturated fractured tuff, which is what you heard 12 about earlior this morning and I'm not sure what will be 13 dono at this point in terms of state of the art for O,
14 modeling this site. There are severo numerical problems in 15 modeling a partially saturated fractured tuff. In terms of 16 the transient water infiltration at the surface that was 17 brought up, my understanding is that no one has solved this la problem for a transient caso and it is unclear if it can be 19 solved for the transient problem with today's numerical 20 methods. I do know that Sandia or DOE is interosted in 21 this problem becauso, obviously it is very similar to the 22 Nevada tost sito that they aro working on and I bellove for 23 steady stato model they spent 60 minutos of Cray timo 24 trying to salvo it. It's a hard problem.
25 One of tho things I would say that currently, O
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() I today what will be done in terms of is the flow going 2 through the fractures or through the matrix, the model that 3 -- I don't believe you will be able to model those systems 4 simultaneously. What will be done is they will conduct 5 some field tests, maybe some laboratory work to make a 6 determination of which one of those flow systems is 7 dominant and then they will model that system as an 8 equivalent porous media and uso either the charactoristics 9 of the fracture system or the characteristics of the matrix 10 and assume that that is where the majority of the flow is 11 going. I don't believe this problem will over be sold --
12 well, that's too strong a statomont -- in the next 10 years, 13 I don't think you'll soo an answer to this problem in terms O 14 of a discreto fracture matrix modeling situation.
15 They are looking at a hypothetical salt 16 repository coupled groundwater flow and brine transport; 17 fluid flow in crystalline rock; three-dimensional 18 groundwater flow in low pormeability rock; and lastly, they 19 are looking at particle tracking algorithms.
20 One of the things that was done to the level 1 21 work was one of the performanco measures that people testod 22 against was the travol timos and the paths of a particle.
23 What they found out in that effort was, at least at the 24 start of it, thoro would be no problem in doing the 25 particle tracking aspect. That was a postprocessor. You O
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() I took your velocities and just made the calculations and if 2 your velocities compared, there would be no problem in 3 comparing the results.
4 As it turned out, there were drastic differences 5 in travel times and particle paths. A lot of that was due 6 to the algorithms used for particle tracking and because of 7 the NRC's intorest and a lot of the European countries' 8 interest in groundwater travel time, they want to look 9 closer at the particle tracking, efficiency of the particle 10 tracking algorithms.
11 DR. MARK: I'm not completely clear -- particle 12 tracking. Are those things done with differential 13 calculations or Monte Carlo or what? Or particle in a coll?
14 MR. MC CARTIN: It varios. It's not a particle 15 in a coll. It's a particle pusher to a cortain degree.
16 You are taking a particle for lack of a big word, one could 17 look at it as a tagged water moleculo and just moving it 18 through the system, the flow system, according to the flow 19 velocities.
20 Now,' some teams will tako -- you'll havo your 21 finite olomont or finito difference grid, particlos placed 22 in a particular block and it will interpolate betwoon the 23 velocities at the nodon and then push the particle through 24 the system.
25 DR. MARK: I'm really -- you say this problem O
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([ 1 with fractures and matrix is very, very hard. The 2 mathematical methods exist for handling stuff like that.
3 The physical parameters may be where the 4 difficulty is, or what is the nature of the difficulty?
5 MR. MC CARTIN: They have the techniques, the 6 finite difference, finite element methods to solve the 7 differential equation, however the nonlinearities of'the 8 system make it numerically unstable and you don't get a 9 conversion solution. You get a model that can crank and
, 10 crank and it is oscillating and it can't oscillate to the 11 correct -- it just oscillates maybe around the correct 12 solution. You don't even know that. But it is the 13 nonlinearition are primarily what is causing the problem.
O 14 DR. MARK: You are probably more familiar than I 15 am with what is referred to as particle in cell calculation 16 where you don't really solvo a network of differential 17 equations, but you calculato the forces on a moleculo and 18 you move each moleculo by itself. The moleculo is perhaps 19 a cubic millimotor or something or other.
20 HR. MC CARTIN: Okay. Yos?
21 DR. MARK: Are those techniques applied hero, 22 too?
23 MR. MC CARTIN: I think what you are referring 24 to is more used in a contaminant transport sonso as 25 compared to solving the differential equation for Acti-Fiii)iti<Ai. Ititi>oitiitits, INC.
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() I contaminant transport, you have a large number of particles 2 that you then push through the system. You are right. The 3 technique is very similar. The difference being, with 4 contaminant transport, you sometimes try to add in a 5 component to account for-hydrodynamic dispersion and that's 6 what I was referring to, in the particle in a cell, I 7 associate more of a transport problem with dispersion is 8 added in.
9 For this, for the particle tracking that, we are 10 looking at, it is sort of a -- if it was a hydrostatic [
11 system it would be a flow line. Okay? You would trace out 12 a flow line of the system. It is not -- if I could put, as 13 I said, put a tag on a water molecule and put it at that O 14 location, it would trace out that path and the water 15 molecule isn't dispersing -- it's just traveling with the 7 16 groundwater velocity. Is that somewhat clearer?
17 DR. MARK: It clears mo up on what you woro 18 referring to; yes.
19 MR. MC CARTIN: Soo this effort is not dealing 20 with contaminant transport por so. Although groundwater 21 travel timo could be looked at as the path that the 22 contaminant is going to move on, groundwater travel timo is 23 a very conveniont way for assossing the safety of your 24 system and I think that is why, although the regulations 25 differ among all the countries involved, all the countrios O
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29880.0 326 BRT V 1 are somewhat compatible with using a groundwater travel 2 time as a common performance measure.
3 The Italian water flows faster than the German.
4 (Laughter.)
5 DR. MOELLER: Are there any more questions on 6 this topic?
7 Well, thank you.
8 MR. GRILL: If not, then I think we should move 9 on to the NRC's waste package corrosion program and Michael 10 McNeil will handle that.
11 MR. MC NEIL: Am I audible? I'm going to frame 12 this along the following pattern. Obviously any 13 suggestions, any requests for changes or discretions will 14 be welcomo.
15 I'm going to first say where DOE appears to be, 16 where we appear to be, what DOE appears to be doing or 17 planning to do that I fool we must respond to, and what DOE 18 isn't doing that I think we must respond to.
! 19 First, a very familiar Vugraph.
l 20 (Slido.)
21 That is a pattern of the overpack or container 22 if you like, approximately five to six meters tall. The 23 diamotor will be approximately half to throo quarters of a 24 motor depending upon circumstances.
25 (911do.)
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I, j 1 The choice of manufacturer's materials for these, 2 in the tuff, the actual experimental work seems to be being 3 done on 316-L, or 316-LN. This is an 18/8 stainless steel 4 with molybdenum, low carbon and sometimes high nitrogen.
5 I'll return to this point in a moment.
6 In basalt, the choice is A-216 which is a cast 7 low carbon steel, usually less than 18 percent carbon. In 8 salt the choice appears to be A-216 or a corresponding 9 wrought grade. A-216 is a spec for cast steel and, from my 10 understanding from a recent meeting in Columbus, there is a 11 good chance that they will, in fact, use wrought product 12 instead.
13 Yes?
O 14 DR. SHEWMON: It would be more comfortable if 15 you would let that hang and maybe even turn it off or 16 something. Your voice doesn't require it.
17 DR. MOELLER: Just hang it around your neck 18 without holding it, please.
19 MR. MC NEIL: My years as a professor. That's 20 not what they meant.
21 MR. MERRILL: Forget it. You have a voice that 22 carries.
23 (Laughter.)
24 MR. MC NEIL: Now as for why 316-LN, it has to 25 do with corrosion. The nominal design material for the Acit 171tniinAi. Riti>onTiins, INC.
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1 tuff site is still 304 which does not have the molybdenum
2 in it. The 304 appears -- has got more vulnerability to 3 localized corrosion, particularly at welds in 316, and I 4 believe this is the reason why, in fact, they are doing 5 experiments on 316. It is going to be a meeting, in San 6 Francisco next month. The number of papers out of the tuff 7 group -- perhaps we'll get some -- what shall I say -- a 8 policy type statement on that point at moment. Here is a 9 primitive Vugraph illustrating why the nitrogen.
10 (Slide.)
11 This is intergranular attack on 18/8 stainless 12 steel sensitized as a function of nitrogen content. You 13 will notice that additions of nitrogen reduce this attack
() 14 on the grain boundaries, which is a traditional problem 15 with 18/8 stainless steel so there is a good reason for 16 going to the high nitrogen grades.
17 DR. SHEWMON: How much carbon is in this?
18 MR. MC NEIL: .03 to .05.
19 DR. SHEWMON: Is this nuclear grade?
20 MR. MC NEIL: I'm not sure. It's low carbon. I 21 think the nuclear grade is low carbon grade.
22 MR. DILLON: What's your medium in which this 23 sensitivity is being tested?
24 MR. MC NEIL: This test is usually done in 25 ferric chloride solution.
O V
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29880.0 329 BRT f, 1 MR. DILLON: And this applies to the tuff 2 environment?
3 MR. MC NEIL: This applies to the tuff 4 environment in the sense that the tuff groundwater is an 5 oxygen rich groundwater that contains chloride ions.
6 MR. DILLON: I don't understand, really. We are 7 talking about a liquid medium in an unsaturated system.
8 MR. MC NEIL: Yes.
9 MR. DILL 6N: I don't understand the merits of 10 that combination.
11 MR. MC NEIL: First of all, although the tuff 12 may be officially unsaturated, it is wet occasionally in 13 the sense that if you go in the tunnel, I understand you
() 14 find at least a place where water is dripping through the 15 roof. Presumably this is through cracks.
16 So water will be present in the system at least 17 on occasion.
18 And, secondly, if you manufacture containers 19 they tend to have crevices and there's a lot of 20 experimental observations if containers ever, ever get wet, 21 ,you can wet the container, have the container to be too hot 22 for liquid water and still you'll find capillarity will 23 lead to your having water trapped in crevices, 24 manufacturing defects and so forth in the surface of the 25 containers. So the fact that nominally you are above 100 A
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-BRT f- 1 degrees centigrade in unsaturated medium does not mean that b) 2 you can totally disregard the presence of water.
3 MR. DILLON: Excuse me just a minute. We are 4 talking about a system in which water is present at a vapor 5 pressure of something corresponding to 20 degrees 6 centigrade?
7 MR. MC NEIL: Water is present, however, by the 8 time the water, the A-216 will.have a depressed water --
9 sorry -- the groundwater will have a somewhat depressed 10 vapor pressure because of its high mineral content, but 11 basically it's not that different.
12 MR. DILLON: Basically we are talking about 13 something that has a vapor pressure of say 20 millimeters
() 14 because we are talking about roughly 20 degrees centigrade 15 and just as a ballpark estimate that's 20 millimeters.
16 MR. MC NEIL: I don't have the numbers, but I 17 believe you.
18 MR. DILLON: We are talking about that partial 19 pressure in reference to the surface of a container which 20 will be at 100 degrees or so.
21 MR. MC NEIL: Yes.
22 MR. DILLON: I really have some trouble about 23 believing that there will be significant adsorbed water on 24 the surface under those circumstances.
25 MR. MC NEIL: All I can say is it has been .
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,_ 1 observed in other cases. When the water contacts --
.' ' ' 2 DR. SHEWMON: We tried to get the geologists to 3 admit that half an hour ago and they kept saying it was 4 never saturated, that these things would never get on the 5 boundary --
6 MR. MC NEIL: A guy I know went into that tunnel 7 and said there's a place where there's water dripping 8 through the ceiling and a puddle on the floor.
9 DR. SHEWMON: Are you talking about the same 10 place the geologists think they are going to bury this?
11 MR. MC NEIL: The tunnel at Yucca Mountain? Is 12 that what you are talking about?
13 MR. NICHOLSON: They get very high moisture
() 14 content. They do locally get saturation in certain areas.
. 15 The fractures may become locally saturated in certain cases 16 so I think we were wrong if we gave the impression that it 17 is always unsaturated.
18 DR. SHEWMON: The lad who has gone out for a cup 19 of coffee or something else is pretty convinced that --
20 MR. NICHOLSON: Well, he's a modeler.
21 MR. MC NEIL: I know a guy that went into the 22 tunnel and saw a puddle.
23 DR. SHEWMON: I don't know what tunnel you are 24 talking about.
25 MR. MC NEIL: There's a tunnel in Yucca Mountain l O)
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e-( 1 in this formation where they are going to be putting the J
2 containers.
3 DR. MARK: But that isn't the soft 4
4 unconsolidated tuff. That's a rock.
5 MR. MC NEIL: Excuse me. I don't. understand the 6 comment.
7 DR. MARK: Out in the Nevada test site, there's 8 deep beds of tuff.
9 MR. MC NEIL: Right.
10 DR. MARK: Crumbly stuff, although it may be 11 welded. In Yucca Mountain there's rock, which is a 12 different material. That might be dripping, but you can't 13 really make a tunnel in tuff very happily.
() 14 MR. MC NEIL: I was under the impression the 15 tunnel was in welded tuff. Is there anyone here --
16 DR. MARK: I'm not saying I know this. I'm~just 17 curious.
18 MR. MC NEIL: Is there anyone here familiar with 4
19 the details of that tunnel out there at Yucca Mountain, the 20 Nevada test site people show field trips around? No? Okay.
21 I will say as a fact, though, the DOE people are 22 going to 316-LN and 316-L, and the choice of these alloys 23 makes no sense unless they seriously expect water to be in 24 contact with the overpacks at least some of the time.
25 MR. DILLON: Well, I certainly accept that.
O
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,e 1 What I don't accept is that it makes a hell of a lot of
( )
2 sense that there will indeed be water in contact with that 3 surface.
4 MR. MC NEIL: All I can say is if you had a 5 crack in the rock and it is dripping water and you've got a 6 container under that water, it is going to drip onto the 7 container.
8 Yes?
9 DR. SHEWMON: Is part of this if we didn't have 10 any water there, we wouldn't have anything to measure at 11 all and so we measure in water because we want to measure 12 something?
13 MR. MC NEIL: If we had no water at all, if you I( ) 14 could guarantee there'd be no water at all, I certainly am 15 not going to worry about pitting corrosion because there's-16 nothing there to pit. You have got to have an electrolyte 17 to pit or to have crevice corrosion.
l 18 DR. SHEWMON: It's'either zero corrosion rate or i
l 19 this and people tend to want to do something for their 20 monthly report.
l 21 MR. DILLON: Also, just to persist where I'm 22 obviously outnumbered, I will simply say that one of the 23 factott that certainly is going to occur is evaporation of i 24 any dripping water in the vicinity of the -- of your 25 placement.
O]
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.29880.0 334 BRT O I MR. MC NEIL: Right. Right.
2 MR. DILLON: It doesn't take a heck of-a height
, 3 of exercise of imagination on my part to imagine some slow 4 but finite rate of plugging up of cracks and so on, in 5 which this water might drip on the object.
6 MR. MC NEIL: It is certainly possible that 7 mineral salts will block up the whole thing and no water 8 will approach. I don't know.
9 You know that's a question you really need to 10 address to a geoscientist.
11 MR. DILLON: True. It is unfair.
12 MR. MC NEIL: I will add, however, that dripping
() 13 water on a hot pipe is a horribly severe test. If that I
14 won't crack it, nothing will and, in fact, we put 304 LN 15 -through that test and it failed.
16 MR. DILLON: You will actually get thermal 17 cracking on the surface, no question about that although 18 somewhat higher temperatures than 100 degrees will be 19 required to do that.
4 20 MR. MC NEIL: What the people at Battelle did is 21 took'a 304 pipe with a weld in it and heated it to 200 22 degrees centigrade and dripped tuff groundwater on it and
- 23 it cracked. Not tco surprising. That's a very severe test.
24 Tom?
25 MR. NICHOLSON: I feel obligated, even though ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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, 1 I'm not supporting my fellow staff members at the 2 University of' Arizona, their heat ctudy.showed the 3 phenomena, heat pipe, the heat drives the moisture away and 4 so therefore the contaminant moves towards the heat source 5 and the water moves away from the heat source so, therefore, 6 this heat pipe phenomena does exist and we've shown it in 7 that Queen Creek Road Tunnel. But Michael's point is a 8 good one in that perhaps there might be some local 9 conditions where you have what are called superconductor 10 fractures that for some reason become saturated and that 11 system, then, allows locally saturated conditions to exist 12 and then that water is so great that it can't be overcome
() 13 by this heat pipe effect.
14 MR. DILLON: Wouldn't this tend to discourage an 15 emplacement in that particular area after you have
. 16 discovered that this indeed was going on?
17 MR. NICHOLSON: You mean if you have a 18 superconductor that allows -- yes, that's certainly a bad 19 phenomena you want to avoid.
r 20 DR. SHEWMON: I know something about 21 superconductors in the solid state physics area, but that's 22 not the way you are using the word.
23 MR. NICHOLSON: No.
24 DR. SHEWMON: Would you define it? Is it the 1
25 same as a fissure?
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1 MR. NICHOLSON: It's a term developed by Jane 2 long people at Berkeley. simply to develop the fractures 3 that have a long enough effective aperture that you can get 4 large amounts of water moving through it. They are the 5 ones that are continuously large amounts. I'm sorry that 6 is a misuse of the word " superconductor," but that is what 7 the terminology is now.
8 DR. SHEWMON: It depends on what crowd you are
- 9 with.
10 MR. MC NEIL: Anyway, to go on the basalt --
11 MR. STEINDLER: Before you leave that, why did 12 you say it was a waste of time to use 316?
() 13 , MR. MC NEIL: I didn't say it was a waste of 14 time. I said if you don't ever expect any water in the 15 system to invest the extra money in using 316-LN, which is-16 a very expensive stainless steel as opposed to just j 17 straight 304 18/8, is a waste of money because the reason I
i 18 you put molybdenum in is to suppress pitting corrosion.
( 19 The reason you take carbon out is to suppress sensitization l
20 and the reason you put nitrogen in is to suppress grain 21 boundary corrosion and none of those problems occur if you i
22 don't have any water present. So if you knew there was l
23 going to be no water present, what's the matter with 3047 24 DR. STEINDLER: That's not a very valid l
i 25 criticism because someone will always come up and say how O
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29880.0 337 BRT O 1 do you know there won't he any water present?
2 MR. MC NEIL: I'm not taking the position -- DOE 3 has taken the position they are using 316 and 316-LN which 4 implies they are considering water as a possibility.
5 DR. SHEWMON: You think 316 will work and that's 6 more than you think will work with the next couple you get 7 to.
8 MR. MC NEIL: I didn't say they wouldn't work.
9 I said they have some special problems.
10 The use of A-216 carbon steel in the basalt site 11 has got a couple of problems. One is pitting corrosion.
12 The other one, I will show you, and this has to do with i
() 13 stress corrosion cracking.
14 (Slide.)
15 Here is the region where stress corrosion 16 cracking is a problem. Here is the stress corrosion I Both 17 cracking associated with the presence of carbonate.
! 18 -- you got a copy of that right in front of you.
19 MR. DILLON: But we don't have a temperature.
i
- 20 , MR. MC NEIL
- This is 25 degrees centigrade; I
l 21 right down here.
22 MR. DILLON: Oh, I see.
23 MR. MC NEIL: The point here is both in the salt 24 and basalt sites, you are going to have carbonate present, 25 ions present. In the salt site from the so-called " mud t -(~s-)
l l
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'29880.0 338 BRT I stone," and this' area is rather alarming in that it is 2 bracketed by the experimental and theoretical estimates of 4
3 where you are in the basalt groundwater and whereas we .
4 really don't know that much about the brines, unfortunately, 5 it certainly is highly plausible that some of the brines-6 will be in this area.
7 So stress corrosion cracking is something to 8 worry about as far as carbon steel is concerned.
4 9 MR. DILLON: Again I am concerned that since 25 10 degrees is-not a rational temperature at which to introduce 11 the discussion. You should have the corresponding diagram 12 at some more apprcpriate temperature.
() 13 MR. MC NEIL: We should, but I don't. This type 14 of diagram -- face it -- this type of stress corrosion 15 cracking in carbon steel is typically a problem of buried 164 pipelines and so the experimental data base tends to be a
{ 17 low temperature data base-rather than a high temperature 18 data base.
l 19 Anyway, a second problem with the salt site is i
L that the use of A-216 is based on the assumption that you 20 21 can bound the rate of brine migration and the amount of f
! 22 brine available for corrosion, or alternatively that you i
E 23 know quite a lot about the chemistry of that brine. If you .
54 assume unlimited brine -- if you assume unlimited oxidizing l
. 25 brine, carbon steel is not a reasonable choice unless you LO ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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_ (_)/ are in an extremely basic environment which you are not in 1
2 this case.
3 So the DOE people have --
i 4 DR. SHEWMON: We have left basalt and gone to 5 salt?
6 MR. MC NEIL: We have gone to salt. The DOE 7 people have'two choices. They can either say let us learn 8 something about the local geology so we can give reasonable 9 estimates, low estimates of the amount of brine and 10 chemistry of the brine that are available, or else let us 11 take another alloy.
12 Because if their experiments have shown, which 4
f')\
- s. 13 indeed was absolutely no surprise to anyone, that if you 14 have lots of brine and the brine may be acid, don't use 15 A-216 because the stuff will dissolve, my understanding, as 16 of know is that, as opposed to the DOE headquarters people 17 -- the people feel they can get a good enough hold-on the 18 brine situation that they can continue to use A-216, 19 although they intend to do some work on backup alloys in 20 case they get into difficulties on this, but I think the 21 matter is very much in doubt. They had a meeting a couple 22 of weeks ago in Columbus which did not resolve these issues.
23 MR. PARKER: Do I understand that they believe 24 they will have more than sufficient brine available?
25 MR. MC NEIL: As far as I understand the O
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v 1 position of the technical people is that they will have 2 rather limited brine available, and if they can demonstrate 3 that there will not be stress corrosion cracking and that 4 the pitting corrosion will not be too severe and they don't 5 have other specialized types of corrosion, they are home 6 free because eventually all the water that comes in in the 7 brine will either have been used up in corrosion or tied up 8 as water of hydration of iron chloride and the processes 9 will shut down.
10 MR. PARKER: I think they have abandoned that 11 position. I may be wrong.
12 MR. MC NEIL: They hadn't as of yesterday. At rm
(_) 13 least the technical people haven't. What the headquarters 14 people are up to at this moment I don't know because my 15 contacts aren't with the senior administrative people.
16 They have not as of the meeting two weeks ago, i 17 they had not taken an official position.
1S If they find that they cannot cope with this, i
19 can no longer rely on this sort of corrosion allowance i 20 approach, they have several alternatives available to them.
21 One of them is copper. Copper alloys have a lot of 22 advantages. Copper alloys have advantages in the basalt l-23 site, also.
24 One of them is that copper and really high i
25 copper alloys don't show stress corrosion cracking except ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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w)- So 1 in ammonia or in some cases in nitrate solutions.
2 there's one really big critical problem that more or less 3 goes away if you've got copper. Hydrogen embrittlement 4 goes away if you have copper. Pitting corrosion in copper 5 tends to be not too severe a problem.
6 Here are two illustrations of corrosion from the 7 National Bureau of Standards data.
8 (Slide.)
9 Here's chromium steel, the average depth of 10 attack and maximum. This is in clay -- don't worry about 11 the exact thing. But the point is here is a carbon steel 12 -- and you see the behavior that you are getting into a i
() 13 situation where, although the average depth of attack is 14 very small you are getting severe localized attack.
I 15 DR. SHEWMON: Carbon steel at the top it says
- 16 "5 percent chrome."
17 MR. MC NEIL: Sorry, it's a chrome steel but i 18 that's a steel. It's just a number I pulled up.
19 Here is the important graph. Here is a figure 20 on some -- this is electrolytic copper. And you notice 21 that they tend to be very parallel. You don't have this 22 pulling-away phenomenon.
23 There is also another advantage. The work tends 24 to indicate there's a maximum depth for pits in copper.
, 25 This is pretty clearly going to be true in any metal, if
(
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29880.0 342 BRT 1 you look at the mass transport phenomena. If the pit is 2 too deep the mass transport will shut down in one fashion 3 or another, but for copper it seems that the maximum pit 4 depths are, at least in the brines the Panama Canal Company 5 and those people are concerned with, tend to occur at 6 fairly low values.
7 So an analysis that says we'll use copper and we 8 can demonstrate it won't pit through, is -- they have got 9 some real strength.
10 bd. DILLON: What's the present decision about 11 the use of packing material around the canister?
12 MR. MC NEIL: In which site?
(. ) 13 MR. DILLON: I'm indifferent.
14 MR. MC NEIL: There are three answers as far as 15 I know. In tuff and salt, as far as I am aware their 16 present official position is they are going to dump the 17 ground rock back into the hole, although I understand in 18 the salt site they are thinking about doctoring it with 19 some things that would be beneficial.
20 In the B WIPP site there is an official position 21 which is that they are going to mix the -- some of the 22 crushed basalt with Bentonite, which Dr. Booy has informed 23 me is otherwise known as foundry sand, and put that in.
24 DR. SHEWMON: I thought there was some silica in 25 foundry sand.
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l DR. BOOY: Emmy Booy. We were discussing this a 2 few weeks ago before I joined the Commission -- support 3 staff, whatever. It seemed like the closest analog that we 4 could find for some data base on somewhere where we have a 5 history of Bentonite being mixed with a coarse-ground 6 silica. In,the case of basalt, various compositions with a 7 history of what happens in a hot environment as in foundry 8 sand.
9 DR. SHEWMON: Bentonite is mixed with sand?
10 DR. BOOY: Foundry sand. This is not my total 11 field of expertise so I'm just coming in slowly on it.
12 Foundry sand as Bentonite added to it to hold it together em
() 13 to assist in forming prior to the cast being made.
14 DR. SHEWMON: I misunderstood.
15 MR. MC NEIL: As you know my knowledge of this 16 is extremely limited.
17 Well, another possible backup material that they 18 are considering are high-nickel alloys, which seem to me 19 quite good.
20 Also, before I pass from copper --
21 MR. MC NEIL: Copper has one tremendous 22 advantage over all other industrial metals, and that is it 23 is in geologic environments, it is possibic to argue 24 rationally that you have systems in which copper is immune.
25 Copper immune as opposed to copper passive is a n
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29880.0 344 BRT bl< 1 fundamental difference. If a metal is immune from 2 corrosion it means thermodynamic equilibrium condition of 3 the material is the metal, so you don't have to worry about 4 kinetics. When something is passive like aluminum or 5 stainless steel it's thermodynamically not stable but the 6 kinetics are screwed up and you have to argue that sometime 7 in the next thousand years something is not going to happen 8 that unscrews the connections. I'm not saying copper is 9 immune in any of the chosen sites, but to argue that you.
10 have a site where copper is immune is believable, as 11 witness the numerous native copper deposits. -When did-you l
12 ever hear of native nickel deposit?
() 13 So, nickel has several advantages, one of which
-14 is simple structural stability. It's an. easier material to 15 handle structurally than pure copper because high-purity 16 copper tends to be a bit on the soft side. And it is very 17 resistant in the Enoui site to brines. However it has a 18 tendency -- many of the nickel alloys are metallurgically 19 unstable.
4 20 Yes?
, 21 DR. MARK: You have mentioned iron, nickel, 22 copper. You have not mentioned lead. Is it a candidate 23 for any of this work?
24 MR. MC NEIL: Not to my knowledge.
25 DR. MARK: Would it be a poor candidate?
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29880.0' 345 BRT O 1 MR. MC NEIL: It has advantages and 2 disadvantages. A disadvantage, when you start burying it 3 in the ground you start worrying about chemical toxicity.
4 DR. MARK: Wait a minute. We are making this 5 repository such that we keep all the radioactive stuff at 6 home.
7 MR. MC NEIL: If you keep the radioactive stuff 8 in the container and then the container in busy emitting 9 highly toxic atoms into the groundwater you are still going 10 to get into difficulties.
11 DR. MARK: It would dissolve and cause a --
12 MR. MC NEIL: I don't know, but it's something (j 13 one would certainly have to consider. In addition you have 14 the problem, I think, of mechanical stability of lead.
15 Lead containers, unless they were very massive, would have 16 a tendency to get sort of squeezed out of shape.
17 DR. MARK: Who cares about the shape? They i 18 wouldn't crack.
i 19 MR. MC NEIL: You care about it if the buckling i
20 leads to a rupture say along the seam. You have to join it.
(
~
21 It has to have some sort of seam in it.
22 DR. SHEWMON: The slug migrates through the lead.
23 DR. MARK: Look, I was just idly curious.
i 24 MR. MC NEIL: There are several believable other I
25 candidates. There are several other thing ~s you could use
- C
- )
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1 that either have been very superficially looked at or not 2 looked at at all as far as I know.
3 MR. DILLON: Are we talking about materials 4 which you would directly cast the waste glass?
5 MR. MC NEIL: No. No. Under no circumstances.
6 MR. DILLON: Fine. That brings up a quarrel 7 with the coppor, at least a potential problem, and that is 8 its compatibility with whatever you did make your casting 9 into. Stainless steel, for example?
10 MR. MC NEIL: What's the matter with that?
11 MR. DILLON: I'm not particularly fond of the 12 combination of copper and stainless steel.
G
(_) 13 MR. MC NEIL: Why?
14 MR. DILLON: Because you'll have a galvanic 15 process occurring.
16 MR. MC NEIL: You'd have a galvanic process only 17 once the copper had been penetrated.
18 MR. DILLON: But you are claiming no benefit 19 from the internal canister, of course.
20 MR. MC NEIL: No benefit at all. If you use 21 glass there is an internal, just plain 304 stainless steel 22 canister whose function -- which will be sensitized all to 23 hall, and its function is simply to provide certain 24 handling operation things.
25 DR. STEINDLER: What will you seal the copper ace FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 MR. MC NEIL: There's been a lot of progress 3 welding copper by the Japanese.
4 DR. STEINDLER: Not much in this country as far 5 as I know.
6 MR. MC NEIL: We buy a lot of other things from 7 Japan. Why not buy copper welding technology?
8 MR. DILLON: Maybe you can spin it off.
9 MR. KRAUSKOPF: Is there no longer any 10 consideration of titanium?
11 MR. MC NEIL: On nickel --
12 DR. MOELLER: You are aiming for about 12:30?
(x t
s_) 13 MR. MC NEIL: If you use nickel alloys you have 14 metallurgical instability to worry about. If you worry 15 about metallurgical instability, write me a letter or 16 better yet, call up John Kahn, because he's the guy that is 17 the expert in these things. But there are problems with 18 nickel alloys.
19 Now, where do we stand? Where has the NRC 20 program got us? First of all there is no longer any i
l 21 consideration of Tico 12, the titanium niukel alloy for any 22 civilian waste application.
I 23 DR. STEINDLER: By whom? DOE or NRC?
24 MR. MC NEIL: For any of the sites by DOE or NRC.
- 25 They had technical problems they couldn't resolve, so they ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 gave up.
2 Secondly, we have put in a great deal of time 3 and effort on localized corrosion in carbon steels because, 4 given DOE's commitment to A-216, two of the sites -- this 5 was an essential point, especially since as recently as two 6 years ago some of their people were claiming that these 7 steels didn't show localized corrosion.
8 Well, let me review some of the findings up to 9 know. Dr. Isaacs at Brookhaven has developed a data base 10 for pitting corrosion in pure iron, which, among other 11 things, addresses the question of the nonrandomness of pit 12 initiation, which is important if you are going to develop
/
(_) 13 any sort of a collect model for what is going on.
14 Fortunately, in terms of our trying to interpret -- use 15 some of these data, there has been a good bit of work 16 already done on how you incorporate data that are known to 17 have nonrandom factors into various models, and we've got 18 all sorts of papers and reprints having to do with such 19 things as water flow patterns.
20 We have also -- he has also discovered a 21 somewhat alarming phenomenon that you can get into in the 22 situation in pure iron, and presumably in carbon steel, 23 where it begins to corrode uniformly. Then when the 24 corrosion product builds up to a degree on the surface you 25 switch over to a pitting corrosion mode, so if you are O
V ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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V 1 handling carbon steel and it starts out corroding uniformly 2 that doesn't mean it is going to continue corroding 3 uniformly, and in fact I have a feeling that is what we saw 4 back here.
5 It looks to me as though you got to a point at 6 which the corrosion products were able to initiate, create 7 a passive breakdown of some sort and you began to get 8 pitting.
9 DR. SHEWMON: What was the water that test was 10 done in?
11 MR. MC NEIL: This was done in an acid. This 12 was pipe buried in an acid clay. I don't have the details
(~)j s _
13 at hand. It's from Romanov's work at the Bureau.
14 These are long-term buried pipe tests. A lot of 15 our work on carbon steel has been -- a lot of the data base 16 that I originated with was the National Bureau of Standards 17 program where they studied corrosion and particularly 18 localized-corrosion on pipes buried in a wide variety of 19 soils over a period of 30 to 40 years.
20 Another important step is Dr. Beavers at 21 Battelle Columbus has developed a new model for pit growth i 22 in carbon steel. He in fact started out addressing pit 23 growth in the basalt situation, but it is applicable to 24 other situations as well, as far as I can see. This model 25 is quite unlike the former models developed by Elkhire and l
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l others and in a way is rather comforting, because it lends 2 itself readily to integration with groundwater flow 3 analyses.
4 The Battelle program has also included a very 5 expensive study in both stress corrosion cracking and 6 localized corrosion, of how geochemical variables affect 7 the basic parameters of the corrosion product. Because it 8 is clear that we don't really know what the groundwater is 9 going to be like in any of these sites, and in fact there's 10 probably not going to be one groundwater because the sites 11 are going to be inhomogeneous, so such questions had to be 12 addressed as: suppose you have got the silicate g)
(_ 13 concentration wrong. Does it make any difference? Suppose 14 you have the borate concentration wrong. Does it make any 15 difference?
16 Well, the Battelle people have done a very 17 extensive program of statistically defined experiments to 18 define these things. Not only the first order questions 19 like if the silicate concentration is much higher than you 20 thought it was, does that make a difference? But second i
l 21 order questions: If the silicate concentration is higher 22 and bromine concentration is lower, is there an important 23 cross term?
24 These programs and these analyses, as I said, l
25 although originally directed toward BWIPP, are being ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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() 1 directed to the brine site and we expect will be continued.
2 We discovered on A-216 that the -- although the 3 steel itself is extremely resistant to hydrogen 5
4 embrittlement, unheat-treated welds are not.
5 Now, this brings me to the next section, which 6 is, what is DOE doing that we need to respond to? And I'm 7 going to start off by saying something that DOE has started r 8 doing that is clearly very important and we ought to be 9 doing more on, and in fact we've got money set aside for 10 subject to the FFRDC, but I'm not at all clear on what we 11 ought to be doing.
! 12 Welds. I think thad we clearly need to expand
. ~
) 13 upon the work that Battelle did on trying to diagnose the -
14 vulnerability of welds in A-216 to hydrogen embrittlement 15 under various conditions, but the disturbing thing to me is l 16 that I find that you are going to have -- is the final weld.
17 When you've put this hot waste in the container you've got
{
l l 18 to make one final weld, weld the top on it.
19 Can you possibly heat treat that weld? Can you 20 stress relieve it? If not, you've got to think about that.
21 Or more precisely, DOE has to think about this.
i 22 DR. SHEWMON: Why is it that you are concerned 23 about the stress?
l I
24 MR. MC NEIL: Because if the stress level is low 25 enough you presumably may have some loss of ductility from ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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' V I the hydrogen but you are relatively unlikely to get severe 2 cracking.
3 DR. SHEWMON: I have great -- do you have any i 4 evidence at all that there is hydrogen cracking at --
5 MR. MC NEIL: I'm sorry, hydrogen embrittlement.
6 , DR. SHEWMON: Hydrogen embrittlement. I can't 7 find an authority in t!'e field who believes there's 8 hydrogen embrittlement above 50, 60, 70, 100 degrees 1
9 centigrade.
10 MR. MC NEIL: The experiments done at Battelle 11 were below 100 degrees centigrade, so we are not in 12 disagreement there. This would be a longer-term situation, fs
(_) 13 if the containers -- some of these containers are going to 14 contain very old waste, especially if there are further 15 delays in licensing. And in 2- or 300 years it's 16 believable that you will have a surface temperature well below 17 100 degrees centigrade.
18 I think that you cannot automatically assume 19 that throughout the first thousand years the surface 20 temperature of every overpack will be so high that you can 21 disregard the possibility of hydrogen embrittlement.
22 DR. SHEWMON: People also know that hydrogen 23 diffuses out with time. You know, that's one of the 24 standard tests to get diffusible hydrogen out, leave it on 25 top of a radiator over the weekend.
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1 29880.0 353 BRT 1 MR. MC NEIL: But you have a continuous source 2 of hydrogen from the corrosion process.
3 DR. SHEWMON: It's not corroding too fast or it i
4 won't be. there 300 years from now.
5 MR. MC NEIL: I don't know. I only say that the
! 6 welds in this, if not heat-treated, are vulnerable to 7 hydrogen embrittlement.
8 MR. SHEWMON: It's very soft material, and 9 hydrogen embrittlement is much more of a problem in high j
10 strain --
11 MR. MC NEIL: That's why I say untreated welds.
12 DR. SHEWMON: That's one of the advantages of
() 13 using the soft material, you have low stresses and that's 14 what drives it. You have to have high supercharging, and i 15 that takes active corrosion, and you haven't got that.
$ 16 MR. MC NEIL: If you can -- if we can ensure 17 that there are low stresses in the welds --
I The stuff yields at 30,000 psi.
18 DR. SHEWMON:
19 That's pretty low.
20 MR. MC NEIL: All I can say is they did 21 weldments in these things and they found they had hydrogen 22 embrittlement. They were charging at low temperature, I i 23 agree. Be that as it may, this is one particular subject
.i 24 on which we would like guidance from somewhere. I am 25 hoping that the FFRDC is sub judica or whatever -- I'm not ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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I a member of the panel, so I'll say I hope we get a FFRDC 2 panel with some welding expertise because we could sure use 3 it. Especially if we wind up with a FFRDC that is nct
, 4 strong in welding I will strongly welcome all suggestions
- 5 on what we ought to be doing about the welds on these 6 containers.
7 MR. PERRY: Is there any work being done on 8 nonwelded closures?
9 MR. MC NEIL: It is my understanding that for 10 the last three or four years, DOE's position has been that i
11 all must be welded. The nonwelded closures were sort of 12 puttered around with when I was first coming into this
() 13 program about four years ago, but it all died out.
14 MR. PERRY: Savannah River's closure is i
l 15 nonwelded.
16 MR. MC NEIL: But that's a Defense -- is it? No 17 they use upset welds.
l 18 MR. PERRY: But it is not an electric --
I It's an upset weld. That's a 19 MR. MC NEIL:
20 slight variation. But when I first came in they were
- 21 talking about things like screw -- you know, a noncrazy 1
l 22 solution at one time was a heated -- heat i r
, 23 contraction-driven -- a shrink screw fit, but that sort of 1
l 24 thing is --
25 MR. PERRY: How about brazing or soldering?
l l
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'- '! 1 MR. MC NEIL: Brazing was considered briefly.
2 It has gone away for reasons not clear to me.
3 You know, the DOE people -- I can learn some of 4 the things they are doing, but learning why they are doing 5 them is very difficult.
6 Another thing that DOE is going to do that we 7 are going to have to act on is that they are going to have 8 a program for modeling stress corrosion cracking in carbon 9 steels. I think that we, NRC research, ought to have a 10 small, well-directed program, to keep an eye on this, 11 especially since my impression is it is going to be a 12 rather large program.
() 13 MR. DILLON: Do you know if this is focused 14 primarily on nitrate?
15 MR. MC NEIL: No, it would be on carbonate. I 16 assume it's on carbonate. I don't know. Ask Barouche, 17 he's the guy pushing it at DOE headquarters. I assume it's 18 in carbonates because it's in geologic environment.
19 MR. DILLON: Early in the process you might have 20 -- when there's still a reasonable radiation field you 21 might have a possibility of forming nitrates.
22 MR. MC NEIL: You could form nitrates but also, 23 if you look at the nitrate region -- you are looking at 24 acid and pretty oxidizing --
25 (Slide.)
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1 You could have it but at a very short time you 2 may very well not have any liquid water, but I have assumed 3 that they are worried about carbonate. Certainly I would 4 worry about carbonates.
I 5 MR. DILLON: I would certainly worry about 6 carbonates if you are talk about stainless.
7 MR. MC NEIL: I worry about carbonates when you 4
8 talk about carbon steel.
j 9 MR. DILLON: Yes. I know.
10 MR. MC NEIL: But I'm hoping we will have a 11 small program to permit us to judge the output of theirs 12 and perhaps even a small program from which they can learn 1
() 13 something.
14 DR. MOELLER: Excuse me, you mentioned welding, 15 of course, as your number 1 item.
I 16 MR. MC NEIL: I'm not prioritizing these things 17 necessarily. I'm addressing them. I raised that one first 18 because it is one in which I don't know what to do, and I 19 want to put that one out so -- to give anyone the 20 opportunity to see how it relates to successive items.
21 DR. MOELLER: You said, though, if I understood 22 you correctly, that DOE was doing work on welds.
t 23 MR. MC NEIL: Yes.
24 DR. MOELLER: Well, if you don't know what to do, 25 do they know what to do? And what are they doing?
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'b 1 MR. MC NEIL: I'm not supposed to answer 2 questions like that. I will say that the DOE people are 3 committing sizable sums of money to work on welds.
4 DR. MOELLER: Okay.
5 MR. MC NEIL: Let me just leave it at that.
6 Another important question that is being 7 addressed by DOE and that we intend to address 8 independently is integrated effects and scaling. I'm not 9 absolutely sure that DOE has thought through the 10 consequences of scaling. This is two different things.
11 When you have several effects going on at the 1
12 same time, a combination of heat transfer, mass transfer,
() 13 corrosion, obviously in the models developed at Ohio 14 Battello, the fact if the surface is acting basically as a 15 total sop for oxygen atoms, if you can assume that the 16 concentration of oxygen atoms in the groundwater 17 immediately in contact with the overpack is zero, obviously 18 this affects the mass transfer, as far as oxygen is 19 concerned. You have heat transfer effects and a variety of 20 things, and we intend and they intend, both, to do testing 3
21 programs designed to test these interaction terms, what we 22 call integrated experimentation.
23 Another factor that we are addressing, and I 24 don't know to what extent they have thought this through, 25 lies in scaling.
O ACE FEDERAL REponTEns, INC.
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V 1 When you go -- particularly on localized i 2 corrosion, if I take a series of tests, any pitting 3 corrosion exper,iments, on 3-inch pipe and I want to use 4 'them to project what is going to happen on the same 5 material, the same environment, but 6-inch pipe, that turns 6 out to be a nontrivial problem. We have looked at this to t
7 a degree. We have got some ideas. We are going to pursue 4
8 this question because it is clearly important as you try to extrapolate from small systems to large systems. We have #
9 10 two problems, of course: one is replicating the exact _
11 large system conditions. Obviously if the hydrodynamics .s l 12 and so forth are different you are doing a different e' >
() 13 experiment, but there are some fundamental problems, and 14 'even if you get the experimental conditions exactly right' 15 there are some very complex problems having to do with 16 extrapolation from small scale to large scale.
l 17 Another thing that we are going to be lookinD at 18 lies in the tuff site, in the stainless steels, in wha't I l
19 would call partial wetting and capillarity problems. ..
l 20 Again, I'm not a geoscientist, but my 21 conversations with the geoscientists that work for us and 22 for them indicates that what can be expected in a tuff site ?
l ,;- .
l 23 is occasional dampness. We are not in a situation.where,
- * ~
l 24 like basalt, where the system will gradually resaturate and /
l
~
l 25 you'll have a gradual change from a dry system to a flooded C) .
~.
l ~
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.(j 1 , system. Apparently in the tuff site it will be dry for a 2 long time and then_it will be wet some of the time.
'5 3, Also, when water gets into the tunnels early on
^
,. 4 the temperature may be sufficient, but basically you are 5 corroding things not in water but in wet steam. We are.
^
-"* 6 going to have to do some tests along these lines.
- 7. The question,of what to do about copper, what to 8 do about. nickel, and at to do,about bimetallic containers 9 -- at least two bimetallic containers have been mentioned.
10 One which I think is a very good-idea is a carbon steel 11 ovdrpack' lined wit copper. We are simply holding off on 12 these questions because we've got very limited funding and -
4 13 I'm very reluctantlto go and put money into a candidate
. c.~
14 ov,eipackethat DOE may never do,any
. < . i work on.
15 ,
I mean,!if DOE is going to be looking at -- if 16 DOE is not g'Oir.g,to'do anythi$g serious about nickel alloy
, ,, /
17 overpacks, I don't think we can afford to make a major 18 commitment of research funds for that.
. Finally r'ealizing, I am about to overrun my time, 19 20 I'm going to'tulk about things that DOE isn't doing that we -
-21 ought to be worrying ab'out. -
- 22 Mass transport in -- yes?
23 DR. STEINDLER: Quick question. It may well be 24 that "at least a,pa'rt'of DOE might be looking at nonmetallic
~
25 material. Are you thinking about it?
, t.
I
- , ,, i
-' ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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29880.0 360 BRT 1 MR. MC NEIL: Thinking; not ' acting. One super 2 idea that we had a while back was coke. But coke has some 3 very serious practical problems.
4 If you can imagine burying an anode, an 5 aluminum-making anode that has nuclear waste in it, once 6 you put it into the ground without dropping it and breaking 7 it, it's hard to see how anything would get out but, again 8 we have finite resources and we basically tried to spend as 9 little as possible until DOE has given evidence of a 10 limited commitment to some alternative.
11 MR. PERRY: If you are seriously considering 12 carbon systems, don't consider carbon, consider graphite.
/m (j 13 In other words, don't go for coke.
14 MR. MC NEIL: You are the expert on those 15 systems. We have an expert on carbon systems right here.
16 I had forgotten about what you used to do.
17 Things DOE isn't doing we ought to worry about.
18 Transport in mineral salts. Going back, again, to the 19 question of brines and to the fact that in this situation 20 you can get a situation in which you have two different 21 compositions of brines because of the various brines in the 22 things, we could get a type of galvanic corrosion due not 23 to inhomogeneity in the metal but inhomogeneity in the 24 electrolyte. We have done nothing about it yet except 25 worry.
O '
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l Biocorrosion. Experiments have shown that 2 thiobacillus type will survive gamma irradiation. This is 3 something we thought about some years ago because I had 4 done some work on the use of these in nickel extraction and 5' we said -- oh, I called up a couple of people and they said 6 these germs have no tolerance for gamma radiation. I 7 forgot about it. At the DOE localized corrosion meeting 8 last year we had a guy from EPRI who says, hey, we 9 discovered these gerns have a toleration for gamma or at 10 least developed a toleration for gamma and this is a cause.
11 for major concern, because apparently it is causing EPRI 12 some problems in power plants or causing their customers
() 13 some problems in power plants and I'm concerned about-it in 14 corrosion-resistant alloys for the following reason.
15 Way back when I used thiobacillus to get to 16 solubilized nickels from highly oxidized slags. At the 17 National Bureau of Standards, right now they are working on r
18 not only solubilizing nickel but cobalt. And it seems to 19 me if these germs will strip nickel and cobalt in low 20 concentrations ont of slags, which are basically mix oxides, 21 they ought to strip it out of those mixed oxides protecting 22 the metal -- nickel alloys from corrosion.
23 DR. SHEWMON: Are these anaerobic bacilli?
24 MR. MC NEIL: Yes. And the one that I used was.
l 25 I think there are several others.
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29880.0 362 BRT
(-
1 If you would like I've got a couple of reprints 2 here on the Bureau's current program.
3 But the point here is that if germs -- if you 4 can develop a gamma-tolerant -- if you can find a 5 gamma-resistant bacillus that will solubilize nickel out of 6 the oxide, out of a' highly oxidized situation, is something 7 you have to worry about in both nickel alloys and stainless 8 steel, because that basically means it makes it possible 9 for the groundwater to cissolve the protective oxide 10 coating on the metal. He are going to be looking at 11 mineralogic and archeologic effects as a matter of model 12 validation. If you, DOE, come in here with some giant
/^N
(_) 13 supermodel that predicts everything it better be able to 14 predict what happened to metal objects of known age, where 15 we have evidence, you know -- buried pipe or buried 16 artifact -- or I'm going to have difficulty believing that 17 you can predict what is going to happen in a much less I
i 18 well-characterized system in future.
I 19 And, finally, the statistical variability of I
20 corrosion. We have done some work on the statistics of 21 pits, as you know. Another question lies in the 22 statistical variability of corrosion parameters. Suppose l
23 that I measure the pitting potential for a number of 24 samples. I will find that even if the samples are all from i 25 the same heat, there is a considerable scatter. If they l
C'\
's /
i I
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, 1 are from different heats of course it may be worse. But 2 very little work has been done in determining the 3 statistical scatter in these parameters, such as pitting 4 potential, which are so frequently treated as though they 5 were state variables and they are going to be making a hell 6 of a lot of these overpacks. They are not all going to be 7 from the same heat of metal. They are probably not even 8 all going to be from the same firm. At some point we need 9 to start worrying about this. We are already worrying 10 about it. Sometime we need to start doing something about 11 this, but in that case the question is to what extent do we 12 act and to what extent do we try to put the screws on DOE
() 13 to act.
14 A little complication there, all the people that 15 have been working in the area now work for NRC.
16 Anyway, there is where we have been and where I 17 think DOE is going and where I think we are going.
18 Yes?
19 DR. SHEWMON: Tell me what contracts you 20 currently have? You have one at the Bureau of Standards?
21 MR. MC NEIL: One functioning contract as of 22 April 1 of this year at the National Bureau of Standards.
23 DR. SHEWMON: It's goal or objective?
24 MR. MC NEIL: It contains two different 25 components. One is a component for analysis of what
- CE)
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V 1 happens when an overpack fails. Basically for validation 2 of Pickford's models, for mass transport around an overpack 3 with.a hole in it. And the other part is for gathering and 4 . analyzing archeological data, at the moment purely on iron 5 and carbon steel, but the terms of the contract permit us 6 to go over to copper if necessary in support. This is a 7 very small contract. It also provides-for some technical 8 support.
9 DR. SHEWMON: Thank you.
10 MR. MC NEIL: The other contracts we have either 11 all have terminated or are in the very.last stages of 12 writing up things. We have some things we are trying to
() 13 get started, one of which is a metrology contract which has 14 to do with -- let me point out something here, in this case 15 an important question here.
, 16 (Slide.)
17 It's easy to draw this type of curve until you 18 realize in concentrated groundwaters and particularly in 4
19 concentrated brines these are not easy parameters to 20 measure, even at room temperatures, saying nothing of pipe l
! 21 temperatures. And the experimental techniques I have 22 observed in some labs which do not work for NRC are 23 shocking. So we are planning to put another small contract 24 out at the Bureau, which is the national federal lab in 25 metrology, for a basic critical analysis of metrology. In ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'# 1 other words, if the XYZ lab says we did these measurements 2 at Ph8, and tell us how they did it, can we believe them or 3 not? Okay.
4 DR..MOELLER: Dr. Dillon had a question.
5 MR. DILLON: I guess I have been trying to avoid 6 being a nuisance by jumping in all the time, but let me say 7 what I would like to do. The thing I haven't heard 8 discussed here and I think it's important, some of the 9 generic issues with this whole business of how does one 10 appraise a corrosion program, that might be related to the 11 general waste package problem. I wanted to discuss with 12 Mike some of these problems. Whether or not it is (m~-) 13 appropriate for this body to be involved in or whether I 14 should just write up my concerns, I don't know. But I do 15 have some serious questions that I would ask if I were 16 looking in at this process from the outside. I don't know 17 whether that's suitable for later consideration or not.
18 DR. MOELLER: It certainly is. I'd ask Paul's 19 comment on it. But if you could prepare, you know, 20 following this meeting, say you listened and here were some 21 concerns you had and write them down.
22 MR. DILLON: I think the real point is whether 23 it ought to be part of the oral discussion here or whether l 24 it ought to be written up. This is the question I'm asking.
l 25 MR. MC NEIL: At some point it might be 1 i
! \_/
l l
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29880.0' 366 BRT l 1 advantageous for us to discuss how we pick projects, which 2 :I don't think has ever been discussed. At least not with 4 -
3_ me personally.
4 MR. DILLON: The things I basically would like i
5 to comment on at some point, written or otherwise, is:
i 6 first of all, the matter of selecting the variables which 7 need to be considered and the implications that relate to-8 the kind of experimental design that one would be choosing.
i 9 Experimental design may require something that we haven't 10 discussed specifically, though Mike has mentioned this, is 11 the need for some sort of simulation test to add to what we 12 might learn from parametric tests.
- () 13- And, secondly, I have a concern about the i 14 general problem of the assumptions of an operative
, 15 corrosion process rather than using processes that have
! 16 actually been disclosed by doing experimental work.
I 17 I'll just say in passing that it is possible for
! 18 me to offer some suggestions about local processes that 19 have not been considered here that might even be as i 20 probable as the ones that you considered, and any one of 21 the rest of us can probably come up with others.
22 MR. MC NEIL: I don't quite understand that 23 point.
l t 24 MR. DILLON: Oh, no?
l
6 j /\CE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'BRT C 1 chosen an alloy. We have an electrolyte.
2 MR. DILLON: Yes.
3 MR. MC NEIL: There is almost unavailability of 4' a data base about what has been observed when that alloy is 5 in contact with the electrolyte.
]
- 6 MR. DILLON
- You are missing my point in this
- _ 7 respect. I have no quarrel with suggesting that the local 8 corrosion processes you suggested could occur. What I'm 9 saying is there are others that you have not considered A
10 that also can occur, and the-very nature of arbitrarily i
] 11' selecting a process on which to make a judgment is far less 12 valid than setting up a simulation test in which you
! _() 13 actually find out by experience what these processes are.
14 MR. MC NEIL: Well it seems to me that we j- 15 considered all the plausible corrosion processes and we
! 16 discarded some as very unlikely, and others we have put --
17 we are not doing -- it seems to me what we have done is
{
18 picked those corrosion processes which seem most likely 19 under the circumstances. What other corrosion processes i
! 20 would you think likely in cast carbon steel in brine?
i l'
21 MR. DILLON: Do you want to continue this now?
22 DR. MOELLER: Go ahead. '
i I
23 (Discussion off the record.)
l 24 MR. DILLON: What I was going to suggest, Mike, l
1 25 is over the last 15 years we have had some decided I
i j
2
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29880.0 368 BRT O' I surprises about the corrosion of steam generators.
2 MR. MC NEIL: I can think of at least one but go 3 ahead.
4 MR. DILLON: One of them has to do with the tube 5 support-plate corrosion.
6 MR. MC NEIL: I'm not familiar with that one.
7 The crimping thing where the corrosion products built up 8 and scrinched?
9 MR. DILLON: Yes. And what was so surprising 10 about this was once there was a compressional force 11 developed, the process accelerated. Now, we are dealing in 12 the potential corroulon of a carbon steel system.
() 13 Presumably it's going to be enclosed in Bentonite --
14 MR. MC NEIL: In the basalt siter yes.
15 MR. DILLON: In tho basalt system and there will 16 be compress forces exerted on that system of some unmeasured i 17 value. One of the possibilities is that we will have some t 18 sort of accelerated process relating to that.
MR. MC NEIL:
19 Ununiform corrosion.
20 MR. DILLON: The only thing that I think is 21 rather more important, and rather than exaggerate the
! 22 corrosion process it might ameliorate it, has to do with l 23 the general process that you mentioned about the i
i 24 possibility that some of the dissolved salts in the l 25 groundwater could actually be kept on the surfaces of the l
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%i 1 heated canister and might actually sort of encapsulate it 2 in some fashion or another.
3 MR. MC NEIL: If they wind up encapsulating it 4 without cracking it; yes.
5 MR. DILLON: May I offer this observation that 6 came out of our laboratory a number of years ago? This was 7 in the very early days of the suggestion that storage of 8 waste in wet basalt was a possibility. We ran some 9 experiments in which we passed water, approximating some 10 sort of a nominal groundwater, over a crushed basalt to 11 bring it up to temperature and also to adjust the chemistry 12 in some fashion to what we'd expect in a heated depository.
() 13 What we found was that after a fairly brief time we had 14 deposited carbonate all over the system.
15 MR. MC NEIL: You screw up your pumps.
16 MR. DILLON: Not only the pumps but we ended up 17 -- on the heated surfaces, we were using heated specimens.
18 We had a little encapsulation process going on of carbonate.
19 And this is in a basalt system, but the're is, of course, Co2 20 present, but we did get this phenomenon of the deposit of 21 carbonate, because of its retrograde solubility and we 22 ended up with a nice neat cocoon. That may or may not be a 23 permanent process, but at least it's one that needs serious 24 consideration, and this is the sort of thing that one does 25 in a simulated experiment most effectively.
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' That type of thing to a degree we 1 MR. MC NEIL:
2 are going to pick up on in some of these, what I might call 3 natural analogs, things where we try to find existing 4 systems that bear some similarity. We don't have the heat 5 flow in the existing systems because pipes are not 6 generally heated.
7 MR. DILLON: I think it's absolutely essential 8 that that be done, but the point of my discussion has to do 9 with the necessity to augment parametric tests with some 10 sort of simulated tests.
11 MR. MC NEIL: I have no argument about that.
12 MR. DILLON: What we may argue about is when fD sl 13 those should begin.
14 MR. MC NEIL: Ours are going to begin as soon as 15 we can get them under contract. We have the package en 16 route to them right now. We are getting there.
17 DR. SHEWMON: What package?
18 MR. MC NEIL: A package for a RFP to what we 19 call integrated experiments, which you would call simulated 20 experiments, in embedded salts.
21 DR. SHEWMON: You say it's now en route?
22 MR. MC NEIL: There's a committee in NRC that 23 has to pass on everything above a certain size, and this is 24 big enough to attract their attention.
25 But I would be interested -- if you've got any v
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29880.0 371 BRT O 1 more detail, I was aware of this question of the crimping 2 on the heat exchanger parts.
3 MR. DILLON: Yes.
4 MR. MC NEIL: But if you have some more detailed 5 information, particularly about the nature of the mechanism, 6 I'd be grateful.
7 MR. DILLON: I'm really not_particularly 8 concerned about that mechanism. It may or may not be 9 appropriate. What tried to make as the point is that I 10 don't think anybody can predict all the corrosion processes 11 that might be applicable in an unknown system, and I feel 12 very bad about arbitrary selection of the important
() 13 processes without verification by doing an accurate 14 simulation test. That's the point I'm trying to make.
4 15 MR. MC NEIL: I would disagree with you in that 16 I would say I can analyze what corrosion processes will
! 17 take place, but with your simulator test, the existence of 18 more than one flux, shall I say, may in fact activate or 19 accelerate a corrosion process like in your heat exchanger 20 tubes, which we considered but which we underestimated the 21 e'ffect of because we did one parameter test that didn't
! 22 have the two parameters.
23 MR. MC NEIL: I think I would appreciate a i 24 chance to write you a letter summarizing this.
i
- i. 25 DR. MOELLER: Sure. Do that. That will be fine, J
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2 Any other questions or comments? Dr. Krauskopf?
3 MR. KRAUSKOPF Is there any concern about 4 radiolysis of water as it might affect corrosion?
5 MR. MC NEIL: Absolutely. It stops the system I
6 going severely reducing if you have a carbon steel system, j 7 A-216, unless the repository is just totally flooded, the i 8 -- if you are in an active corrosion area you maintain --
3 :
9 it drifts reducing fairly rapidly because you've got -- you 10 are absorbing -- you sponge.out all the dissolved oxygen 11 for one thing, and then you start sponging out OH-minus --
i 12 I'm sorry, oxygen from the water. But we have done some
() 13 calculations and you can in fact calculate the radiolitic 14 effects and treat this as equivalent to a certain amount of i 15 hydrogen peroxide. Yes. We have looked at that. So has 16 DOE.
i 17 MR. DILLON: In a condensed system it's not very l
18 likely. In the two-phased system it is.
l 19 DR. MOELLER: Any other comments or questions?
l 20 I hear none. Thank you, Mike, and we will recess, then, l
21 one hour for lunch.
l f 22 (Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the hearing was l
l 23 recessed, to reconvene at 1:40 p.m., this same day.)
l
[ 24 l
l 25
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2 DR. MOELLER: The meeting will come to order.
3 We'll continue on with our program. This afternoon we have 4 a discussion of several aspects of the low-level waste 5 management program, the first being the standard review 6 plan and standard format and content document, and then 7 we'll go into the long-range plan. Mal Knapp will be 8 serving to coordinate those presentations.
9 MR. KNAPP All I'm going to do right now is 10 introduce Larry Pittiglio. As a party of meeting the 11 amendments to the Low-level Waste Act of 1985 we have 12 produced a guide and standard review plan. This was just
() 13 noticed in the Federal Register within about the last month.
14 Larry is the project manager of this work and he is here 15 today to talk to you about it and to give you some insight 16 into what the document is.
17 DR. MOELLER: Would you tell is, Mal, what would 18 help you from the standpoint of the Committee's feedback or 19 input? We obviously will ask questions and so forth now, 20 but what would help you most?
21 MR. KNAPP: I'll steal a little bit of Larry's 22 thunder. You are probably familiar with these documents.
23 An applicant will give an understanding of what he is to 24 bring us and a standard review plan will help us and an 25 applicant understand how we are going to go about reviewing l (
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29880.0 374 BRT 1 it.
2 We could uso response from ACRS, if it would be 3 possible to sort of have a kind of a general view of the 4 document and any kind of general comments you have. For 5 example, you think based on your experience this is far too 6 detailed, it is not detailed enough, there are significant 7 topics in there that you think in fact don't nood to be 8 covered or there are important topics that we've missed.
9 We are sort of intorosted in a kind of a general overview.
10 Wo would also be interested in any areas moro 11 specifically within a particular technical area. Wo have 12 gono to some pains to try to make the format and content
() 13 and review plan dovetail. If we have dono the job as wo 14 anticipated, wo have not asked for anytning in the format 15 and content that we will not nood to perform a good review 16 and likewiso we will have not omitted anything we will nood.
17 Prom the perspective of the ACRS, I suspect you 18 will find that there are things, in fact, where we have 19 asked for information that is unnecessary or omitted 20 important information. Wo'd bo interested in hearing about 21 that.
22 Finally with respect to the review plan itself, 23 as you are awaro wo havo not licensed a facility against 24 part 61 so that wo do not como into tho format and content 25 and review plan with the exporionco baso that the peoplo in O
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2 You may, based on your experience, recognize 3 some things in the review plan where what seems to us at 4 this time to be a vary sound way of performing the review 5 in fact may have a weakness in it that we simply have 6 missed through inexperience.
7 I would note that we did a mock siting exercise 8 before we wrote the review plan in order to give us an 9 insight into how it should look. The format and content 10 guide -- this is the second time around -- it was noticed 11 in draft form and we had public comment on it last spring, 12 so these are documents that had a fair amount of attention, ,
13 a lot of staff time has gone into them. Larry will tell 14 you more about the process we will be going through over 15 the next year or so where we may be -- in fact we will 16 definitely be making some modifications in the document and ]
17 there will be an opportunity at that time to put in 18 comments that the ACRS might have.
19 If I haven't said too many of your things, Larry? l 20 MR. PITTIGLIO: I think my presentation will be !
i 21 a little briefer than I anticipated now that Mal has 22 discussed just about everything I was going to cover. l l
23 (Slide.) I 24 Danica11y I'm going to address a little bit each 25 one of these two documents, 1199 and 1200. I realize you Ace FitimRAl. RiironTiins, INC.
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.i O 1 may have just received them this week in the mail. There 2 was some delay as far as the GPO getting the number of 3 required copies out and then getting them mailed out, but I 4 would like to talk a little bit about it. Both the 1199
! 5 document and the 1200 document were really mechanisms that 6 we used to meet requirements in the Tow-level. Waste Policy
- 7 Amendments Act. Basically we did that under 5 (E) for the 1
8 1199 document as a mechanism to meet that requirement for 9 January of '87; and for the 1200 document, our standard 10 review plan, that was what we used as a mechanism to meet 11 our 9(A) requirement under the Low-level Waste Policy Act.
! 12 Before I go on, these documents again, and I'm .
- O is sere vou heard the story, are besed oe eha11ew 1and beriei i 14 as the base case. We do intend to revise these documents.
15 Shortly into the future we are going to begin revising them
+
l 16 reflecting alternatives. The two alternatives we are going i 17 to direct our resources to at this time as I have mentioned 18 before is the below-ground vaults and engineered bunkers, l
t 19 with an earthen cover. We will be revising those documents
! 20 to reflect the alternatives and have that available, I i
j 21 believe, by January of '88 to meet the requirement for i 22 providing additional guidance on the alternatives.
4 23 (Slide.)
i 24 Basically the first document I'm going to talk l 25 about is 1199, the standard format and content guide.
!O AcEEEDERAl. REponTnns, INC.
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2 Basically, again, the content guide supplies the 3 information we need to be provided in the safety analysis 4 report and it really establishes a uniform format.
5 One thing we might tell you also is we are 6 working on both a format and content guide and set of 7 standard review plans for the environmental side of our 8 license application so, again, these particular documents 9 deal with the safety analysis side of it.
10 (Slide.)
11 Really, the purpose of the guide was, again, to 12 make sure that the information was there, that we had
() 13 completeness of information, that we were able to locate 14 something fairly easily if we were to look for it, and that 15 we could, hopefully, help shorten the licensing time.
16 This document, again, will also be used as kind 17 of a checklist when we have to do our acceptance review 18 within 30 days, and we feel that establishing a format and 19 content will allow us to go through and at least determine 20 the adequacy of the license application fairly quickly.
21 (Slide.)
22 The document itself consists of 11 chapters.
23 Both documents basically have 11 chapters in them. When we 24 get down the road a little bit and talk about the format 25 content guide versus standard review plans, you'll find out O
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29880.0 378 BRT LO l' that the standard review plans are divided into several 2 more subsections than the 1199 document, and I'll explain 3 why that happens, but the general chapters and subchapters
, 4 are identical. Again, this document is a document that we S asked for the information, and later on the_other document 6 is where we make the findings against that particular j- 7 information, t
I- 8 (Slide.)
i 9 Next I'm going to briefly talk about the 4
10 standard review plan. That is the thicker of the two 11 documents;.that's NUREG 1200. Again, this particular
]
- 12 document also is simply set up, at this time, for shallow i
() 13 land burial.
14 (Slide.)
15 Basically the purpose of the SRP was to assure 16 quality and uniformity of Staf f's reviews, to provide a
+
17 well-defined basis from which to evaluate proposed changes, 18 as a guidance document to our Staff people, to make the 19 information available to other people so they can see what l 20 we are looking at and hopefully to improve the Staff's 21 understanding of the licensing review process.
t l 22 (Slide.)
I j 23 We feel the document does fairly well define the i
24 review process. We have it broken down so that it really l
, 25 goes to a level of finding an individual responsible for l
(:)
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29880.0 379 BRT O 1 certain areas of review; it provides the basis for the 2 review and it does give examples in the conclusions of the 3 types of findings we hope to make..
4 (Slide.)
5 Again the document is divided into 11 chapters, 6 however there are 60 individual subsections in this 7 document. The reason that occurred was we tried to break 8 the. document down so that we could associate it with each 9 section of the rule, part 61, where we would have to make a 10 finding and that we could associate an individual reviewer 11 at that level. So that's why it is broken down into that 12 many subsections.
() 13 Briefly, each one of the chapters and each one 14 of the subsections is really -- everyone of them is broken 15 down into seven areas.
- 16 (Slide.)
17 Again, this is very, very similar in format to 18 what all of us are familiar with as far as the reactor l 19 standard review plans. As far as headings go, we did 20 change one thing around. In the reactor standard review 21 plan, which always amazed me, they had the acceptance 22 criteria first and then the review procedures after that.
- 23 We reversed the order. It seems more logical to us but I l
24 talked to some of my friends in the reactors and they think
, 25 it's more logical the other way. I don't think we made any f
(2) l j
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2 Basically, as the title says, the first section j 3 really just defines the organization responsible for the
, 4 review, what branch is responsible for that particular ,
5 review. We are going to, also, try to go back in and in 6 each of.the standard review plans, try to instead of just 7 having the associated branch define the type of expertise 8 so that the states and other groups will have a better 9 awareness of the type of, you know, people they would need 10 to be able to conduct a review.
11 Again, the second part has the area of review or 12 identification of that area and the third part is the
() 13 review procedures on how the review will be performed.
14 Section 4 is the acceptance criteria that is 15 established for each of the sections.
16 5 provides an example of evaluation findings; 6
- 17 is the implementation, and 7 is the references for each 18 section. It's really a good tool for the Staff, as far as 19 being able to go through and do the review and become 20 familiar with what we are trying to do.
21 DR. MOELLER: In many ways it's interesting that 22 in the nuclear power plant section of the Commission -- you
- 23 are nearing the end of licensing and you are dealing 4 24 primarily with operating units, and here you are most
- 25 heavily involved in the licensing process, or you were be.
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29880.0 381 BRT O 1 So it's quite a shift.
2 MR. PITTIGLIO: And at-least now we have defined 3 in these review plans references, that the Staff can see 4 how the process is defined. With changes in staff there's 5 always a track record of what we intended to do. And also, 6 I just recently went to Texas myself on some questions and 7 presented a document, and being in the forefront of the 8 licensing process they were very pleased with it. I think 9 maybe they haven't read it extremely close yet. They 10 seemed to rate it as a savior. They may have overrated it 11 a little bit, but it seems to me a very helpful tool for 12 those that have to deal with that.
() 13 (Slide.)
14 The other thing I'm going to say on closing 15 before I turn it over to some examples is, again, we will 16 be revising the document to reflect the alternatives. The 17 approach we are currently taking is going to revise certain 18 sections that will be needed for design and construction 19 and so forth and put them out for the alternative 20 technologies. One thing we did on the review plans, which 21 I like considerably better, and I think we probably adjust 22 the format a little bit, we set it up with revision dates 23 in the table of contents and on each page, which allows us 24 to go in and change a section or subsection without having 25 to revise the whole document. Currently the format and O
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1 content guide is a bound document, but on the next revision 2 I think we'll try to hole-punch it and set it up just for 3 ease of use, to be able to revise a section or subsection 4 without having to throw out the whole document.
5 DR. MOELLER: You pointed out one of the objects 6 was to be able to easily find a particular subject and so 7 forth. For examplo, the standard format and content I 8 immediately noted does not have an index. I don't know how
, 9 hard that would be to do but it would have helped me to 10 search out things.
11 Lot me give you one examplo. This is not a 12 criticism because I found it very easy to road and very
() 13 useful and so forth --
14 DR. MARK: Dado, you say it doesn't have an 15 index?
i 16 DR. MOELLER: There's a table of contents but I 17 mean, like, let's tako a subject that I was intorested in, 18 which was environmental radiation surveillance. So I 19 wanted to know what procedures do you require in the way of 20 environmental survol11anco around a low-level facility?
21 Well, it's covered on pago 27, 32, 44, 54, 63 through 68 or 22 somothing like that, and 71. Every one of those talks 23 about environmontal survoillanco.
24 Some of it is proclosure and postclosure and all 25 of that, so I guoss I know I'm biased in this particular Aci!.I 1!Dl!RAI. IlliPORTliRS, INC.
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O subject, but I could have seen almost a whole chapter just 1
2 on environmental surveillance and put all of that in one 3 pocket.
4 MR. PITTIGLIO: Let me say one thing, you happen 5 to have nailed me on the worst area. That's the particular 6 area that -- wo started out on having one chapter on 7 onvironmental monitoring and of courso there was the 8 characterization stage, the construction stage, a 9 construction operations enclosure. Then it got kicked i
10 around, that's the only thing I can tell you, and it was 11 put back in under three different headings and soveral 12 different areas. I never was quito convinced which was the
() 13 botter of the two ways. Peoplo felt, hoy, if it was under 14 the specific area like sito characterization, thoso 15 activities, that was an activity. Design and construction 16 was another. It is scattered and unfortunatoly that is a
! 17 bad examplo, because that's probably one of the most 18 difficult things to find because it is in four different 19 sections and maybo an index would bo the solution to that.
! 20 And that's a very good point.
21 DR. MOELLER: An index would really holp. Okay.
]
22 Go ahoad.
23 DR. STEINDLER: In your provious Vugraph you 24 indicato you plan a revision for January '88 to add thoso l
25 additional, as you say, additional guidanco for altornative i
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' ') 1 disposal. Can you clarify for me -- that alternative is 2 not the same as greater confinement? Or is it? What do 3 you mean by " alternative" and how does it relate to class A, 4 B and C?
5 MR. PITTIGLIO: We are talking about part 61 6 licensoable options, which are of course -- and as 7 identified in our NUREG 1211, above ground, below ground 8 waters, bunkers, mino-augured cavities and holes.
9 DR. STEINDLER: We are still in categories A, B 10 or C, and not greator than --
11 MR. PITTIGLIO: That is correct.
12 DR. MOELLER: Carson?
() 13 DR. MARK: I have a number of I wouldn't want to 14 say comments, but things that came to mind. You had a team 15 of 22 people preparing this 1199. flave they ever written a 16 SAR before?
17 MR. PITTIGLIO: Yos. As a matter of fact, and I 18 happened to bring a couple of individuals with me that aro 19 going to provido some examplos that have boon well seasoned 20 on that particular --
21 DR. MARK: 130ca u so I had the fooling that a 22 reactor-typo SAR had boon rathor scrupulously observed and 23 followed, and it wasn't clear to me that this wound up with 24 something very specifically rolovant to what I take to be a 25 very much simpler problem of the low-lovel burial.
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l Now, I know that I don't have any direct picture 2 of what we will be talking about later. I think of a 3 low-level burial site as a barbed-wire fence around a 4 somewhat degraded pasture and a guy in a little wooden hut 5 at the gate and a backhoe or front loader or two carrying 6 on in the background and about half a dozen people.
7 What is the actual setup of a low-level waste --
8 MR. SHAFFNER: It's a little more complex than 9 that.
10 DR. MARK: By this guide it has to be about the 11 same detail as a utility staff. I can easily picture what 12 it would look like but I'm trying to picture the staffing.
() 13 MR. Sil AFFNER: There could be upwards of 100 14 people working. In fact, there are now.
15 DR. MARK: In Nevada?
16 MR. Sil AFFNER: No. Not in Nevada. That was the 17 example you described.
18 DR. MARK: It seems like a vast number more than 19 100 people. They are supposed to be taking a quality 20 assurances program. That's going to take more than 100 21 people, and then there's codes that they are supposed to 22 invent and persuade you that they work. We have heard this 23 morning that none of the codes that calculate groundwater 24 flow are worth their salt; you asked them to calculate this 25 and that and use this code and that code and then do 1
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1 quality assurance on the fence as well as the codes. -I'm 2 wondering if this is adapted to the Staff that such'an 3 outfit would, on a reasonably efficient basis, actusily ,:
4 need? It looks as if it is calling on a lot more-expertise' 5 and a lot more types of people, and that bothers me a 6 little because it resembles too much, as I f elt,- the kind 7 of broad spread and detail that we are used to in connect 8 with reactors where there is 2000 people working on the 9 crazy thing and there's one section of 50 who do nothing 10 but punch keys on a computer.
11 MR. SHAFFNER: Well, if the model we hadcto go -
12 on was the reactor SRP, we did drop out the sectihn on the ,
,n
(_) 13 fuel --
14 DR. MARK: I think can you drop out more than 15 you have dropped out and, Taylor, this a little more nearly .
16 to the scene where there's a total of 100 people and only 17 one of them is a computer expert or two and thelathers ,
18 operate backhoes and the others keep records. ,
19 MR. SHAFFNER: We will be developing a data base 20 as we go. The Staff was aware of this problem as we were 21 developing this and the idea was to err on the side of 22 conservatism the first time around.
~
23 DR. MARK: I believe we learned well enough. I 24 tried to read 1200 and got almost a third of the way 25 through before I went permanently to sleep.
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-29880.0 387 BRT o9 1 MR. SHAFFNER: But the.other point we need'to 7
~
2 make is that while what'you described earlier is fairly 3 characteristic of the sites that. exist now. As you are 4 .well aware, the politics are such that probably the future 5 of the sites will be more complex.
6 DR. MARK: Look, I knew I was drawing a rather 7 extreme picture.
8 Then, to come to a few more details, I believe 9 this comes out of 1200. The applicant will discuss the 10 development of perched aquifers? Have you got any way of 11 doing that? A code that will discuss the likelihood of 12 developing perched aquifers?
.t 13 MR. JOHNSON: There are ways of showing a 14 perched aquifer will occur. You determine there is a clay 15 layer --
16 DR. MARK: I'm familiar with perched aquifers.
17 I know they don't run anywhere, they just perch there.
18 MR. JOHNSON: Someone could be drawing water 19 from them, possibly.
20 DR. MARK: It's possible, but if it perched it t
i 21 is away from your disposal and it doesn't start a stream of 22 water because otherwise it would cease to be perched and 23 the likelihood of getting a perched aquifer must be
, 24 absolutely incalculable.
25 Okay. If you've got a little clay basin then O"
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o-2, be merged water here for half a century following. Why you 3 care I don't kno',w unless you know that clay saucer is
'4 there, the likelihoo,d of development. How do you know n 5 about that?~ I can talk about rainfall, but unless I have 6 'done drill holes all over the place I-don't know anything e .7 about the setting for a perched aquifer and yet the 4
8 applicant, this guy with the barbed-wire fence and pencil 9 behind his ear -- how he is going to calculate that baffles me.
10 t' . ,
11 Anothe'r thing -- anyway,' my criticism is not in
.() 12 anydetail-nechssarilyrelevant. They are supposed to tell
)_ 13 you about th'e p'rocedures for sampling, preservation, 14 storage, ana'lytical techniques and associated detection 15 limits which should be acceptable to the technical 16 community. What's that?
17 MR. MARK: It comes out of section 4.31. I
- u. 5?
[ 10 understand you want samples or records of samples. Whether
..c 19 you want the samples so you can look at them yourself once i
l 20 in a while I don't know, as to why or if you ever would, t
21 but you would like at least to have a record that we took a 22 sample and-it was okay, there was no tritium in it or 23 whatever. But the associated detection limits should be 24 acceptable to the technical community. That's a pretty
- 25 vague' specification. There'ai kind of a spectrum --
00 l l
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\# 1 MR. SHAFFNER: We are currently actually 2 practicing that at existing low-level waste sites.
3 DR. SHEWMON: Which technical community do you 4 satisfy?
5 DR. MARK: Do you want to satisfy Daniel Hirsch?
6 MR. SHAFFNER: That's simply the regulators, 7 state of Washington and NRC, in the case I'm talking about.
8 DR. MARK: Why don't you say " agreeable" to the 9- NRC Staff or state Staff. The technical community is an i
10- amorphous bunch, some of which will jump down your throat-11 and say, what, you can't see 1 microcurie for a cubic meter.
12 It-isn't good enough.
() 13 MR. SHAFFNER: Just reading their mind a little 14 bit, they can foresee a time where the universe we have to 15 satisfy would be a little broader than the current one.
16 DR. MARK: I thought it was vague, poorly 17 defined and could have been more specifically stated .*nd
! 18 should have.
19 Another thing, there's a buffer zone referred to, i
20 without any place to find out what you mean by the " buffer j
- 21 zone."
22 DR. MOELLER: That was one of the questions I 23 flagged. Back on your analytical capabilities I did like 24 the fact -- maybe " required" is-the wrong word or --
25 " highly urged" -- perhaps you do require, that whoever does i _
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1 the analysis must take place in the interlaboratory 2 exchange program with EPA which, of course, we have been 3 pushing for quite some time.
4 DR. STEINDLER: But I have a lot of problems.
5 That is nominally supposed to be risk-related, that in fact 6 asks somebody to satisfy the technical community in some 7 vague fashion. I don't understand the rationale for that 8 .at all.
9 MR. PITTIGLIO: I don't know why the particular 10 term came in and, again we did have 25 individuals writing, 11 but in the front of the document it is clearly stated the ,
12 1200 document is predominantly for use of the NRC Staff and
( )' 13 that is who is responsible for providing the information.
I 14 Wh-f the word " technical community," we spent a considerable 15 amount of time editing it but we are 25 different people 16 writing it, in the time frame we tried to produce it's 17 there, is terminology that we weren't able to correct.
18 DR. STEINDLER: It isn't the terminology I 19 object to. It's the concept. The concept it seems to me 20 should be the definition of some definable numerical level 21 that defines the precision of your measurements based on 22 the kind of model that you use to identify what is 23 allowable and what is not, and that's not to be found in 24 the general concept of, well, I can satisfy the technical 25 community.
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(j 1 After all, I can do uranium by taste test if I 2 really want to, but I don't think that's an adequate 3 quantitative measure. I have a problem with the concept, 4 Not so much the specific words.
5 DR. MOELLER: It could have been scientifically 6 stipulated.
7 DR. STEINDLER: Could have been a number.
8 I have one other question if I might, Dade.
9 DR. MOELLER: Go ahead.
10 DR. STEINDLER: How do these documents and the 11 underlying set of criteria relate to a comparable set 12 criteria that, say, the EPA would use for their most r8
(,) 13 restrictive hazardous chemical burial? Do you require the 14 same level or a higher level, as Carson would indicate, 15 perhaps, of stringency in controls?
16 The EPA allows burial -- Frank Parker can give 17 me a lot better information than that anyway -- but 18 obviously allows burial of material that has no half-life 19 or if it has a half-life it can be quite long. What kind 20 of provisions do they require?
21 MR. KNAPP: I don't think it would be accurate 22 to say that overall we are more or less stringent than EPA.
23 It would be more accurate to say that we are different.
24 In general, what we require of the geologic 25 system, hydrology, geology, the rest of it, is more
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,m,a 1 stringent than we anticipate that EPA will have in place.
2 They do not have their location standards in place at this 3 time. They are coming out with a draft in September of 4 this year.
5 Based on what we are seeing we will be more 6 stringent. On the other hand, what we might call their 7 design criteria or trench criteria are different. Whether 8 they are more or less stringent is open to discussion.
9 They require two liners and a leaching collection system 10 using the philosophy that waste should not ever get out 11 into the subsurface at all.
12 We on the other hand prefer that things be free (s
q) 13 draining to minimize the possibility of a bathtub effect.
14 We are still working that out with EPA. That's a quick 15 answer.
16 MR. PARKER: So they are going to be more 17 detailed than EPA?
18 MR. KNAPP: Yes.
19 DR. MOELLER: Carson, go ahead.
20 DR. MARK: You are going to ask the applicant to 21 provido a summary of the projected waste volume and 22 activity for each year of the operational life. Is there 23 any possible way which you can do that?
24 MR. SHAFFNER: Yes. I believe there is.
25 DR. MARK: If it changes every year and it's
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1 some state that will get new industry or not -- you are 2 asking him for very particular things here and it's not 3 qualified'as written to make it possible to answer in a 4 literal fashion. I want to say it's a matter of writing, 5 not a general intention.
6 Then somewhere you have something to do with 7 earthquakes, and if there's no maximum earthquake in the 8 last 200 years you could point at and say that's the 9 earthquake, you then have a floating earthquake. You 10 discuss that and you let it move up and you are to assume 11 that the floating earthquake occurs at an appropriate 12 distance. Could you tell them what you mean? Do they have
/-
(_j) 13 to assume it's on the site, or within 10 miles, or the next 14 county, or what? What is the appropriate distance for a 15 floating earthquake?
16 MR. JOHNSON: One of the specific technical 17 areas we are going to cover is surface water hydraulics.
18 We don't have an earthquake expett here --
19 DR. MARK: This is not a question about 20 earthquakes. It's a question of how the thing was written.
21 You can tell them you don't have to come closer than 10 22 miles. Or you don't have to -- you know, what is an 23 appropriate distance for a floating earthquake unless you 24 tell them?
25 MR. SHAFFNER: Those of us who were authors in
(~T
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29880.0 394 BRT C 1 this, and there are a'few of us represented here, recognize 2 the limit you are talking about and, therefore, we knew 3 that this document -- one of the things, it has three holes 4 in it, was because we knew that we are going to have to --
5 this thing is going to have to be negotiable. It's a good 6 point.
~
7 DR. MARK: I think it would deserve another look
, 8 to see if there's a better way to put it.
9 MR. PARKER: You mentioned about avoiding the 10 ' bathtub effect. I searched, didn't find -- maybe because I 11 didn't look in the right place -- you talk about, on page 12 3-1, you talk about disposal unit cover integrity. There
() 13 is nothing that I could find about the liner to ensure that 14 the permeability of the liner would be greater than the 15 permeability of the cover to make sure you don't have a 16 bathtub effect. Maybe it's in here but I couldn't find it.
I 17 MR. KNAPP: It's a point well taken. . I want to 18 go back and take a look at that. In general our l 19 permeability concerns tend to address more the geology i 20 rather than the immediate unit itself, and that's probably 21 why it's not there, but it's a point that deserves 22 reexamination.
[ 23 DR. MOELLER: Paul?
l 24 DR. SHEWMON: I, being more narrow-minded, 25 looked for the container and couldn't find anything about T
i
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.,3
(~ I anything in this area. Is that because I didn't find the 2 right paragraph or because it's in a different regulation?
3 MR. PITTIGLIO: Specifically I think what this 4 particular document here at this time addresses is shallow 5 land burial without an engineered container of any type.
6 As I mentioned earlier, we are going to revise the document 7 to reflect engineering enhancements, but this document is 8 set up not to be take -- but to be based on no engineered 9 containers.
10 MR. SHAFFNER: The answer to your question -- I 11 believe the question I think you are asking is basically a 1 12 55-gallon drum or whatever, and that is covered in another
() 13 document. It is covered in a position that we have on 14 waste form.
( 15 This document-is geared toward the review of the 16 application of the guy who receives the waste and therefore
- 17 is geared more toward what the site will look like, what l 18 his operations will look like.
I 19 DR. SHEWMON: Fine. Thank you.
l 20 DR. MOELLER: Right.
l 21 MR. PARKER: I'm concerned about the cap and the l
22 cover, on page 4-3, when you talk about filling in the voids,
- 23 spaces and waste covering. There's nothing I saw -- and
( 24 again I may have missed it because we didn't have enough l
l 25 time to go over it -- talking about the density of the i
l l
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i (O 1 waste material and how much void space there would be in 2 the waste material. You are talking about filling in the ,
3 voids in the containers --
4 MR. SHAFFNER: The answer is similar to that of 5 the previous gentleman. That information is covered 6 separately.
7 MR. PARKER: What about the placement of the 8 material in the trench so you don't get bridging over? Is 9 there some basis for guidance?
10 MR. KNAPP: That's where a couple of our design 11 engineering folks -- we don't have those with us today.
12 We'll take a look. I'm jotting them down and hopefully m
,) 13 we'll either give you good answers or explain how we'll 14 change it on the next version.
, 15 MR. SHAFFNER: We are on a site-specific basis 16 on the nonsite-specific --
17 MR. PARKER: You talk about using dosages -- I 18 thought 61 was based on SERP-2. Are you going to revise 19 that? Do they say the same thing?
20 MR. PITTIGLIO: When we reference additional 21 guidance documents -- there are no references in 1199 but i
22 in the appropriate section of 1200 where we do make some i
! 23 findings again that we provide additional references to 1 24 technical positions and stuff like that related to that 25 specific area, it may provide more guidance.
l(
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.,m) j 1 DR. MOELLER: One other quick one. Earlier we 2 heard that there would be a separate document or documents 3 prepared for the environmental report and yet this says 4 that Reg Guide 4.18, you know, pretty much outlines --
5 MR. PITTIGLIO: 4.18 is currently the existing 6 document. However, I understand in the Federal Register 7 there's going to be a draft' set of review plans, in April 8 of ,this year, much more extensive than the information in 9 4.1-A, and at that time there may be a move to go in and 10 revise that as an attempt to --
11 MR. SHAFFNER: The new document will be a 12 parallel to 1200.
() 13 MR. JOHNSON: I'm a hydraulic engineer with the 14 Staff, Fred Johnson. We thought it would be a good idea of 15 giving you -- in this particular area we will be dealing 16 with surface drainage and erosion protection and possibly 17 I'll be able to answer some questions you might have with l
l 18 regard to flooding and possible flood disruption of these 19 facilities.
l 20 The first thing we would like to talk about is j 21 the standard format and content guide in the area of 22 long-term stability, which is section 6.3, and of that 6.3, 23 6.3.1, surface drainage and erosion protection.
l 24 Basically, the purpose of these analyses and all
! 25 the information that will be submitted by an applicant is l (2) l l
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(- - 1 in response to the requirements of a regulation or a 2 specific part of the regulation.
l 3 10 CFR 61.23(e), and 10 CFR 61.44 both require 4 the site be stable for long periods of time without any
- 4 5 need for active maintenance. So, these -- this particular 6 section, then, of the standard format and content and the 7 standard review plan addresses those requirements and we 8 try to assure that we get enough information in, in order 9 to do that review completely.
10 The kind of information and the analysis that we 11 need that the applicant needs to provide in the safety 12 analysis report are limited here for the area, once again,
() 13 of surface drainage and erosion protection, we need to see 14 a hydrolizing description, topographic maps, showing i
15 drainage features and exactly how the site will drain, what 16 effect flooding will have on the site, and also what 17 erosion protection designs have been provided so that if
- 18 they do have a flood they will be able to cope with it.
l 19 That's pretty much the information that is in
- 20. -- that is requested in the standard format and content.
21 If you have that in front of you, 6.3.1, you can see it's l 22 relatively short but it's fairly concise in that it 23 requires quite a good bit of information.
24 (Slide.)
25' When we get to the standard review plan, then, 14CE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. ,
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l 1 it will tell us and the applicant what, exactly, we are 2 going to do with all this information. Once again, we are 3 in the standard review plans, section 6.3.1, surface 4 drainage and erosion protection.
5 Part 1, as Larry mentioned before, is the review 6 responsibility falls upon the geotechnical branch of the 7 Division of Waste Management. With the new reorganization 8 this could change, so we are -- it's hard to tell where we 9 end up at, but it will probably be somewhere in the 10 division of low-level waste for sure.
11 In this particular standard review -- portion of 12 the standard review plan, we indicate the areas that we
() 13 will review. There are four of them in this hydrologic 14 description: flooding determinations, dam failures and 15 erosion design. This is similar to what we did in the 16 reactor side. I was heavily involved in the formulation of 17 the reactor standard review plan. Also, some of you may 18 not be aware that there was a standard review plan 19 developed for the licensing of the uranium mill tailing 20 sites under the EMTRAP, and we developed a standard review 21 plan for that. I think you'll see as we go along that 22 these sites are probably pretty similar.
23 A low-level site will be pretty similar to a 24 typical EMTRAP site.
25 DR. MARK: Is the recipient, the operator of a O
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8 29880.0 400 BRT 1 low-level site, supposed to verify the radioactive contents 2 of that 55-gallon drum?
3 DR. MOELLER: Absolutely.
4 DR. MARK: Or is he supposed to look at the bill 5 of lading and make sure he's got the data from that 6 accurately recorded?
7 MR. JOHNSON: Jim?
8 MR. SHAFFNER: Do you want me to answer that?
9 The answer is this Board correctly comes up with a project 10 I'm going to discuss, operations. If you want -- if you 11 don't mind I'll answer it now. The applicant is 12 essentially -- it is a several-step process that includes
,~
i,) 13 at least looking at the bill of lading on the manifest. It 14 also includes a physical examination of the drum, the 15 shipments coming in, checking of the drums against the 16 manifest, and in some cases on a statistical basis -- and 17 this is being done now -- I'm using operations procedures 18 for the Hanford facility as an example. He is now required t
19 to statistically select drums that will be sampled for l
! 20 their context.
21 DR. MARK: What does he do? He pulls a little
! 22 secopful of stuff out of it and checks his radioactivity?
23 MR. SHAFFNER: Both radioactivity and chemical.
24 I know what you are leading up to. Certainly, 25 the practicality of verification is something that is going Ix_/
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29880.0 401 BRT 1 to be very, very difficult in most cases.
2 DR. MARK: That of course is my mind. There are 3 ways which the IAEA uses, Los Alamos and other people have 4 developed --
5 MR. SHAFFNER: You mean radiography?
6 DR. MARK: Doing spectral analysis of the stuff 7 coming out of the drum, going back and saying there's so 8 much U235 in there or not. I was wondering if you were 9 going to force this poor devil to get that equipment?
10 MR. SHAFFNER: At the present time the answer is 11 no. But I think it is certainly, the way this business 12 seems to be going, I certainly see that for larger sites --
() 13 DR. MARK: I was a little unclear on what was 14 expected of him from what I read.
15 DR. MOELLER: It says, in section 441, that they 16 will provide procedures and information on testing and test 17 equipment to be used to verify the accuracy of the waste 18 class reported in the waste manifest. So you would have to 19 be able to remotely, somehow, analyze.
-20 DR. MARK: But I think it's a good idea to know 21 what you've got in your waste dump. You are forcing him to 22 acquire some rather fancy gear.
23 DR. MOELLER: Correct.
24 DR. STEINDLER: If you expect the guy to sample 25 the drum -- that's a nontrivial exercise.
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29880.0 402 BRT 1 DR. MOELLER: Also, here, they must be able to 2 verify that the waste contains no hazardous constituents as 3 defined under the toxic waste regulations. So it could --
4 yes, it could involve quite a sophisticated, expensive --
5 DR. MARK: I think I'll go and start up some 6 other kind of business.
7 MR. SHAFFNER: We do expect the facility to have 8 on-site lab capability such as that they -- now, admittedly 9 the techniques that they will have at their disposal 10 on-site will be limited, you know? But they are expected f 11 to be able to do some litmus test-type of --
12 DR. STEINDLER: But there are 120 or more EPA
- () 13 hazardous chemicals and you expect this innocent little 14 operator to be able to find for sure that there are none in 15 this drum?
16 DR. MOELLER: Can a typical waste drum as
.i 17 received be readily opened and sampled? Excluding the l 18 man-rem is just going to go wild. But can it be readily s
I 19 opened and sampled?
20 DR. STEINDLER: Not with the stuff I have thrown-l 21 into it.
N l 22 MR. SHAFFNER: You hit on the biggest problem, 1
l 23 the worker exposure, and the one that I hit on myself is ,
24 just that, the worker exposure. And it would be unless you ,
, 25 limit yourself to extremely low specific activity wastes i
I t
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. 2 eliminated a subset.
3 DR. SHEWMON: Do you require this be homogenized,
! 4 whatever is in these barrels?
5 MR. SHAFFNER: As a position, the class C waste 6 is supposed to be -- we are not supposed to have any real 7 hot spots in the waste but it doesn't have to be -- the 8 trash doesn't have to be homogenized.
9 DR. MOELLER: Go ahead with your example and 10 we'll get back to it.
11 MR. SHAFFNER: How did you get into it, Ted?
12 MR. JOHNSON: The next area in the standard
() 13 review plan is the review procedures. Basically those are-14 broken down into an acceptance review and safety evaluation 15 review. In terms of the acceptance review the questions 16 that the review should answer are: Is the information 17 adequate and complete, and is the information requested in 18 the standard format and content provided?
19 If the answers to those questions are no, then 20 we can ask questions or reject the application. If the 21 answer to those questions is yes, then we proceed then with 22 the safety evaluation review.
23 Basically, in the safety evaluation review we 24 try to answer the questions: Are design assumptions and 25 technical assumptions correct and conservative and are the O
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29880.0 404 BRT 1 regulatory requirements met?
2 MR. PARKER: Before you take that off, the 3 safety analysis group,,do we talk about erosion protection?
4 I didn't see anything about burrowing animals and 5 vegetation and the effects that they have on erosion.
6 MR. JOHNSON: One of the things normally done is 7 a rock cover is provided.
8 MR. PARKEP: But there's no relation that I saw 9 about the thickness and the vegetation permitted and not --
10 MR. JOHNSON: I was going to get to that in a 11 minute. Those are normally covered in the draf t regulatory 12 guide and regulatory guides on the subject.
() 13 To answer your question about the burrowing 14 animals, normally if you put a rock cover, for example, on 15 a pile, that will prevent animals, it will prevent animal
, 16 intrusion, plant intrusion --
17 MR. PARKER: Depending on the size of rock.
18 MR. JOHNSON: The rock could vary in size from 19 an inch and a half to four inches, about a foot in depth.
20 That will normally deter most animals from making a 21 significant dent.
l 22 MR. PARKER: I can show you pictures --
23 MR. JOHNSON: We are not saying it would never 24 occur. It's one of the things that would fall under
! 25 maintenance aspect. There are obviously things you can't I /\CE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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29880.0 405 BRT (qJ 1 plan for, but we think the rock cover will take care of the 2- majority of those concerns.
3 DR. MOELLER: In -- and we'll let you speak in a 4' few minutes -- in the scenarios, and I forget where they 5 are but I'm sure you saw in here, they included the
, 6 possibility of a burrowing animal causing a release. But 7 one thing I looked for in the scenarios that your question 8 raised.was, I looked for a hunter or someone to trap or 9 shoot an animal that had burrowed through the waste --
10 whatever animal this is you eat. And that would be a i
11 scenario for exposure. And that scenario is not in here at 12 all, which surprised me a little bit.
() 13 Let's go ahead.
14 MR. JOHNSON: That's a little out of my area.
15 Could anybody address that?
16 MR. SHAFFNER: I guess I'm a little -- that's a 17 pathway analysis. I don't think we really got into pathway l 18 analysis per se. Rather, the means by which we will be 19 reviewing to make sure that all the various pathways are l
20 covered.
l 21 DR. MOELLER: You have typical scenarios of
! 22 off-site impacts, table 6.1, and that one is not in there i
l 23 and I was trying to come up with one, obviously, that you 24 didn't have, and I felt successful. Go ahead.
! 25 MR. SHAFFNER: You are right, we don't have that; 1 C:)
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29880.0 406 BRT im U 1 and you are right, it is a pathway.
2 DR. MOELLER: And I don't know whether it's 3 important at all, so go ahead.
4 MR. JOHNSON: The acceptance criteria in the 5 standard review plan outlines the things the NRC Staff will 6 find acceptable. If certain things are done those things 7 state exactly what will be acceptable.
8 The first portion of the acceptance criteria 9 once again reiterates the regulatory requirements that we 10 are dealing with in this particular section of the standard 11 review plan. Section 4.2 discusses any regulatory guidance 12 that may be available for this particular aspect.
f~l a 13 This might be a good time to point out we do 14 have some regulatory guidance on the design of long-term 15 erosion protection for reclamation of uranium mill sites. 1 16 The uranium mill program has been in effect now 17 for about two or three years. The Department of Energy,
- 18 using EPA regulations in 40 CFR 192, has gone out and 19 actually reclaimed several uranium mill piles. So we have 20 a pretty extensive data base in terms of the kinds of 21 things that we think may be needed for our low-level waste 22 repository.
23 Basically with the long-term stability period 24 being the same, that is for the uranium mill program it's 25 200 to 1000 years and for the low-level waste program it's O
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4 29880.0 407 BRT 1 somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 to 500 years, we feel 2 the same type of criteria will apply for designing a 3 long-term cover.
4 (Slide.)
5 Then, in section 4.3 of the acceptance -- of 6 part 4, we state specifically what will be acceptable in i 7 terms of each of the four review areas that we mentioned-4 8 before.
9 For the hydrologic description, basically it's 10 acceptable if the information is good enough. For section 11 4.3.2, 4.3.3, flood determinations, basically the site and 12 site design are acceptable if they have done them properly
() 13 in accordance with standard computational techniques, 14 standard practices of other agencies like the Corps of
$ 15 Engineers and whatever; and that the site can withstand 16 some very big floods, like the PMP and PMF, probable 17 maximum flood. This is similar to what was done with i
18 reactors and mill tailings programs. And finally the 19 erosion protection is correct and conservative and designed 20 in accordance with common engineering practice and for the 21 PMP and PMP. That's because it's hard to predict what will 22 happen in the 3- to 400-year period.
23 Finally the Staff will state what they did, how 24 they did it and why what the applicant did or is proposing 25 is good or not or whatever.
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k_) 1 In chapter 6 there's the implementation section 2 which is pretty much a boilerplate section which states 3 that everything is okay and if you are going to do it 4 somewhat different we'll look at it on a case-by-case basis.
5 And then chapter 7 lists the references that we found that 6 provide the adequate procedures and/or guidance for the J
7 design.
8 Any questions so far?
9 DR. MOELLER: Go ahead.
10 MR. JOHNSON: I thought it might be useful to 11 give you an example of what you might see at a low-level 12 site. Keep in mind this is a uranium mill site because we rh 13 haven't learned anything yet with part 61.
t, j 14 (Slide.)
15 This slide is an award winner for the world's 16 busiest slide. This is Lake View, Oregon. I didn't use 17 Cannonsberg because I couldn't find any quick maps to put 18- together, but this is the Lake view pilot. They are moving 19 many, many tons of tailings from the town of Lake View out l
l 20 to a new site north of town. I don't know if you can see l
l 21 it real well or not but there's a fairly steep area. This 22 whole site here is about 700 by 1000 feet. Everything will 23 become clear when I show you a few cross-sections here in a i
l 24 minute, but basically it consists of a main area of 25 disposal where the tailings are based partially below grade.
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29880.0 409 BRT 1 A cover of 5 to 10 feet of earth is placed on it and then a 2 rock cover is placed on top of the earth cover to protect 3 it.
4 The site slopes very gently to a grade break and 5 then from here it drops off very shortly. 2 percent on top, 6 20 percent on the sides, any flow is intercepted with a 7 diversion ditch and takes your flow outside. This isn't a 8 big stream but if it were we would have to also consider 9 the possibility of a flood attacking the pile. In this 10 case it didn't but if you use your imagination that stream 11 can be a lot bigger.
12 Let me show you some sections here.
() 13 DR. MOELLER: So this site was serving as a 14 consolidation point for several tailing piles? 1 15 MR. JOHNSON: No, sir, just Lake View, Oregon 16 pile. One pile.
17 DR. MOELLER: Just one pile, you just wholesale 18 moved it.
19 MR. JOHNSON: DOE does things for other than 20 technical reasons too, I might add.
21 This material is taken out of a remedial action 22 plan DOE provides to us. I think now you can see what 23 happens. The existing trade is here. The tailings go 24 partially below and partially above grade. The 5 or 10 25 feet of cover is placed over it, then a rock cover called n
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/'T C 1 " rip rap" is placed over the whole thing; gentle slopes on 2 top, steeper on bottom; then usually an apron of some sort.
3 Look at another cross section, this is-the diversion ditch 4 we pointed out before. So basically the revised process 5 for this particular section covers the design of all these 6 erosion protection facilities, sizing of the ditch, sizing 7 of the rock, making sure that the site will withstand a 8 very, very large load.
9 I think that's it.
10 DR. STEINDLER: How do they handle the 11 earthquake at-the appropriate distance?
12 MR. JOHNSON: The earthquake, I don't know. The i
() 13 only thing I could tell you is these slopes are very flat, 14 1 on 5. With slopes that flat and with it being a new, l 15 pristine site, they can probably get enough compaction and
! 16 ' find enough earth with sheer strength values, and with a 1 17 on 5 slope it probably could be made pretty stable without 18 too much difficulty because of the flatness of the slopes.
l 19 Another issue we deal with is rock durability.
i l 20 We have to make sure that these rocks -- if they put rock l
21 on it it has to last without maintenance for 3- to 500 l
22 years, so we specify some sort of test to predict rock 23 quality. That's a typical example of the kinds -- a suite f
- l. 24 of tests that we'd approve.
25 (Slide.)
O
(
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29880.0 411 BRT O 1 There's nothing too exotic there.
2 DR. MOELLER: Do you have a test for the rock or 3 do you simply know that certain rock will last?
4 MR. JOHNSON: There are tests. You can't 5 actually look at a rock and tell that it will last.
6 Basically we sponsored -- the NRC Staff sponsored a good 7 bit of technical research, assistance in this area and we 8 now have a quantitative procedure that if somebody runs a 9 series of tests like these they can predict pretty much how 10 long the rock will last or if it won't last how much you 11 may need to oversize it to compensate for that.
12 DR. SHEWMON: If it has lasted for a million
() 13 years or so, what's your concern?
14 MR. JOHNSON: There won't be any concern if it 15 has lasted for a million years. But the concern is, 16 certain rocks, if you see it sitting out in the middle of 17 the desert, you don't know what that looked like a million 18 years ago. Was it three feet big and now two inches? So 19 you have to come up with some sort of quantitate procedure 20 for assessing how much further that rock is going to 21 deteriorate.
22 Generally speaking, if you go to an alluvial 23 source, in a river, rocks down from a granite mountain i 24 those will be good wastes. Some of the granite outcrops 25 like you'd see in the Midwest, those aren't too good.
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2 MR. JOHNSON: There's a lifetime in Illinois --
3 DR. SHEWMON: There are those, but also glacial 4 marine.
5 MR. JOHNSON: Some glacial deposits, as you 6 might expect, will be real good and some aren't.
7 Here's a example of a rip rap criteria we might 8 specify for the size of it.
9 (Slide.)
10 DR. MOELLER: What is'it made of?
11 MR. JOHNSON: I'm sorry, the rip rap is the rock, 12 the rock layer.
() 13 DR. MOELLER: Oh. Okay.
14 MR. JOHNSON: Okay, we are specifying for type A 15 rock, on top of the pile, a little bigger than an inch and 16 a half, these are gradation curves. Type B is four inches, 17 on the sides. Type C was in the ditches, a little bigger, 18 and type D was bigger because it went in to prevent gully 19 orosion and so on and so forth and that's it.
20 If there are any questions, I'd be happy to 21 answer them.
22 DR. MOELLER: Connie, did you have any questions?
23 MR. KRAUSKOPF: I think it's pretty well covered.
24 DR. MOELLER: Thank you, then, Mr. Johnson.
25 We'll move on.
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1 MR. KNAPP: At this time we have two options and 2 looking at the hour you may want to pick one or the other.
3 Jim Shaf f ner can talk about some of the operations aspects.
4 He would be giving a talk much like the one you just heard 5 from Ted.
6 MR. SHAFFNER: Only shorter.
7 MR. KNAPP: Again to give you a chance, more of 8 an example of what one of these plans looks like.
9 Alternatively we can excuse Jim and talk about the 10 long-range, low-level plans.
11 MR. PITTIGLIO: The example is included in your 12 package.
() 13 DR. MOELLER: I think because several committee 14 members have to leave, maybe we had better go ahead with 15 the long-range plan. If Mr. Shaffner will accept our 16 apologies.
17 MR. SHAFFNER: I'll muddle through somehow. You 18 heard enough from me anyhow.
19 DR. MOELLER: We all have your white paper, of 20 course.
21 MR. KNAPP: I would like to do two things with 22 my time this afternoon. I would like to give you -- talk a 23 little bit about the white paper, or more properly 24 described our long-range plan for low-level waste, just to 25 give you some insight into where the Staff thinks it may be O
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'd 1 heading for the next few years and also I would like.to 2 give you the opportunity, now or later, to comment on it.
3 Just to facilitate the discussion, this handout 4 is about a three-page, very quick summary of some of the <
S things in the paper plus some additional goals we havd~ ,i I
6 under consideration.
Let me begin by saying this is strictly N Staft
~
7 8 product. It has not gone to the Commission. It is sort of '
9 what the Staff has in mind. And some of the potential.
10 goals we have in here we think we must pursue and others we 11 pretty much elect not to pursue, but again it is to gl've 12 you some insight into our thinking.
(') By way of introduction, the scheme was to. decide
~
13 14 where we thought the national program might well be at some 15 future date. Some, let's say, low-level u'topia Yhen things 16 have sort of stabilized and are reasonably under control.
17 Whether we initially pick the time we look at around 1993 18 when we hoped the low-level act would have borne fruit.
19 Frankly, we started this last August and in the 20 following six months I'm not as optimistic about 1993 as I 21 was. But that's about what we had in mind.
22 The plan was intended to look at low-level waste '
23 from a national perspective and then back doun to NRC's 24 regulatory perspective.
25 We also wanted to have an overall ALARA view at .
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I this thing, not just disposal but management, storage, 2 treatment of low-level as well.
3 Finally, this plan is one of the main
.. . 4 differences from other plans in that it is intended to be M'- 5 product oriented.
.: t f" 6 Rather than say this 1993 we want to be, it's
' 7 intended to say this is what we have to do to get there.
8 We made several assumptions that by 1993, things
[^ ' 9 would be relatively steady state. That is, we would have p 4, , 10 at least a few new low-level facilities on line. There
^
,, 11 would be no major unresolved questions or orphaned wastes.
- 1. '
' 12- Things would be relatively stable.
/Tt Between now and then, EPA and DOE are only going is_j 13 i
3, 14 to be able to put limited resources into this area. They '
d;.
- rg. 15 are not going to be able to put enough resources in to make 16 dramatic differences in the way things work.
' e4 '
17;i We also think there may be some states who are j 10 going to have a limited ability to fulfill their 19' obligations under the Amendments Act. I'll talk more about 20 this in a moment.
44: ,; 21 DR. STEINDLER: Did you say "a limited ability" x
r/ 22 or " limited ability"?
.. 23 MR. KNAPP: Let me try it a different way. I 24"4 think that a number of the states are not going to make the 25 j ' provisions of the Act for a number of reasons; in some
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1 cases, limited resou,rces and in some cases, political' 3 2 problems.
3 Another assumption we made --
s ,
se , 4 Y[V ..DR.1STEINDLER: Is that by 1993?
.n 2
') 5 MR. KNAPP: Yes.' Yes.
sj l Q, p,' 6 LAnother assumption we made, I put an-asterisk 7 beside a-number ofl points where I would be particularly
- g 8 interested in hearing what the Subcommittee might think --
t s.,
"s '
9 is that the number ofElow-level curies to be disposed of 10 over the next decade or so will be approximately constant.
- "'a .
I I don't mean to 1 percent, or even 10 to 15 percent, but I 11 j '12 do not expect that' additional reactors going on stream, new
?
() 13 . technology or other things will have a dramatic impact, j- 14 such as a factor of two, increase or decrease. That's sort 15- of the best estimate the Staff has, that we simply don't s
16 see anything that we think would likely change the amount a
17 of low-level waste created by a significant amount. And we i
,18 would be very pleased if somebody has any reason to find us 19 right or wrong and a rationale for it.
t )
20 ; Certainly if we could decrease the. number of 21 curies generated one way or another, that would be good, 22 but nothing came to our mind that would be accomplished to t 23 change the numoer of curies. Volume, perhaps, but the
! 24 number we didn't think we could affect.
i l 25 DR. MOELLER: You think the volume will decrease, i /\CE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 -MR. KNAPP: That gets me a little ahead of where 3 I am, but the volume right now is certainly going to 4 decrease and decrease dramatically. Right now it's in the 5 neighborhood of about, I'll guess, 60 to 70 percent of what 6 it was, say two years ago.
7 DR. MOELLER: This will decrease because de 8 minimis is coming along? .
9 DR. MARK: No.
10 MR. KNAPP: Principally compaction. This year,
- 11 much of it may be due to compaction, but a lot has to do 12 with decrease of inventory. We think a number of people
() 13 late last year emptied their inventories to the extent they 14 could and we don't know if this year's decreases reflect 15 t, hat more than compaction, supercompaction, but we 16 understand from the site operators both are contributors.
17 DR. MARK: I see somewhere an anticipation of j 18 perhaps three to five sites.
19 MR. KNAPP: Yes.
[
20 DR. MARK: Are there not about 13 compacts?
21 MR. KNAPP: Let me get to that in a moment.
22 Right now if we added compacts in the "go it alone" sites 23 we are guessing we might have 15 to 16 new facilities.
l 24 Three to five scheme, I don't want to speak for the agency 25 now, I want to speak for myself -- I think that number is O
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w 1 far,-far too high. I think we would be using nationally a 2 lot of resources that would be inappropriate. . I think 3 three to five regional facilities is about, in my 4 understanding what was contemplated by Congress in the Act 5 and what was contemplated by the NRC in our Environmental 6 Impact Statement years ago.
7 DR. MARK: All I'm thinking, there's more 8 compacts than there are sites suggested here. Some of 9 those have exclusion principles. They won't take any waste 10 from outside the compact. So I don't know how you get your 11 three to five to stick although I agree three to five 12 sounds like lots.
i () 13 MR. KNAPP: I may not have worded this clearly.
14 In the actual goals I would like to.
15 The three to five is not in anticipation. It is 16 a goal. It is a projected goal the Staff might bring to 17 the Commission.
18 It is in our view and what I have understood 19 informally from most others, that is individual states, 20 impact representatives, site operators and others, that 21 three to five is a reasonable measure. The question and 22 the goal -- the issue on whether we should pursue it -- is i
23 should the NRC pursue this? Is this consistent with our 24 regulatory role? One might argue it would be because a l 25 smaller number of sites would enhance public health and l
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V. 1 safety because we wouldn't spread our resources so thin, 2 but that's the sort of issue.
3 DR. MARK: I agree with that objective. The law 4 isn't necessarily in harmony with that.
5 MR. KNAPP: The law is not really out of harmony 6 with it in the sense that the law provides for the creation 7 of compacts and I don't think we'd be going against the law-8 if we were to pursue three to five. The law, I think, has 9 at this point ratified a total of seven compacts which 10 isn't too far off the mark.
t 11 DR. MARK: Okay.
l, 12 MR. KNAPP: But the question is should we take a
() 13 proactive role in seeing what we could do to encourage 14 states and compacts to work out a way to have a total of 15 something fewer than the number of sites where they are 16 headed? And if it's a good idea, how might we do it and, 17 even if it's a good idea and we did it, could we, in fact, 18 affect the process? And that's sort of -- again, that's an 19 internal debate, but I wanted you folks to have visibility 20 on it.
21 DR. MARK: Some of the states are pretty -
22 xenophobic, and won't take any waste from Massachusetts 23 General Hospital.
24 DR. MOELLER: Dr. Steindler?
25 DR. STEINDLER: On the constant or relatively O
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-A I constant curie business, have you factored into your 2 estimates the aging reactors and the need for 3 decontamination and possible decommissioning?
4 MR. KNAPP: We certainly haven't put that in 5 quantitatively and that could be a fly in the ointment.
6 DR. STEINDLER: Every time somebody changes 7 another steam generator, that's a lot of stuff.
8 DR. SHEWMON: The chemists-have that all under 9 control now.
10 DR. STEINDLER: Like hell they do.
11 MR. DILLON: None of them have been buried yet.
I 12 DR. STEINDLER: There was notices about not
() 13 being able to mix decontaminating agent and biodegradable 14 materials, et cetera, et cetera -- dumps.
15 I could easily see an increase in both curies as 16- well as volume coming from that kind of source. I'm not 17 sure it.makes a lot of difference if you are off instead of 18 by a factor of,2, by a factor of 4.
19 You have to decide how much effort you want to l 20 put into trying to define that estimate, but that certainly 21 strikes me as one of the upcoming major sources.
22 We aren't going to have any more technetium 99, I or whatever it is, that we run through people and things of 23 24 that kind. I don't think that's going to go up by a 25 horrendous amount.
()
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(_)- 1 DR. MOELLER: Well, at one time the use of 2 radiopharmaceuticals was increasing 15 to 20 percent per 3 year. I presume it has leveled off or, as you say, 4 compaction or something else has more than negated the 5 increase in the waste production.
6 DR. STEINDLER: We can now burn scintillator 7 bottles and-that helps a lot.
8 DR. MOELLER: That helps enormously.
9 DR. SHEWMON: It doesn't cut down the curies, 10 does it?
11 DR. STEINDLER: It cuts down the curies he has 12 to take care of.
O)
(_ 13 MR. KNAPP: If you burn vials and allow the 14 carbon-14 or tritium to go up the stack, that would cut l 15 down volume that way. But again the question, I think, 16 maybe -- we want to ask, and this is something I will i
17 continue to ask probably for years: Is there -- should the 18 NRC take any action to reduce the number of curies of 19 low-level waste? That is, is there any way we could, l
l 20 perhaps, encourage technology that might result in fewer l
l 21 low-level curies being created? Is there anything l
l l 22 constructive that could be done here? At this point, the 23 Staff's view is there doesn't appear to be a real benefit i
24 to that sort of an approach, but if anything comes up, l
t
! 25 every six months we get evidence of transmutation, but so
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1 far we haven't been able to track it down.
2 DR. MOELLER: Well, the de minimis would cut 3 down on the volume perhaps, but not the curies very much?
4 MR. KNAPP: Correct. It won't cut down on the 5 number of curies significantly and from the disposal end G -- we were also looking at it from the generation end.
7 DR. STEINDLER: On the other side of the thing 8 where you are coming up from below, talking about greater 9 confinement because I think that is an area that makes some 10 sense from the purely economic and risk standpoint. But if 11 the role of greater confinement for materials in greater 12 than class C gets to be dumped in essentially your
() 13 bailiwick, then the kind of concerns that are currently 14 dealt within low-level waste could go up, curiewise, could 15 go up enormously because per unit package greater than 16 class C represents a lot of curies.
17 MR. KNAPP: Through the Amendments Act, that 18 will be in our bailiwick one way or another. At least the 19 Act directs the Federal Government to disposal of greater 20 than class C, and NRC will license that facility.
21 Before I turn to the next page, very briefly to 22 note that we have kind of divided the goals into three 23 categories just for ease of grouping them together, some 24 associated with the Amendments Act, which are principally 25 regulatorf goals, other regulatory goals and some n
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1 associated with case work.
2 And, on the next page I have produced -- this 3 list appears on I think about the second page of the white 4 paper.
5 DR. MOELLER: Let me ask about that. I don' t 6 understand K. I flagged these. No state -- can you tell 7 me what you mean? Do you think by that agreement states 8 will handle all of them?
9 MR. KNAPP: Well, again, these are literally 10 draft goals under consideration and the issue here is 11 should the agency take the position that we will try very 12 hard to promote state licensing of low-level facilities?
() 13 You notice I said no state low-level facilities licensed by 14 NRC. Originally I said no facilities licensed, but we will 15 license the greater than class C.
16 Another way of saying it is should we take a 17 role which tries the best we can to get all states to be 18 agreement states, so we really don't see a licensing role 19 for the NRC Staff? That's an interesting question because 20 I believe in the overall agency strategic plan, that may 21 arise.
22 DR. STEINDLER: Doesn't that sound somewhat like 23 privatization, the current administration's push?
24 DR. MOELLER: Right.
25 DR. STEINDLER: That's not a question to you. I ace FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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l 1 realize --
3 2
. APP: That's a good point. It is 3 consis- at with the administration's push. ,
i.
j 4 DR. STEINDLER: I think you have to ask -- if l -5 the question is addressed to the Subcommittee in general t
6 terms, then I would think the issues we have to address is i
i 7 who is most confident, most likely to do this in a way a
! 8 which indeed protects the health and safety of the public?
l 9 DR. MOELLER: Right.
} 10 DR. STEINDLER: Some states surely can do a job 11 which may, in fact, be comparable to the kind of things you ;
12 folks do. I can bet you a cookie that some states 1
() 13 absolutely cannot and some states would not. <
j 14 So I think as a general policy, to push things 15 into the state domain without some other comments on the i
! 16 subject make no sense to me. ;
f 17 MR. KNAPP: Is consistent with my personal l
18 thinking.
i l 19 DR. MOELLER: I agree with that. Let me ask i
! 20 about L, M and N. I think in the basic document the i
21 asterisk meant it was not of a high priority or something.
l i 22 MR. KNAPP: Right. ,
t
( 23 DR. MOELLER: Okay. Take L, predisposal 24 treatment. I thought that was a key. If that means to me l
25 that it is solidified or no liquids in it and so forth?
l.
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1 MR. KNAPP: The issue here was should we do that 2 for all low-level waste? In other words, we are treating B 3 and C in various ways. Should we do that for class A?
4 Once or twice it has been said kind of off-the-cuff, let's 5 just treat all low-level waste no matter what. My initial 6 reaction to that is that might be a good idea, but I have 7 no way to support it. I suspect if we tried to treat all 8 class A, we would find we were increasing worker dose 9 beyond the benefits to be gained beyond solidification of 10 class A waste. My view at this point, frankly, is I would 11 not pursue it and, because we have a finite amount of 12 resources I probably am not going to pursue the question at
() 13 this point.
14 That's where I would be headed on that.
- 15 DR. MOELLER: I understand. M though, to me a
, 16 full set of nationally consistent regulations and guides is l 17 very important, in fact, I said it was critical.
18 Again, maybe I don't understand what you are j 19 saying.
I 20 MR. KNAPP: We have a lot of people in the i
21 division that agree with you. When I'm talking about l
22 nationally consistent regulations and guides, and I'm 23 talking not only of those of the NRC, but those EPA, where-24 there is overlap, as well as all NRC agreement states and i 25 all EPA-authorized states.
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1 Should we make as one of our goals trying to get 2 this consistency throughout? If you like, facilitate some j 3 of the authorized and agreement states? I think it is a 4 goal that I wish that I could pursue. My problem is one of 5 resources and I think, at this point, the reason that it is 6 not one we are going to pursue, or at least I don't, at 7 this point -- I would not be pursuing it -- getting our 8 house in order and_getting our -- that is our regs, and 9 everything else, and achieving compatibility with EPA, 10 unless we were to get a lot more resources is about all I 11 can really devote to the problem. And I agree with your 12 concern. I just don't think we can go further.
() 13 That's my thinking. As I say, these are up for 14 discussion.
15 DR. MOELLER: You have already talked about a 16 little bit, but I guess I just said is this NRC's 17 responsibility?
18 MR. KNAPP: That's a good question. That was 19 one of my criteria as to whether it would be. But I had a i 20 view on that, again looking for comment.
l 21 If we go back to our earlier assumption that the 22 amount -- the number -- the curie number will be 23 approximately constant or may grow for some of the reasons 24 that have been mentioned, is there any real point to trying 25 to drive to a low volume? In other words, we'll either l
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29880.0 427 BRT O 1 have a fairly large volume -- low concentration or low 2 volume of higher concentration? A number of the site 3 operators seem to feel that -- in fact, some of the reactor 4 operators have the sense, particularly with this idea of a 5 closed compact they are going to have to run a site, they 6 will take in all the waste created in the compact, that 7 will go to the site.
8 If you have 500,000 cubic feet per year and they 9 charge you S10 a cubic foot, if you compact down to 250,000 10 cubic feet, they'll have to charge everybody $20, because 11 it's kind of a closed economy. And that raises the 12 question is there an advantage to supercompaction
() 13 techniques sort of as an end in itself?
14 In individual cases, it's a fine idea, but as a 15 policy should we move to reduction of low-level waste 16 volumes and that, for those reasons as just described, we
- 17 would not go forward with that.
18 DR. SHEWMON: The number of cells or bathtubs
{ 19 they have to put together, are they such a trivial cost 20 that what the volume is doesn't influence costs?
21 MR. KNAPP: It would certainly be wrong to say 22 it doesn't influence the cost.
23 DR. SHEWMON: You don't think it's a significant 24 part?
25 MR. KNAPP: What I can't tell you is, if you
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were to take the cost savings that you just mentioned and 2 added to the cost increase associated with things such as 3 supercompaction techniques, would we be ahead or behind, I 4 honestly don't know the answer to that question.
5 DR. SHEWMON: How many acres or square miles or 6 something do you see per decade of operation with a 7 constant number of curies. Certainly in the garbage end of 8 8 things people run out of places they can put things after a 9 while. This may be quite different.
10 MR. KNAPP: Let me go back in time. A couple of 11 years ago the number of cubic feet nationally was about 2.6 12 million cubic feet per year.
() 13 With the various techniques such as compaction, 14 incineration, lack of generation of volume -- that is to 15 say by making sure -- taking greater pains to see that 16 things didn't get contaminated in the first place -- that 17 has been reduced to where I'll just guess, but for 1986 18 that number may be down as low as around 1.5 million, 1.4
! 19 to 1.5 million cubic feet. Someone around the table may 20 have a better number.
l l 21 At that rate -- at that volume, rate of 22 production, dividing it among a number of sites, I don't 23 expect a significant area of the site is going to be taken 24 up by the low-level waste itself.
25 You are talking about a site -- the sorts of O
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/m U 1 plans I'm hearing, you are talking about perhaps something 2 equivalent to about a square mile, 640 acres for the whole 3 site with an interior boundary or actual -- that includes 4 the buffer zone that came up earlier. The actual disposal 5 area might be several los of acres, 40, 50 acres, and that 6- would be anticipated to be sufficient for it, but would 7 amount to generally the working life of one of these sites 8 which would be a minimum of say to 20 to 30 years and 9 that's the sort of figures we are talking about.
10 The impression that one gets is that compaction 11 in terms of saving money overall would not save, if you 12 were a generator. If everybody in your region or compact
() 13 went through compaction, then you wouldn't save any money.
14 It would cost you about the same to disposal of the waste 15 -- because a lot of the cost of having one of these 16 facilities has to do with the site characterization, other 4
17 features of operation. That's the best I know. I don't 18 really have the numbers to respond to your question.
19 DR. MOELLER: Are you saying, though, if I heard 20 the numbers right, that a typical low-level waste facility l
,! 21 will only use up an acre or two per year?
22 MR. KNAPP: An acre or two a year?
23 DR. SHEWMON: A square mile every couple of
- 24 decades. 10 acres of waste -- per year is what I heard.
25 MR. KNAPP: As a matter of fact, I think l
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1 Dr. Moeller made a good call there. I hadn't done that 2 number in my head, but that's what I would be hearing.
3 We'd be talking about a few acres, under 10 acres per year 4 within a regional compact. That's not -- I wish I could 5 take a five-minute break and do a couple of more numbers in 6 my head, but if you are talking about 100,000 cubic feet or 7 2- or 300,000 cubic feet in a compact, and ask how many --
8 oh, let's see -- that's probably not too far off the mark 9 because what is an acre, 40,000 -- 43,000 square feet.
10 Okay, you stack it up 10 feet deep and I doubt if there 11 would be a compact that would use more than that.
12 Intuitively that sounds about right.
(~)
(_j 13 MR. PERRY: You don't use the whole acre though 14 because you've got -- you only have channels.
15 MR. KNAPP In fact, I think you'd probably have 16 more than 10 feet deep. Probably more like 20. But the 17 mental exercise suggests that's certainly within a factor 18 of 10.
19 MR. PARKER: I'm confused about your economics.
20 It seems to me the marketplace has already said you have to 21 go to compaction, supercompaction and look at the 22 surcharges where you go up to $40 per cubic foot, you'd 23 have to be crazy not to compact your material. The 24 supercompaction is going great guns now. I think they are 25 going to build another one they have so much business now.
(')T t
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29880.0 431 BRT 1 I'm not sure I understand why you say if everybody 2 compacted the price would double, since it is a profitable 3 system right now. The ones that are in existence are very 4 profitable. Why wouldn't the compacts be profitable?
5 MR. KNAPP: You and I are using two different 6 sets of assumptions in this. If I were a generator today, 7 I would agree with you completely, since the price is more 8 or less fixed by volume, any compaction I could do would 9 save me money and that's the right way to go.
10 I'm thinking about this semimythical five to 10 11 years from now. At that point, if we have more or less a 12 closed system and if the state or compact running the
() 13 facility decides they are going to run it, let's say on a 14 break-even basis -- let's say they have spent $25 million 15 to develop it and make it run and they are going to got, 16 let's say, for the heck of it, S2 million a year out of 17 whatever the community is that brings the waste in to be 18 disposed, then what one might anticipate that they will 19 como up with a price structure that would do that. And if 20 you have a supercompactor and this follow over there 21 doesn't, then you'll come out ahead. If everybody moves to 22 compaction, essentially the state will work out a number 23 that divides the amount of money they want to make by the 24 volume of the waste they get and that will price it and 25 that's -- that was sort of the philosophy.
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l DR. STEINDLER: With one significant exception 2 and that's transportation. You transport by the drum and 3 the supercompactor has a compaction ratio of 6.5 or 10 to 1.
4 Something like that. You cut your transportation costs 5 down by a factor of 10 and that's the only place where --
6 MR. KNAPP: Point well taken.
7 DR. STEINDLER: Open in your line of logic, 8 although I have to agree -- the only place where I think 9 you might be able to make some money. But the economy of 10 scale eventually may well lead the generators as well as 11 the states to go back to Congress and say: Hey, back in 12 1987 Mal Knapp said, by God, all we need is six of these
(') 13 and you guys have authorized 15 and now we want to 14 rearrange this so we go back to six.
15 Now you can spread that fixed cost of say $25 16 million for a startup cost for a single site over a smaller 17 number and the economy of scale will pay off. Then it 18 seems to me the compactors -- the noncompactors will 19 probably suffer, eventually be driven to compaction.
20 MR. KNAPP: I would agree. And the coffee break 21 rumor, if you like, of how things are going to unfold over 22 the next decade or so is more or less like that. There 23 will be a winnowing out of this 15 or 16 down to a smaller 24 number as people become more comfortable with disposal and l
25 have a better sense of the costs. That's what I heard.
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1 DR. STEINDLER: You indicated a 20- to 30-year 2 life. It seems to me we assign lives in the nuclear
\
3 business on the basis of what somebody thought a reactor 4 ought to run and everything else is then geared to it. You 5 build a reprocessing plant and design it for 20- or 30-year 6 life, reactor, and now disposal site. I don't understand 7 that. Why can't a disposal site be five square miles 8 targeted for a 150-year life?
9 MR. KNAPP: No problem at all. I was reflecting 10 some political considerations I heard. If you have a 11 compactor, 25 states, we'll take care of it for five years 12 -- there would appear to be no technical reason for f'T J
13 limiting it to 20 years.
14 MR. PARKER: There is a good reason for going to 15 the compactor, the void space and slumping and long-term 16 viability of the cover so you would like them to go to as 17 much compaction as they could.
18 MR. KNAPP: All right. Good point.
19 I had a "ouple of goals I just wanted to 20 highlight.
21 MR. PARKER: One of the others you asked for 22 comment on is H, dealing with international regs on 23 low-level waste. I think it's an excellent idea, but I 24 think you won't get a surprise, but it would be very 25 different than the regs and formality that I think you have O
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1 now because if you bring together the major European users, 2 'except for the U.K., I think all the others have gone away 3 from the kind of shallow land burial that we are allowing
- 4 under 61. All the others have gone to greater confined 5 disposal or greater treatment. Most of them have gone to 6 deeper disposal than we are. I think it's a great idea.- I
- 7 think there's an awful lot to be learned about how they are 8 doing it, licensing it, safety analys-is, things of that j 9 sort.
10 DR. STEINDLER: There are others -- but it is i
11 common land burial.
I 12 DR. MOELLER: They mention on page 11 of the 9
_( ) 13 white paper about the international program, they l 14 concentrate on NEA.
15 Wouldn't they gain something from IAEA or ICRP 16 or WHO?
17 MR. KNAPP: My mention of NEA at that point, and i
18 I should have the paper in iront of me. I don't. There 19 was a target of opportunity. I think NEA was having a 20 meeting in May.
j 21 DR. MOELLER: Paris.
l 22 MR. KNAPP: In we were trying to bring this off l
23 this calendar year that would be handy. Subsequent to that 24 draft there is a regulatory meeting of some sort in vienna, i
25 I believe, in September and we would want to take advantage l
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l of that as well. IAEA auspices.
2 DR. MOELLER: Great. Okay. I feel better.
3 MR. KNAPP: Just opportunities to get the people 4 together to begin a move towards this.
5 DR. MOELLER: On page 6 you mention, and I hear 6 that you don't have it, but you mention colocation. NRC 7 will develop the guidance and technical expert ise to 8 license the disposal and will consider encouraging DOE to 9 dispose of the small volumes of waste anticipated in a 10 single facility, preferably a high-level waste repository 11 or a facility colocated with a high-level waste repository.
12 These were for wastes greater than class C.
m
(_) 13 MR. KNAPP: Just greater than class C.
14 DR. MOELLER: Are you saying they put the 15 greater than class C in the repository or they would have 16 greater confinement up at the surface?
17 MR. KNAPP: What I'm 'doing at this point --
18 again, recognizing this is not a goal that we would 19 necessarily espouse and the first thing we would be doing 20 would be a study to make sure that this goal made a lot of 21 sense -- in the event we went through a study and found the 22 volume of class C is not that great and chemical and 23 physical characteristics is not that different from 24 high-level and it would work in a high-level facility then 25 we might take the position, DOE we recommend you go to a
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b 1 high-level facility simply to avoid creating another highly 2 different facility. Under other circumstances we might try 3 to colocate near a high-level facility on the simple reason, 4 logic that it might be easier to recommend colocation than
- 5. to create another class of facility. We have got 6 high-level, low level, TRU, now are we going to create 7 another one called greater than class C with another series 8 .of siting problems?
9 The question behind this goal is under what 10 circumstances should the NRC Staff take a proactive role or 11 should we basically let DOE do as it sees best and, you i 12 know, to a degree our statutory role in this right now is
() 13 when DOE has made a decision as to what they want to do we 14 will review it and the question here is to what extent-15 should be we be more proactive to try to work with DOE and 16 come up with the usual "creativc solutions."
17 My sense, and this gets back to one of those 18 earlier assumptions, DOE has limited resources to apply to 19 this and it may be in order to help them arrive at a i
. 20 solution we may need to be more proactive and be more 21 involved with them than we have been.
22 MR. PARKER: I made a back of the envelope I
23 calculation on that one time. I totally agree with you.
24 It looks to me, from the numbers I generated, you'd be much 25 better off putting that small amount of greater than class ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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5 1 C in a high-level waste depository than going through 2 rulemaking and developing new sites and adding up all of 3 those costs.
4 DR. STEINDLER: Oh, that's not what I would come 5 to the conclusion of.
6 MR. KNAPP: As a matter of fact, we have two 7 back of the envelopes that we have not yet --
8 MR. PARKER: Commercial.
9 DR. STEINDLER: There is a class of greater than 10 class C wastes if you could avoid having to put into a 11 repository you can save a large number of dollars. It's in 12 the defense area, but nonetheless --
13 MR. PARKER: I should have said that. My
( })
14 calculations were certainly on commercial.
15 DR. MOELLER: Okay.
16 MR. KNAPP: Again, that's one we are wrestling 17 with.
18 I want to be real clear, particularly for the 19 record, that these are draft bills under consideration.
20 They are not necessarily ones we are going to espouse. We 21 have rejected some already and I'm sure we'll reject more 22 as we go through the process.
23 Were there any other specifics? There were one 24 or two I wanted to highlight.
25 MR. PARKER: You mentioned something about doing l
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, 29880.0 438 BRT O' 1 the study at Sheffield. Do you want to tell us a little 2 more? I wasn't clear exactly what you are doing at 3 Sheffield. I know they have a closure plan.
4 DR. MOELLER: Page 19 discusses that. I had
'I 5 some similar q'aestions.
6 MR. KNAPP: Sheffield, in the goal area, is 7 intended to be exemplary. The only point to be made here 8 was that we wanted to note that all the inactive facilities, 9 Sheffield and'any others, frankly with Maxie Flats and the 10 situation it's in with CERCLA, and the involvement we are 11 having with DOE as West Valley, Shef field may be the only 12 one we are look at a closure plant. Actually, with l() 13 Sheffield, I think all of them are special cases because 14 with Illinois and U.S. Ecology, and these three-way 15 hearings moved towards Sheffield closure, my suspicion is, 16 although as a point of principle to get closure plans in 17 place for all of active sites, I have an idea that each one 18 of them will have to be dealt with individually and under I
19 special circumstances. That's really about where we were 20 on Sheffield.
l 21 With respect to the part of the goal to continue 22 to work with U.S., or the action to continue to work with l 23 U.S. Ecology, and Illinois to resolve Sheffield that, of 24 course, is not in question. We are doing that. We want to i 25 do it, but even if we didn't, the court has directed us to O
l l
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29880.0 439 BRT 1 do it.
2 There are a number of items in here which are 3 really not open to discussion. We must do them for one 4 reason or another.
, 5 I think most of the ones which I had an asterisk t 2
6 by that I was interested in highlighting I have been over.
7 If I could, I would like to take about five more 8 minutes and turn to the last page of my handout. These are 9 four items which are certainly candidates for additional 10 draft goals. I wanted you to learn about three of them and
! 11 the fourth one, I'm not sure it's more urgent than the l
12 other three, but certainly deserves discussion.
() 13 Operational safety program goal is one which I 14 anticipate adding to this list. It's one where we are 15 going to look at operational safety. It's one consistent q 16 with the tack the whole commission is taking and as 4 17 exemplified by the reorganization. What we are going to be 18 doing mostly is to make sure that we do not have an 19 operational incident at any of the low-level facilities. I 20 want to be careful saying that because the real 21 responsibility for the agreement state facilities, of 22 course, lies with the agreement state. But we want to go j 23 back and take a hard look at operational safety and ask if 24 there's anything in there that is apt to give us an i
25 incident.
l I
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29880.0 440 BRT O I DR. MOELLER: This is a rad incident? It's not 2 an injury or fire?
3 MR. KNAPP Let's put it this way. It would be 4 intended to make sure that the Sequoyah incident would not 5 happen in the low-level area.
6 l don't know that I would call Sequoyah a rad.
7 It was one under our purview. It's intended to look at 8 these things.
9 The reason to give this an emphasis, not only 10 NRC direction, but in wasto management we tend in my view 11 to put too much energy into worrying about what is going to 12 happen over the next 500 or 1000 years and too little in O 13 where wo are really having our doses which is operational 14 safety.
15 A mature OA program, again that's something I 16 want to highlight. I am not satistiod -- we are developing l
17 OA at low lovel. We have not gono as far as they have at 18 high-level. And I want to push it further.
- 19 One of the reasons for quality assurance is not f 20 simply to make sure that things are right, but to recognize 21 that in the absence of adoquato documentation wo or the l
i j 22 states could havo real problems at hearings in the future.
l 23 It's to ensure wo don't have that difficulty, i
l 24 DR. STEINDLER: If I operato a low-levol burial i
! 25 ground and I have six customors and I propose to you that lO ACliIIllDl!RAl. RiivonTiins, INC.
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1 instead of sampling one out of every thousand drums or 2 whatever the sampling requirement is, to determine its 3 contents in all matters and fashions that we heard about, I 4 send one of my guys into each of the six customers' plants 5 and sample there, at a place where they are more likely to 6 be able to do that more easily, does that satisfy your 7 criteria? For an adequate quality assurance of whatever it 8 is that ultimately gets buried in this licensed facility?
9 MR. KNAPP My personal view is that you should 10 have a mixture.
11 Cortainly the more that you can samplo at source 12 the better off you are. I think you are going to nood to O 12 de some eemntee ef ee-received materiets 3est to, emeno 14 other things, keep your gennrators and brokers awaro that 15 if -- well anyway I guess what I'm saying is if you were to 16 como to me and say I want to do no sampling at the site or 17 no as-received sampling, I want to do it all at the source 18 I wouldn't reject it out of hand, but I'd want to got a 19 strong senso of confidenco.
20 DR. STEINDLER: Lot me tell you the NRC is 21 already doing that in the high-level waste they are going 22 to got from places liko Savannah River and West Valloy.
23 They are not going to drili open the gians cannistors.
24 They are going to rely on whatever 0A and sampling 25 requirements they can lay on tho waste gonorator at his ACli.Flinitari. RiivonTitas, INC.
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.y 2 Okay? They are perfectly good physical and .
3 materials reasons for doing it that way, but they sure cut'^c/
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4 down the risk, it seems to me, at the depository site. _ <e f
5 MR. KNAPP I can't' argue with you at all. The , ';.
6 reason I'm a little more nervous at low level is nationally 7 we have about 22,000 low-level licensees between NRC ,-
7 .s 8 agreement states and my concern is with DOE, with one orf .
9 two or three s.ources of material that we cAn check at tilte Ia '
10 where we have excellent control over what goes from therg. '*
11 into the facility, I think that that is exactly the way to 12 go.
] 13 Where we don't necessarily have that control, 14 where it might not be practical to sample at source, enough, 15 that the generator -- we would be sure, candidly that an. , ,
o ,
16 unscrupulous generator might not pull a fast one or an '
17 incompetent generator might not pull a fast one, that's 18 when I get a little bit more interested in as-received.
19 One thing I would mention about as-received hy" t 20 the way, as a few that I have on sampling, I mean 21 "as-received sampling" as opposed to "on-site sampling." -
22 In other words, for some site operators I think .
23 you can say we expect them to have sort of a litmus paper" '
\
24 laboratory available. I think it would be an acceptable 25 alternate to say that we are going to take every 100th drum O r ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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l and set it aside and once a month we are going to take a
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2 truck with a bunch of them and every month we are going to
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3 , send it over to a lab with great hot cells and see what a
s .-
_4 they have to say.
5 '
It's not to have the testing on the site itself, 6 -f it's more to see what comes in.
7 DR. STEINDLER: Unfortunately the number of 8 contract hot cell operators in this country is dropping on 9 a logarithmic scale. I have had a chance to look at that 10 lately. In a large mature environment, your argument would 11 be economically sensible and practical. I'm afraid it i.. +
', 12 isn't going to be that way and in 1993 there are only going (6 _) 13 to be two left and they will all be looking at failed fuel.
14 Oh, I'm sorry, we don't have any failed fuel.
~
, 15 MR. KNAPP: That's a good point. I guess my 16 I thinking is we are going to wind up --
17 DR. STEINDLER: And 75 percent of the curies b 18 generated by half a percent of the licensees? Some rather 19 high ratio.
20 DR. SHEWMON: I don't think there's a hot cell 21 in the business now would who look at failed fuel in the 22 country, is there?
23 DR. STEINDLER: Battelle hasn't gone out of 24 business yet?
25 DR. SHEWMON: They are trying awful hard. They
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y (J 1 would love to give it to the University of Ohio --
2 DR. STEINDLER: Whatever you do, don't take it.
3 DR. MOELLER: Do you want to go to the third and 4 fourth?
5 MR. KNAPP: The third one I can handle very 6 briefly. I am not at this point comfortable with our 7 performance assessment capability on low level. You may 8 have heard from research. I'm sure you heard recently, 9 perhaps even.in the last day or two, they are going to be 10 doing some work on performance assessment, some research.
11 I'm not sure whether the amount of money they plan to spend
^
12 is something that can be stated publicly, but they are e'g
(_j 13 going to initiate some work on it. We have some technical 14 assistance in the area but I'm just not comfortable that 15 all this is coming together and that's not meant to be a 16 criticism of what is going on. It is meant we are not 17 giving it enough management attention and I want to work on 18 that.
19 The position I want to be in is to have states 20 and compacts -- be able to hand them codes and 21 documentation so they can do the job right. So the 22 questions asked today would have decent answers. Let me 23 hit the last one, this is more information to you --
24 MR. PARKER: Before you get to that I'm sure you 25 are aware but you ought to look into it more carefully the f'./
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1 USGS's study at these commercial sites and some of the DOE 2 sites. Even where -- there's an enormous DOE dosimeter, 3 tunnel right underneath the trench and very extensive 4 investigations at the other sites, and they have had a 5 singular lack of success in determining what is going on 6 there. The only way it seems to me to do that is to make 7 the requirements, the way you put it, so stringent that you 8 have a site that can be modeled and characterized easily,
- 9 and none of the sites so far, by and large, the eastern 10 ones, fit that category.
11 MR. KNAPP: That's what I hoped in part to 12 address under this. In addition to learning from the sites,
,m
(_) 13 I would like to be able to come before you -- I would like 14 to be able to do it_in about three months, but I think it 15 is going to go a year or two -- and say, okay, the 16 fundamental principles of this computer code are that we
. 17 test this, this, and this. We believe this is reasonably 18 accurate, it's sufficiently conservative that the 19 inaccuracies we don't have to worry about and the thing 20 works. At this point I'm not saying we don't have that in 21 the low-level program, but I personally don't have 22 visibility of it and I don't have a high degree of 23 confidence that we could turn to tomorrow and exercise all 24 those codes.
l 25 Last but not least, this is more for your
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- BRT O 1 information than anything else and you may have an 2 opportunity to comment on it in the future, commercial 3 storage and disposal of low-level waste at reactors. There 4 would appear to be some-interest in this country in this 5 direction and that has been fairly contrary to NRC policy 6 in the past. We may reconsider that policy.
7 The reason I bring it up is that I would be 8 interested in what the Subcommittee might have to say about 9 -whether there is -- what the technical merits are, either 10 pro or con. I'd just be interested in learning what 11 arguments you might make on either side.
12 DR. MOELLER: Well, I'm sure on that you could
() 13 -take either position. You could say that once a site has 14 been approved, you know, for a. nuclear power plant other -
15 than Indian Point or something like that -- once it has 16 been approved and dedicated to that you could say, well, 17 we'll dedicate it permanently.
18 The other side you could take is that we all 19 talk about decommissioning -- and decontamination and 20 decommissioning -- and we want to be able to clean the site i-21 up and restore it to its original purity. Well, you can't i 22 do that very easily if you have low-level waste there.
23 DR. SHEWMON: That comes back to what you are l
24 talking about. If you are talking about a steel building l 25 and a concrete slab and roof over it, you put your drums in l
l ,
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1 there for 30 years, then presumably you could carry those 2 drums out or leave them there depending on what the 3 decision was 30 years hence.
4 If you are talking about putting them underground 5 and doing something where it is harder to retrieve --
6 MR. KNAPP: That speaks to the issue we would 7 probably have to address. One of the things that we've 8 said repeatedly is that we want the siting criteria in part 9 61 met and whatever alternatives or engineered enhancements 10 you might make, they will not compensate for a bad site.
11 It has to be a basically good site.
12 If you look at the reactor storage, then some of
() 13 our initial estimates are that few of the reactors would 14 really meet the part 61 criterion.
15 The very things you seek in reactors are some of 16 the things you want to avoid, in some criteria, with part 17 61. So we could be opening up the issue of can you in fact 18 use engineered enhancements -- just engineering -- to 19 compensate for a bad site? That's one of the policy 20 questions that would have to be addressed.
21 Another one is if you were to -- our previous 22 view is that you don't want the reactor operators to get 23 involved in anything else that might distract their 24 management from seeing that the things are operating safely 25 and would that be a concern? I know those are two of the
()
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(~J 1 issues we would be looking at.
2 DR. SHEWMON: I'm intrigued at the on-site 3 storage of fuel which some people have gone to it and meets 4 all the regulations relatively simply. Given the political 5 situation, putting it any place else I guess you are going 6 to see a good deal more of it in the next decade.
7 That's a smaller volume than you are talking 8 about, I would guess, but 10, 20, 40, 60 acres on a normal 9 reactor site, this could be a lot of space, I suspect.
10 MR. KNAPP: That might be a lot of space but we 11 would be talking about commercial -- that's one of the 12 things, we are talking about. Say a reactor operator comes
() 13 in and says: I'm the only reactor in my state or the only 14 one in this half of the state and I'm willing to take all 15 the wastes and I think it's a good idea and the other folks 16 think it's a good idea, we won't have to site a new 17 facility.
18 DR. MOELLER: You are saying they would not only 19 handle their own waste but they'd receive commercial. Oh.
I 20 MR. KNAPP: So they would be into the commercial 21 waste storage business with intent to get into the 22 commercial waste disposal business after they decommission
! 23 the reactor.
l
! 24 Again, this is something that the agency has l
l 25 felt very strongly about in the past. One question I'm l
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29880.0- 449-BRT 1 asking-is shall we stick with that position? Or what is 2 the basis for taking that position and is there any basis 3 to reconsider it? I just wanted you'to be aware that I 4 anticipate the issue may arise.
5 DR. SHEWMON: I had missed the commercial ~part.
6 I guess I would rather have them stay where they are asked, 7 as the phase goes or something -- whether you want to take 8 their wastes and store them somewhere on-site or ship them 9 off seems to me a different issue.
10- DR. MOELLER: If they just simply disposed of.
11 their own wastes then this comes back to what we were 12 talking about earlier. Does it not make the commercial --
() 13 the people who put up the money to develop the commercial lf side less viable because now they are not going to be 15 receiving the nuclear power plant wastes?
16' MR. KNAPP: That very question has been asked.
17 It has been argued that that could place a very difficult 18 burden on hospitals and nonreactor facilities.
19 Sut again, I'm just bringing this up to sort of 20 give you an idea that it is conceivable that you will have 21 an opportunity to comment on a Commission paper on the 22 subject in a couple of months or something like that.
23 MR. PARKER: Look at what other countries have 24 done. The Swedes have done that. It is at a reactor site 4
25 but it is the consortium of reactor companies that are
($)
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l doing it. It's not that electric power company that is 2 doing it. But it is at a reactor site.
3 DR. MOELLER: Is this one site for the country?
4 MR. PARKER: For the country.
5 DR. MOELLER: And it is on a power plant site.
6 Okay.
7 Any other questions or comments?
8 MR. KNAPP: I have run well over the time we 9 were allotted.
10 DR. MOELLER: All right. Well, I think with 11 that, then, let me thank you, Mal, for sticking with-us 12 this afternoon and taking your time, not only to cover what-() 13 was an interesting topic in the long-range plan but to give 14 us so many insights into what is on the horizon and what we 15 should be thinking about and hopefully we will be able to 16 come back at you with some useful response in time.
17 I think, with that, then, I'll declare that the 18 formal portion of the meeting is adjourned. And we will 19 immediately go -- well, we'll take a break and then 20 immediately go into executive session to discuss several 21 items and then wrap it up.
22 Thank you again.
23 (Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the hearing was 24 concluded.)
25 O)
\
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coverage 800-336-6M6
CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER O
D This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING: ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS SUBCOMMITTEE ON WASTE MANAGEMENT DOCKET NO.:
PLACE: WASHINGTON, D. C.
DATE: FRIDAY, i'EBRUARY 2 0, 1987 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
(sigt) w (TYPED)
JOEL EITNER Official Reporter ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Reporter's Affiliation O
.c T. Sa. s w o $ y e. m l
\
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ML5 sc=: .cs 5h/R E: c:NEEF!NG ECONCMICS PLEL'C :CUCY UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Research Program WORK PLAN NRC-04-86-114 O
UNSATURATED FLOW AND TRANSPORT THROUGH FRACTURED ROCK RELATED TO HIGH-LEVEL WASTE REPOSITORIES l
l SUBMITTED TO: Mr. Thomas J. Nicholson, Project Manager
- U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Connission
! Office of Research Division of Engineering Safety and Earth Sciences Washington, D.C. 20555 l
l SUBMITTED BY: Dr. Daniel D. Evans, Principal Investigator l Department of Hydrology & Water Resources University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 l
l OCTOBER 1, 1986
O WORK PLAN NRC-04-86-114 UNSATURATED FLOW AND TRANSPORT THROUGH FRACTURED ROCK RELATED TO HIGH-LEVEL WASTE REPOSITORIES O
SUBMITTED T0: Mr. Thomas J. Nicholson, Project Manager -
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Comnission Office of Research Division of Engineering Safety and Earth Sciences Washington, D.C. 20555 SUBMITTED BY: Dr. Daniel D. Evans, Principal Investigator i Department of Hydrology & Water Resources University' of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 O OCTOBER 1, 1986 9
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plin (REY. 0) - October 1,1986 - PIge 2
()
- TABLE OF CONTENTS Pace
- 1. INTRODUCTION ........................ 8 1.1 Statement of Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.2 Previous and Ongoing Research ............. 9
- 2. METHODS FOR CONTROLLING UNCERTAINTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.1 Identification of Uncertainties ............ 11 2.1.1 Instrument Precision .............. 11 2.1.2 Instrument Accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.1.3 Measurement Uncertainty vs. Geologic
() Variability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.2 Variance Reduction Techniques ............. 12 2.2.1 Replication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.2.2 Duplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.2.3 Redundancy ................... 13 i
- 3. UNSATURATED ZONE MEASUREMENTS: INSTRUMENT EMPLACEMENT
- AND SCALE EFFECTS (Task 1) ................ 14 l
[
3.1 Description of Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.1.1 Psychrometers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.1.2 Tensiometers .................. 16 3.1.3 Vapor Extractors ................ 17 l 3.1.4 Neutron Probes ................. 17 3.1.5 Optical Fibers ................. 20
({})
3.1.6 Suction Lysimeters ............... 20
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pitn (REY. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - Page 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
[)
v Page 3.2 Testing of Emplacement Techniques ........... 20 3.2.1 Laboratory Bench Tests ............. 23 3.2.1.1 Unconsolidated media . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.2.1.2 Core samples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.2.2 Field Emplacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.2.2.1 Surface preparation .......... 24 3.2.2.2 Shallow surface boreholes ....... 24 3.2.2.3 Deeper boreholes . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3.2.2.4 Underground excavations ........ 26 3.3 Examination of Scale Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3.3.1 Parameter Variability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.3.2 Variability of Controlling Factors ....... 28 O
U
- 4. RELATED STUD IES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 4.1 Characterization of Matrix and Fracture Systems for Ground-Water Flux Properties (Task 2) . . . . . . . . . . . 29 4.1.1 Matrix Characterization ............... 29 4.1.1.1 Propeties of interest . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 4.1.1.2 Laboratory testing equipment ........ 30 4.1.1.3 Types of variability ............ 30 4.1.2 Fracture Characterization .............. 30 4.1.2.1 Properties of interest ........... 32 4.1.2.2 Field testing facilities .......... 32
- . 4.1.2.3 Testing techniques ............. 33 0
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - Pig? 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
(m)
Page 4.2 Analysis of Flux and Travel Times in Fracture-Matrix Systems (Task 3) ..................... 36 4.2.1 Stochastic and Numerical Sensitivity Analyses .... 36 4.2.2 Discrete Fracture and Dual Porosity Models . . . . . . 38 4.2.3 Two and Three-Dimensional Formulations . . . . . . . . 39 4.3 Comparisons of Computer Programs for Vapor-Liquid Flow Systems (Task 4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 4.3.1 Surface and Subsurface Heat Sources ......... 40 4.3.2 Steady-State Analyses ................ 40 4'3.3 Transient Responses
. ................. 40 4.3.4 Field and Laboratory Confirmation Studies ...... 41 4.4 Unsaturated Zone Liquid and Vapor Sampling (Task 5) . . . . . 41 4.4.1 Liquid Sampling ................... 43 4.4.2 Vapor Sampl i ng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 i 4.5 Ground-Water Recharge, Infiltration and Deep Percolation Studies (Task 6) ..............< 44 4.5.1 Identification of Infiltration Sites . . . . . . . . . 44 4.5.2 Estimation of Infiltration Volumes . . . . . . . . . . 45 4.5.3 Subsurface Vaporization and Redistribution . . . . . . 45 O
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - Octob r 1, 1986 - Page 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
O Pace V
4.6 Model Simulations of Field Site Conditions and Calibrations Using Ground-Water Chemistry (Task 7) ..... 46 4.6.1 Fracture Coatings .................. 47 4.6.2 Subsurface Waters .................. 47 4.7 Technical Workshops (Task 8) ................ 47
- 5. QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAM PLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 5.1 Project Organization and Responsibility ........ 49 Q 5.1.1 Administration ....... .......... 49 5.1.2 Responsibilities (by Title) . . . . . . . . . . . 49 5.1.2.1 Principal investigator . . . . . . . . . 49 5.1.2.2 Faculty investigators ......... 50 5.1.2.3 Post-doctoral research associate . . . . 50 5.1.2.4 Graduate research assistants . . . . . . 50 5.1.2.5 Quality assurance officer ....... 50 5.1.2.6 Technicians .............. 51 5.1.3 Personnel Qualifications ............ 51 5.2 Quality Assurance Program Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 5.2.1 TASK 1: Analysis of instrument emplacement and scale-effects of unsaturated zone measurements . 52 5.2.2 TASK 2: Characterization of matrix and fracture systems for groundwater flux properties . . . . . 52
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Oct:ber 1, 1986 - Pige 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
Pace 5.2.3 TASK 3: Analysis of fracture-matrix systems . . . 52 5.2.4 TASK 4: Comparisons of computer programs for vapor-liquid flow systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 5.2.5 TASK 5: Unsaturated zone liquid and vapor water sampling ................. 53 5.2.6 TASK 6: Ground-water recharge, infiltration and deep percolation studies .......... 53 5.2.7 TASK 7: Model simulation of field site conditions and calibrations using groundwater chemistry .. 54 5.3 Design Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 O 5.3.1 Test oes4 9 e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
! 5.3.2 Theoretical / Statistical Control . . . . . . . . . 55 l 5.3.3 Data Reduction / Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 5.4 Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 5.4.1 Field Procedures ................ 55 5.4.2 Laboratory Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 5.4.3 Sample Receipt and Storage / Disposal . . . . . . . 56 1
5.5 Test Equipment: Calibration and Maintenance ...... 56 5.5.1 Daily Analytical Calibration .......... 57 5.5.2 Calibration Certification . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 O
v l
(
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Page 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
O v Paoe 5.6 Document Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 4
5.6.1 Document Control ................ 57 5.6.2 Form Control .................. 58 5.6.3 Log Book Control ................ 58 5.6.4 Interfacing Acitivities Control . . . . . . . . . 58 a 5.7 Nonconformances/ Corrective Action ........... 58 5.8 ' Records ........................ 59 i
I 5.9 Verification of Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 i C. REFERENCES ......................... 60
, APPENDIX I. PERSONNEL RESUMES 4
APPENDIX II. 0A REPORT FORMS 1
O 1
I
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octob r 1, 1986 - Pzg3 8
- 1. INTRODUCTION m
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff have developed amenoments to 100FR60 on siting and performance for the deep geologic disposal of high-level nuclear waste (HLW) in the unsaturated zone. NRC has also reviewed and commented on the Departement of Energy's (DOE's) Draf t Environmental Assessments (E A's) for the Yucca Mountain site (an unsaturated zone site) and other sites. Research results from previous work at the Unviersity of Arizona (Unsaturated Flow and Transport
- Through Fracture Rock Related to High-Level Waste Repositories, Phase I and II, FIN B7291) contributed greatly to the development of the technical rationale (as presented in NUREG-1046) of amendments to 10CFR60, and to the NRC staff analysis of DOE's EA.
1.1 Statement g Problem n
V This work plan is based, in part, on NRC regulatory needs which originated in the technical review of 00E EA's. Additional research needs were identified in two symposium / peer-reviews of earlier research -
programs. The project described in this work plan is to concentrate on the assessment of important field-scale parameters and conceptual models which will be used to understand unsaturated flow and associated contaminant movement in both the vertical and horizontal directions.
Both fractured and/or stratified materials are to be examined and stochastic functions for characterizing their hydraulic properties (such
- as the effective hydraulic conductivity, the effective porosity, and the air permeability) will be assessed. The objective of this effort is to examine the following assumptions about ground-water flow and contaminant transport in unsaturated fractured media
- Can ground-water travel times and arrival time distributions be l
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octobar 1, 1986 - Page 9 accurately calculated if the assumption is made that unsaturated flow is predominantly through the matrix;
- Is the chemistry of water sampled beneath the regional water table in the saturated zone the same as the chemistry of water in the overlying unsaturated zone; and
- Can ground-water recharge be determined as the residual of I
precipitation minus mean evapotranspiration and runoff.
j l
The work will emphasize measurements and methods to:
- Determine the relative contributions of matrix flow and fracture i flow components in the total ground-water flow of an unsaturated fractured system;
- Assess geochemical sampling techniques for the unsaturated zone; and 4
- Determine ground-water flux and travel times for variably-saturated s
O "o"4sotaer= ' sistems-The University of Arizona will conduct field studies and model the observed processes and conditions to determine the relationship between
- field-scale parameters and physical-models for the purpose of describing f fluid flow and contaminant movement in unsaturated fractured rock.
Fractured unsaturated media will be analyzed to develop stochastic
- functions to spatially characterize hydrogeologic properties. Where
- possible, ground-water flow and transport models will be calibrated t
j using geochemical, isotopic and chemical data, t
- 1.2 Previous and Ongoing Research
! Initial efforts by the University of Arizona reviewed state-of-the-art i
l field and laboratory methods and techniques for assessing unsaturated
! flow conditions in porous media and for determining the appropriateness
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pltn (REV. 0) - OctoD:r 1, 1986 - P:ge 10 of these methods and techniques in deep, fractured geologic media.
Subsequent research concentrated on analyzing field methods for site evaluation, including methods for making measurements to characterize the moisture status, fracture geometry, and transport coefficients for water in both the liquid and vapor phases, as well as for thermal energy and contaminants.
Recent USGS (Water-Resource Investigations Report 84-4345 by Montazer) and Sandia National Laboratory (SAND 84-1417) reports indicate large contrasts and importance of matrix and fracture porosity and permeability measurements for determining ground-water flux and travel times in the unsaturated zone. They also highlighted the large variances in measurements of both matrix and fracture parameters.
In a relatec NRC research contract (FIN 88956) dealing with stochastic O
eae1 1 ses or ""seterateo r'o e#o essocietea tre"saort. the importe"ce or the degree of anisotropy of effective hydraulic conductivity and the relationship between the vertical and lateral components of contaminant movement in stratified, porous material has been demonstrated.
- 2. METHODS FOR CONTROLLING UNCERTAINTIES Due to large spatial and temporal variations ~ in parameters which describe the hydrogeology and geochemistry of subsurface media, the determination of factors which result in uncertain parameter estimates is an important component of site characterization. The variability may be induced naturally or may be due to measurement errors, either case i resulting in parameter uncertainty. Identification of the source of the uncertainty is particulary important for providing mitigating (i.e.,
controlling) measures, and for correctly characterizing the variability.
This section presents a brief description of potential sources of
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octcber 1, 1986 - P g: 11 uncertainty. Also presented are recommended procedures for reducing and 3 characterizing uncertainties.
(G 2.1 Icentification of Uncertainties Uncertainties result from natural geologic variability, from improper measurements, from inaccurate instruments, or from factors which are not control l ed. The effect of the uncertainty is to reduce the confidence in a proposed conceptual model, or to result in the incorrect specification of a conceptual model. It is planned that sources of variability be characterized with regard to the degree of uncertainty introduced in data collection and interpretation, as well as the influence of this uncertainty on system performance.
2.1.1 Instrument Precision System performance may not be correctly determined if system parameters are not measured with sufficient precision. For example, the determination of a hydraulic conductivity characteristic curve, which relates the hydraulic conductivity of a sample ~ to the fluid content, is critically dependent upon precise measurements. If such measurements are not performed with sufficient precision the application of the derived characteristic curve will predict inaccurate flow velocities.
It is important, therefore, that the sensitivity of system parameters be 1
related to instrument precision.
l l 2.1.2 Instrument Accuracy i
j Just as instrument precision may af fect system performance by not l
n providing correct estimates of system parameters, inaccurate U
measurements can yield uncertain parameter estimates. Such errors can
. NRC 04-86-114 - W rk Plan (REY. 0) - Octob2r 1, 1986 - P ge 12 result from neglecting controlling factors, such as temperature, or from n.
U human or methodological errors. Inaccurate readings can bias parameter estimates in such a manner that predictions, and/or interpretations are incorrect. Also, inaccurate readings can cause uncertainties which exceed acceptable standards.
2.1.3 Measurement Uncertainty vs. Geologic Variability While parameter uncertainties may result from inaccurate or imprecise instruments, the uncertainties may also be attributable to natural geologic variability. The influence of natural variability can be difficult to distinguish from instrument error. If a regional trend is found or if a substantial autocorrelation is present, then the variability induced by the trend or autocorrelation can be modeled and used to reduce the overall uncertainty. If, however, there exists a (3
V residual variance, then a determination must be made as to whether the source of this uncertainty is natural or measurement-induced.
2.2 Variance Reduction Technioues
! It is planned that variance-reduction techniques be used to minimize
! instrument and measurement errors. Sources of uncertainty, specified in the previous section, can be reduced if measures are taken to avoid and to eliminate those sources. Described below are procedures which can be used to minimi:e uncertainties.
I 1
2.2.1 Replication l
Replication involves the repeated sampling using one instrument. The instrument is used to collect information about parameters of interest.
Sampling is performed numerous times on the same sample, or is performed l
~
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octcber 1, 1986 - P ge 13 in conjunction with samples obtained from various locations. The b purpose of replicated sampling is to provide an estimate of the precision of the measurment technique, as well as to characterize spatial variability. Influences such as temperature can be monitored and an analysis can be performed to determine the effect the influences have on measurements.
2.2.2 Duplication Duplication is the use of a number of identical instruments to measure a specific sample. Variability induced by inaccurate instruments can be determined using this technique. It is planned that at least five instruments of common manufacture be monitored to determine variability induced by each, and to estimate the magnitude of bias generated by using an inaccurate measurment device.
2.2.3 Redundancy The acquisition of field data will be constrained by the~ necessity to j
demonstrate the suitability of established techniques, as well as to
- confirm recently developed techniques. By applying different techniques l
l to measure the parameter of interest, a degree of confidence can be
! establishted with regard to the experimental methods employed.
l l
l Redundancy is the use of a number of different instruments or techniques l
l to determine system parameters. By estimating parameters using independent techniques, an additional estimate of bias can be obtained.
In addition, systematic errors induced by ignoring controlling variables, such as temperature, can be examined. This is possible
! Decause each technique may be not respond in the same way to the controlling variable.
, NRC 04'86-114 - Work Plin (REY. 0) - Octob;r 1, 1986 - Pig 3 14
- 3. UNSATURATED ZONE MEASUREMENTS: INSTRUMENT EMPLACEMENT AND SCALE g)
( EFFECTS (Task 1)
The important contributors to measurment errors and uncertainties asso-ciated with hydrologic instrumentation and measurement in the unsatur-ated zone must be identified. Uncertainties in field data resulting from the instruments, methods of measurement and the related field test procedures will also be investigated. A range of test conditions and procedures will be incorporated into the analysis. As an example, test procedure would be alternating wetting and drying conditions as well as prolonged moisture cycles. Specifications of conditions and procedures will be developed in conjunction with the NRC project manager.
Researcn will be conducted on the parameters described in Section 4.1.
In addition, instruments and techniques used to measure the parameters G are described in Section 3.1.
Q Facilities available to perform these tests are presented in Section 3.2. Techniques used to investigate scale effects are discussed in Section 3.3.
3.1 Description of Instruments The determination of system parameters in unsaturated fractured rock requires the use of instruments which have generally been modified from their intended use in more porous geologic materials. It is the purpose of this section to describe and discuss the instruments and techniques used to estimate hydrogeologic and geochemical parameters.
3.1.1 Psychrometers Thermocouple psychrometers (Figure 1) are used to determine moisture potential indirectly by measuring the dew-point depression which is a
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octob r 1, 1986 - Page 15 O
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. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - Page 16 function of the relative humidity of the enivronment in which the O asyc8cometers ere nieced. The reietive aem4d4t> cen. 4e turn. be related to the moisture potential. Each psychrometer will produce slightly different responses to identical moisture potentials, due to variations in psychrometer. construction. In addition, variability of emplacement will affect derived moisture potentials.
To assess measurement variability, a study of emplacement methods in fractured rock will be performed. One emplacement metnod to be examined is the use of silica flour envelopes. The uncertainty in the field resul ts (e.g., the recorded pressure response of the psychrometer probes) will be assessed with respect to the effects of the method used to emplace the probes in the borehole, as well as the material used to assure hydraulic contact between the probe container and the rock.
O 3.1.2 Tens 4emeters The standard tensiometer consists of a porous, ceramic cup connected by a rigid tube to a device for measuring negative pressures, such as a vacuum gage, a manometer, or a pressure transducer. The entire apparatus is filled with pure water, sealed and inserted at a desired l depth within an unsaturated medium. Water moves into or out of the l porous cup until a pressure equilibrium is achieved.
Use of the tensiometer is limited to pressures less than 0.8 bars suction. In addition, the measurement of moisture potential does not include osmotic effects, as the porous cup is permeable to solutes. It is also difficult to obtain a good hydraulic contact between the tensiometer and the borehole wall. It is planned that a better contact-making material be developed and tested.
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - Octcber 1, 1986 - Page 17 It is also planned that the use of an osmotic tensiometer (Figure 2) be
[] further examined. The osmotic tensiometer employs a semi-permeaDie membrane to exclude a large molecule. The configuration would measure matrix pressures by equilibrating the sum of the hydraulic and solute potentials within the tensiometer with the matrix hydraulic potential.
3.1.3 Vapor Extractors Due to the inherent limitations of collecting liquid samples within unsaturated rock, it is planned that techniques developed for collecting samples as vapor be evaluated. Vapor can be collected from the subsurface (Figure 3) to determine whether liquid water in association with the vapor contains or does not contain a specific compound. For example, the vapor can be inspected for concentrations of tritium (an isotope of hydrogen generated by above-ground nuclear tests) to O ceter=4"e e# enorox4=ete eete or the water 4# tae rock =etr4x meerer.
Also, volatile organic compounds can be collected using a vapor extractor to determine tracer breakthrough curves.
3.1.4 Neutron Probes Neutron ' probes employ a source of fast neutrons to determine the water content within a zone surrounding the source. The fast neutrons are moderated by water; being thermalized to slow neutrons and subsequently
! detected within the borehole. Changes in counts of slow neutrons can be attributed to changes in water content. The absolute water content is difficult to determine, however, due to differences in attenuation by the host rock. Techniques to calibrate the neutron probe to variable field conditions require the accurate determination of the composition of the host rock. Such techniques shalI be further examined.
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pltn (REY. 0) - October 1. 1986 - P gn 18 O
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octobsr 1, 1986 - PIge 19
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - Page 20 3.1.5 Optical Fibers n '
Light transmission through 'a curved quartz rod can be related to the water status of the surrounding medium (Figure 4). Increased water content results in a decreased transmission of light due to the change in the refraction across the air-glass, water-glass interface. The range of volumetric water conte'nt measured in one experiment was 0.10 to 0.40. Calibration of the technique requir'es the use of a Tempe pressure cell. It is possible that this technique can be extended from unconsolidated materials to rock using different packing techniques.
3.1.6 Suction Lysimeters Water samples from the unsaturated zone are important for obtaining chemical data useful in subsurface characterization or monitoring O programs near waste impoundments. Suction lysimeters (Figure 5) have been use.d for this purpose in geologic materials near saturation.
Suction lysimeters suffer from emplacement and saturation restrictions similar to those appropriate for tensiometers, discussed in Section 3.1.2. It may be possible, however, to extend the range of pressures to beyond 0.8 bars suction by over-pressurizing the matrix with air. Over-s pressurization may result in a stronger grac" mt in the liquid phase toward the porous cup, and enhanced water M o p /.
3.2 Testing of Emolacement Technioues To determine representative hydrologic parameters, as well as estimates of the variability and uncertainties of these parameters, a field site wi,ll be instrumented with monitoring and test equipment. To minimize uncertainties introduced by differences between sensors, the equipment will first have been calibrated in a laboratory and then transported to s
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Pag 2 21 AIR WATER n = 1.0003 n = 1.33 l l l- .
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pltn (REY. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - pig 2 22 O
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work PlIn (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - P;ga 23 the field for use. Because all variability between instruments can not be removed, a number of repetitions wil1 need to be performed.
3.2.1 Laboratory Bench Tests Examination of instruments and procedures at the laboratory scale are required because of limitations of testing at larger scales. In addition, laboratory tests are required to pre-test and/or calibrate instruments which will subsequently- be used for field tests. And finally, laboratory tests may be required to confirm or to authenticate tests conducted at field scales. Such tests are performed on either unconsolidated samples such as soils or on consolidated samples such as rock cores. Both types of samples are useful for different purposes.
Unconsolidated samples are useful for testing techniques originally developed for soils. Extension to consolidated media is expedited by
{} first using an unconsolidated media, followed by applications to rock.
3.2.1.1 Unconsolidated media Unconsolidated media refers to materials which are weakly to non-indurated, such as soils. To determine representative system parameters within such materials, the integrity of the samples must be preserved.
Soil coring devices are used to collect and transport the samples to the l aboratory. Such samples may then be used to test instruments in an environment where materials of high porosity and hydraulic conductivity are required.
l 3.2.1.2 Core samples Core samples from consolidated media, such as rock, are necessary for determining many of the system parameter described in Section 4.1. Rock t
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1,1986 - P ge 24 cores are collected from orilling operations. Orientation and location of the rock sample is preserved and used to relate individual cores to the original host rock.
3.2.2 Field Emplacement The planned site for performing experiments at field scales is located near Superior, Arizona. The geologic material in which the site lies is a tuffaceous ash-flow sheet made up of an undetermined number of separate ash flows. Both an abandoned road tunnel on U.S. Route 60 (the Queen Creek Road Tunnel site) and a flat-lying surface exposure (the Apache Leap Tuff site) can be used (Figure 6).
3.2.2.1 Surface preparation O The surface of the Apache Leap Tuff site will be prepared so that individual fractures can be isolated from the atmosphere. By isolating individual fractures, controlled surface injection tests can be performed and monitored at depth. Without isolation, transient effects, such as evaporation and rainfall, can disturb test conditions.
3.2.2.2 Shallow surface boreholes To allow rapid emplacement of, and easy access to, subsurface monitoring equipment, shallow boreholes (less than 30 cm deep) have been placed near tne Apache Leap Tuff site. These testing holes are a w oximately 2 cm in diameter, allowing for the comparison of probes and for testing 4
various emplacement strategies. The boreholes are located at the Apache Leap Tuff site near er,isting, deeper boreholes described in the 3 following subsection.
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. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pltn (REV. 0) - Oct b:r 1, 1986 - Pzge 26 3.2.2.3 Deeper borenoles .O V
Three types of deeper boreholes can be provided to monitor hydrologic processes in the unsaturated zone. Vertical boreholes allow for the sampling of parameters as a function of depth. Horizontal boreholes provide for sampling of spatial variability at a particular depth. Inclined boreholes provide the ability to monitor both horizontal and vertical variability. A strategy for borehole construction will be developed to provide optimal sampling capability. Currently, three inclined boreholes are available for measureing hori-zontal and vertical hydraulic and pneunatic flow properties (Figure 7). Additional boreholes will be installed so that subsurface instrumentation will allow access to a depth of at least 30 m. th 3.2.2.4 Underground excavations The Queen Creek Road Tunnel site provides an opportunity to estimate hydrogeologic and geochemical parameters in subsurface excavations. The site is located in the unit with the highest degree of welding. Mois-ture conditions in the tuff at the road tunnel are currently being monitored using two sets of horizontal boreholes drilled approximately 0.9 m apart. In addition to measurements of moisture conditions, a j small heater experiment has been performed to determine the movement of water in the presence of a thermal driving force. Results from the sn.all experiment will be used to design a larger experiment. 3.3 Examination of Scale Effects To address the issue of scale effects, the parameters identified in Section 4.1 will be examined at laboratory and field scales. While the l
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - Page 27 b v 0 10 20 30 meters
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. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pitn (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Pige 28 parameters can be estimated using procedures appropriate for laboratory O sceie semnies (4.e.. enorex4 eteiy 0.1 m semoies). tae neremeters so obtained may or may not be appropriate for developing models at the scale of a repository (i.e., approximately 5000 m). The research will, therefore, be directed toward the collection and interpretation of data obtaihed from a scale larger than that of f.he laboratory. The scale of research will be intermediate between laboratory and repository scales.
3.3.1 Parameter Variability To estimate the natural variability of system parameters, account must be made of a persistent drift, or trend, component. Also, neighboring samples may be strongly correlated. To characterize parameters of interest, statistical tools such as ordinary least squares (OLS), generalized least squares (GLS), maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) and universal kriging (UK) will be applied to data obtained from laboratory and field t'ests. These tools will be used to identify the structure and trend of system parameters. Such structures and trends may be largely dependent on the scale of interest. The relation between scale and parameter estimates will be defined. 3.3.2 Variability of Controlling Factors It may be important to' account for controlling factnes, such as tempera-ture. The controlling factor may be a scale-dependent phenomenon and influence the measurement of the parameter of interest. For example, if j temperature is highly variable within the sample being tested, then i computed properties may be different than when a sample is measured at a ! Scale within which the temperature is uniform. It is planned that controlling factors be specified and their influence on estimated system parameters be estimated as a function of scale.
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pltn (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Pag 29
- 4. RELATED STUDIES O
v The suitability of a candidate geologic repository site for the long-term isolation of HLW requires that a characterization program be per-formed with regard to fluid flow and contaminant transport in unsatur-ated, fractured rock. It is the purpose of this study to provide methodologies for this characterization with regard to field and data reduction techniques. 4.1 Characterization g Matrix and Fracture Systems for Ground-Water Flux Properties (Task 2) Of primary interest is the ability to evaluate the suitability of a system for its ground-water flux properties. Fracture and matrix flow are both possible alone or in various combinations. The importance of Q v matrix versus fracture flow can be evaluated by comparing the hydraulic conductivity of each media. Matrix flow may dominate when the fluid potential is greater than one bar suction and when the matrix porosity and interconnections between pores is high. Fracture flow may dominate, however, when the fracture system is continuous and the fluid potential is less than one bar suction. Each of the two flow mechanisms are described in the following subsections. 4.1.1 Matrix Characterization The rock matrix is the portion of.the geologic medium which consists of consolidated materials exclusive of large voids and fractures. Pores within the rock matrix are generally small, ranging in diameter from Angstrom to micron sizes. Matrix flow can be estimated using macroscop-ic parameters such as the hydraulic conductivity. Such parameters are ensemble averages and have a small variance
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pl:n (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - P ga 30 4.1.1.1 Propeties of interest Of particular interest in the characterization of matrix properties is the estimation of porosity (e s), water content (e), percent saturation (e/e s), hydraulic conductivity characteristic curve (K(e)), moisture characteristic curve (h(e)), diffusivity (0(e)), slope of the moisture characteristic curve (C), pore size distribution, pneumatic conductivity
. (P(e)), and pneumatic diffusivity (Dp (e)). 4.1.1.2 Laboratory testing equipment
, To determine the system parameters described in the previous subsection, laboratory techniques such as Tempe pressure cells (Figure 8) and pressure plates will be employed. These techniques were originally developed for unconsolidated media. Extension to consolidated media has been tested by Rahi (1986). Additional tests wil1 be performed to measure variability and to refine existing techniques.
4.1.1.3 Types of variability Variability will result from p.atial and temporal changes in the parameter of interest. In general, sampling to measure spatial variability requires a large number of repetitions. To ensure a meaningful estimate of spatial variability, the maximum number of repetitions will be performed. Ongoing laboratory tests will be emphasized so that changes in spatial parameters can be obtained. 4.1.2 Fracture Characterization While matrix parameters can be accurately estimated using macroscopic observations, fracture parameters are more uncertain. This is entirely f
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Page 31 O , V
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Paga 32 the result of the smaller number of potential flow paths. For an (] extremely fractured medium, the Law of Large Numbers can be used to show that the variance of the mean is vanishingly small. On the other hand, it may not be possible to characterize a medium which consists of a lesser number of flow paths using ensemble averages. Instead, the characterization of individual fractures must be performed and the resulting information used to estimate network permeabilities. 4.1.2.1 Properties of interest Of particular concern for estimating fluid flow and transport through networks of discrete fractures is the ability to quantify geometric properties of the fractures. Fracture orientations, densities, spacing, lengths, shapes and apertures are important system parameters. In addition, the fracture moisture characteristic curve must be estimated. The characteristic curve is approximated using capillary theory and an assumed distribution of fracture apertures. To date, no experiments have been performed to estimate in situ fracture characteristic curves. 4.1.2.2 Field testing facilities Existing facilities for the estimation of fracture parameters include three inclined boreholes at the Apache Leap Tuff site and four horizontal boreholes at the Queen Creek Road Tunnel site. Additional inclined boreholes will be installed at the Apache Leap Tuff site. The ground surface near the boreholes will be covered to provide controlled injection rates of liquids to the underlying fracture network. To estimate moisture characteristic curves, boreholes will be drilled within the plane of an individual fracture. Crosshole tests will be conducted to determine fracture apertures and moisture content changes.
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pltn (REV. 0) - Octcber 1. 1986 - P;g2 33 4.1.2.3 Testing techniques (3 V The application of established and newly-developed methods will be required to estimate fracture parameters and te confirm flow rates and travel times through fracture nG. works. Three types of flow tests are
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planned; surface injection, singPe-hole ano cross-hole injection. Injection rates at the ground surface can be controlled using drip irrigators, or by using the Fractured Rock Infiltrometer (Figure 9) described by Kilbury et al. (1986). Arrival of injected pulses will be monitored in the underlying fracture network using fluorescent, helium gas, ar.d volatile gas tracers. The arrival of a fluorescent tracer will be monitored by using a source in the ultra-violet and a detector in the visible (Figure 10). Laboratory experiments will be required to select the optimum dye. The arrival of a volatile gas tracer will be monitored (] using a gas chromatograph. Helium gas will be monitored using a thermal conductivity probe. The movement of liquids injected at the ground surf ace can also be monitored using geotomography. Geotomography employs a radio-wave source and a suite of detectors to collect attenuated and reflected energy. An efficient algorithm is employed to deconvolute the signal which yields a three-dimensional map of the moisture content of the rock. It may be possible to distinguish between matrix annd fracture flow using this technique. Helium gas can also be used for cross-hole injection experimerits. Travel times through individual fractures and through intersecting fractures can be estimated in the gas phase. Application to flow in the liquid phase is possible by calculating the intrinsic permeability which will be constant for Newtonian fluids with low Reynold's numoers. I
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan -(REY. 0) - October 1,1986 - P:ge 34 O
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NRC 04-86-114 - niork Plan (REY. 0) - Oct:ber 1, 1986 - P ge 35 O 9 E i-W 6 C N' m 5 - 00a i c 1 s-I' W animo G ACID k 2" d LisS AMIMC FF 400 SCO 60 0 700 WAVEL ENGT H (nm )
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - Oct::ber 1,1986 - Pag 2 36 1 Transient single-hole pneumatic injection tests may be useful for identifying slowly-changing flow rates in the gas phase. It may be possible to attribute such changes to leakage into the rock matrix. The I technique would be used in conjunction with the heat-pulse flowmeter (Figure 11) to compare pneumatic tests to hyoraulic tests so that confirmation of results can be achieved. l 4.2 Analysis of Flux and Travel Times in Fracture-Matrix Systems (Task 3) Fracture-matrix systems, characterized in Section 4.1, wilI be examined j for the purpose of performing sensitivity analyses and for generating stochastic estimates of fluid flows and travel times. The analyses will be performed for various fracture attributes under a wide range of l conditions for both a system of discrete fractures and using the dual porosity formulation. 1 j 4.2.1 Stochastic and Numerical Sensitivity Analyses I l The stochastic formulation of the influence of matrix heterogeneities on ! fluid flow is currently being examined by a related NRC research program (FIN B8956). The influence of such heterogeneities on travel time distributions has not been addressed, however. It is planned that a stochastic analysis of travel times, called the dual formulation, be i performed. Such an analysis is consistent with previous work, but will provide a direct estimate of the influence of matrix heterogeneities on the distribution of travel times under steady state conditions. I In addition to the stochastic formulation, numerical sensitivity analyses will be performed to investigate the influence of scale on a fluid flow rates and travel times in unsaturated, fractured rock. In
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plcn (REV. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Piga 38 particular, the coefficient of dispersion has been demonstrated to respond strongly to the reference length. The Peclet number, a dimensionless parameter, is one means for describing the influence of scale on dispersion. Other relations can also be incorporated. To garner as much information about a physical system as possible from limited data and computational resources, a series of scenarios will be examined. The scenarios will include such parameters as fracture lengths, densities, and orientations will be examined for their effect on network hydraulic conductivity. 4.2.2 Discrete Fracture and Dual Porosity Models Geologic media can be characterized by two distinct flow regimes; fracture and matrix. A model of these flow regimes must include the
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capability for interaction between matrix and fracture flows. One means for achieving this interaction is to superimpose a fracture flow model onto a matrix flow model and to allow for coupling between the two. This dual-porosity formulation is commonly used for modeling fractured geologic media. Both the fracture flow and matrix flow models use parameters which are assumed to be, macroscopic in a statistical sense, i.e., they are ensemble averages. The discrete fracture formulation uses data which is microscopic in a statistical sense, i.e., they are generated from individual fractures. It is planned that a comparison be mace to evaluate the two formulations as to their suitability for estimating fluid flow a..d transport processes. Such a comparison will ' be based on specific idealized scenarios which are representative of conditions at a proposed repository location. O
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Pag 2 39 4.2.3 Two and Three-Dimensional Formulations n
i 4 In conjunction with the analysis of fractured media formulations, an analysis will be performed to evaluate the effect of simplifying fracture networks to two-dimensional representations. In such a representation, the fracture is treated as a line, which can be convenient if computational resources are limiting. The effect of reducing the dimensionality of the analysis is to reduce the number of potential flow paths within a network. Also, dispersion within a one-dimensional fracture only occurs in the longitudinal direction. No dispersion in the transverse direction is possible. 4.3 Comparisons of Computer Proorams for Vaoor-Liouid Flow Systems (Task 4) A comparison of computer programs developed under FIN B7291 to assess vapor-liquid flow under a variety of site conditions will be performed. Emphasis in the comparisons will be on site properties (such as air permeability and thermal conductance) which will affect vapor phase fluxes and travel times. The use of computer simulation models to represent pre-emplacement flow conditions is substantially simpler than the models required to represent post-emplacement conditions. Pre-emplacement models are f l representations of a system at steady state, or nearly steady state. As l i such, many of the parameters are time-invariant (i.e., the parameters do not vary substantially with time). . Calibration of such a model can be f limited to a small set of variables. Post-emplacement models are more complex. Not only are more parameters ,g in vol v ed, but many of the parameters are also time-varying. For
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pltn (REY. 0) - Oct ber 1, 1986 - Page 40 example, the ambient temperature generally can be neglected in pre-emplacement models. After emplacemnt, the temperature must be ('O_/ considered, and in a time-varient manner. This is not to say that it is infeasible to develop, Calibrate and apply post-emplacement models. It is important to note that post-emplacement models are more uncertain and require more testing and development than pre-emplacement models. 4.3.1 Surface and Subsurface Heat Sources For a pre-emplacement model, the only sources of thermal energy (required to supply energy for vaporization of water) are the geothermal gradient, and solar insolation at the ground surf ace. An additional subsurf ace heat source would be the transient heating imposed by HLW cannisters. The influence of these different heat sources will be investigated by developing computer models to describe coupled heat and fluid flow through fractured, unsaturated geologic media.
] .
4.3.2 Steady-State Analyses The geothermal heat source can be treated as a constant flux source, while the surf ace heating source can be treated as a periodic source term. The fundamental periods assumed would be as an annual cycle and as a daily cycle. The effect of the daily cycle may or may not be important. The effect of the annual cycle, however, may be substantial. l The effect on downward percolation and recharge will be examined using a one-dimensional model oriented along a vertical transect. 4.3.3 Transient Responses Once a steady-state model has been calibrated and tested, a transient model will be developed. The transient model will be a dual-porosity,
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4 . NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pitn (REY. 0) - Octob;r 1, 1986 - Page 41 two-dimensional, radially-symmetric model with .the addition of an interior, cylindrical heat source with a radius dimension being much larger than the height dimension. The heat source will be modeled by assuming the source is a composite of a number of negative exponential decay terms. 4.3.4 Field and Laboratory Confirmation Studies Field and l abora tory experiments will be designed to test the j fundamental assumptions employed in the computer models. Calibration of the models will be accomplished using data obtained from heating ~ experiments (Figure 12). It is planned that the experiments be performed in unsaturated, fractured tuff. A site which 'is ideally suited for the experiments required to accomplish the objectives of this task is the Queen Creek Road Tunnel site. O 4.4 Unsaturated Zone Liauid and Vapor Samoling (Task 5) Geochemical sampling techniques, including in situ liquid and vapor sampling methods, will be examined and evaluated for unsaturated fractured media as well as for locally-perched ground water. Existing i sampling techniques for unconsolidated porous media at slightly negative l potentials will be considered. i The assumption that ground water sampled from the top of the saturated i zone is chemically similar to overlying water in the unsaturated zone will be tested. The in situ ground-water composition will be sampled and its influence on radioactive speciation will be determined. The j specific geochemcical factors which will be sampled include isotopic and . other diagnostic information. Chemical equilibria will also be determined. l
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NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pltn (REY. 0) - Octtber 1, 1986 - P ge 42 0) N.J OBSERVATION BOREMCLE Y f '
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p- iT l p'IPE - Q p i & M USE l V/, $ CLS WALL NM [f ( - PSYCHROMET[F [j C.89 m l hCR$ LEADS , 4 To CONTROL Box figure 12: Diagram of heating element and th'ermocouple located behind packer (right borehole) and packers isolating psychrometers (left borehole) at Queen Creek Road Tunnel site.
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - P:g3 43 4.4.1 Liquid Sampling Various sampling techniques exist for collecting water from saturated media. From unsaturated media, however, the in situ collection range is limited to only.the wet range, i.e., less than about 0.2 bars suction.
Within this range, several sampling methodologies for unconsolidated media are regularly employed, such as porous cups. Because porous cups have only been employed for unconsolidated media, existing methodologies must be altered to allow for the collection of samples in rock. A second problem exists for collecting samples from media which are beyond the 0.2 bar suction range. New techniques must be developed and tested, such as the use of an injection / recovery procedure. The pro-posed method consists of introducing a known volume of pure water under pressure into the media to raise the water content. Once the pure water O has mixed with the formation water, a suction is applieo to recover the mixture. Another technique is to use air pressurization tubes to provide an overpressure on the air phase which is transmitted to the water phase. The water would then move toward a porous cup. Thds technique may only work in consolidated
- material because the air would be lost too quickly in unconsolidated media. The pressurized recovery method could be performed at a number of applied pressures, such as 1, 5 and 15 bars.
4.4.2 Vapor Sampling When liquid sampling is judged to be infeasible, collection of vapor may be the only viable method for collecting water samples. Samples of water and other vapors can be collected by condensation around a cold surface. The cold surface can be generated using Peltier or other i
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Pag 2 44 coolin; processes. Any volatile material within the media, such as an O 4"Jecte= voiat4'e comoo""e ce" oe coi'ectea 4" t"4s =a#"er- Tr4t4#= 4 would also be collected. Collected vapors can be analyzed for the
! concenvation ratios of deuterium and oxygen isotopes. This information can be interpreted for evaluating fractionation ratios with respect to evaporation rates. Additional interpretations can be performed in '
relation to Section 4.6 which discusses the use of geochemical informa-ion for the purpose of model calibration and validation. 4.5 Ground-Water Recharge, Infiltration and Deep Percolation Studies (Task 6) i The analysis of infiltration into a fractured rock system and its subse-quent percolation into a deep fractured system through faults, intercon-nected 'ractures, high permeability matrix zones and other heterogeneous I conditions will be examined. Methods for the determination of ground- ' water infiltration, its redisoosition with depth, and its potential for perching and lateral movement,will be assessed. The assu 1ption that recharge can be determined as the residual of pre-cipitation minus mean evapotranspiration will be examined with respect to spatial and temporal variabilities. In addition the assumption will tested by examining the infiltration, deep percolation, and recharge as determined using meteorological and near-surface hydrologic studies in conjunction with published literature on the subject. l 4.5.1 Icentification of Infiltration Sites
- Potential infiltration sites in dry climates are limited to areas which collect and concentrate infrequent atmospheric precipitation. Tnis is because rain falling on soil will generally be evaporated or transpired I
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, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - P:g2 45
'to the atmosphere. Water which is concentrated in areas which collect O re4#<eii. s#ch es ser<ece aearess4o#s e#a streem co#rses. ~411 evenerate and/or be transpired at a slower rate.
Exposures of fractures at the ground surface are often associated with surface depressions. These depressions collect runoff from surrounding areas and funnel them into a fracture network, thus creating an increased duration and volume of infiltration. Stream courses of ten foilow fault zones wnere erosion and weathering are more rapid. Ephem-eral stream flow through such water courses also concentrates infrequent rainfall into fracture networks. 4.5.2 Estimation of Infiltration Volumes Infiltration volumes can be estimated by applying event-based simulation O st#eies or arecia4tet4om- a##ar< e#o 4 <41tret4o# ere ooeiea es4#9 topographic information about storage capacities of streams and depres-sions. These volumes are dependent upon the number of storms in a year, the amount of rainf all in each storm, and the intensity of rainfall during the storm. Streams and surface depressions are modeled by esti-mating contributing areas, storage capacities, and evaporation rates. Infiltration rates are limited by the number of fractures which inter-sect the depression, and the lengths and apertures of these fractures. 4.5.3 Subsurface Vaporization and Redistribution Once water has reached the subsurf ace environment, the liquid may be imediately vaporized and transported through the matrix and/or fracture network, it may be absorbed by roots and transpired, or it may contri-bute to deep percolation. A portion of the deep percolation component may also be vaporized, transported to the surface and released to the
4
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work P1:n (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Page 46 .
atmosphere. The water which reaches the deepest water table contributes to ground-water recharge. The vaporization and redistribution..of - j subsurface water is largely dependent upon available therma 1 energy. Models which describe the redistribution of water as liquid and vapor , are described in Section 4.3. a i 4.6 Model Simulations of Field Site Conditions and Calibrations Usino Ground-Water Chemistry (Task 7) ,? Assessments will be made of unsaturated flow phenomena by modeling the 1
! field site using derived field scale data and appropriate boundary - ,
j conditions. Two models will be used; a stochastic model,'and a j deterministic model that utilizes statistically-generated input data. ' The models will be used to simulate the ground-water flux and transport ' processes. The effect of using statistically-generated input data on
'O moael outaut aerrormeace w411 oe ecoressee waere eaproar4ete. :
Validation of the model using isotopic and diagnostic hydrochemical data 4 will be attempted. ,
/
Relationships between natural ground-water chemical conditions and unsaturated zone properties and flow conditions will be identified - and/or developed if necessary. Geochemical data will be used to provide additional, supportive evidence for both model validation and system ' performance. The confirmation of postulated conditions is important I when substantial uncertainties are present. If necessary, additional calibration data will be collected. The data will be used to either , l confirm the hypothesized conditions, or to develop alternate ' l conceptualizations. An improv,ed assessment of system performance can be j obtained by integrating the data acquisition program with model design and calibration. ~ 1 l t
. . _ . . _ _ _ _ _ . - _ - _ . . _ . _ _ . _ . . . _ . . _ _ . . - . _ _ , . . _ _ _ _ _ ~ . _ - _ . _
,VS wNRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octob r 1, 1986 - P;g2 47 f 1 l .e 4.6.1 Eracture Coatings
.O '
Fracture surface coatings are useful for assessing natural ground-water conditioEs' (Figure 13). The coatings can be used to estimate relative
,',;, fluxes through the fracture and matrix using stable isotope ratios of
, I ' oxygen and carbon (deber, 1986). In addition, varnishes on the surface
'/
Mf fractures ~centain measurable concentrations of radioactive carbon-14,
. i.,,
I which can rea'used in special circumstances to date the age of the
. ;t arnish.; Uranium / thorium ratios found in fracture-filling minerals can
,< also be used to date the minerals under conditions where dates on the C ., order of a 100,000 years or more are expected. Also, calcite and silica
{, "mobilizati n can be used to describe past and present chemical cond.itions with respect to saturation levels of these parameters in
~, '
ground water. l O ' 4.6.2 suosur'ece weters 4 P' Samples of surface and subsurface waters from streamflow, seeps, boreholes, anb mine shafts can be analyzed with respect to carbon-14 as v . well as tritium concentrations for the purpose of age-dating the water, [ [ By age-datiSg the water, the relative mobility of the water can be evaluat,ed and estimates of travel times can be obtained for purposes of mode'l validation. Saturation indices can also be used to evaluate flow paths by n'oting that equilibrium reactions' proceed at slow rates. The
~
j r-presence or absence of high saturation indices yields information about ! ground-water flow paths. . lA;l Technical Workshoos (Task 8)
'In o'edcr to review and assess the research findings and to suggest l " Improvements in techniques and methodologies for future tasks, two
s ,
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work ' Plan (REY. 0) - October 1,1986 - Pagn 48 t
(~~'r u) s# o t c'o' 0-e, # ai t ,sses
+c 'O ot"Ee - ,W
'S: W: Q ,
' ' 55'~_':~
5-a d ,s t* " 3,,
,s sta b' ' ,,
kud "', gat S y f-O le g0 O ' Figure 13: Schematic representation of cD and 018 0 of clay minerals (or other minerals sucn 'as diagenetic quartz which contains both hydrogen and oxygen) and a meteoric water source. At temperature T1 the isotopic composition of a particular clay mineral form along a line parallel to isotopic compositions l of meteroric water. As temperatures increase the clay mineral line approaches the meteoric water line (T3>T2> l T1 ). Dashed lines connect hypothecticai meteoric water for a specific climate and latitude in equilibrium with clay at l different temperatures (adapted from Savin, 1980). For extensive, open fractures, the extent and degree of meteoric water input can be determined by the correlation of the isotopic signature of the fracture-filling mineral to that of meteoric water and/or ground water for a given area.
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - Pag: 49 workshops will be convened by the University of Arizona. The emphasis ('/) of the workshops will be on presentation and technical discussions of w the research results, problems encountered, and important issues derived from the issues and problems. A workshop report on the significant technical discussions relevant to the project activities will be provided. Identified technical improvements derived from the workshops to be used in subsequent tasks will be submitted to the NRC.
- 5. QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAM PLAN 5.1 Project Organization and Resoonsibility 5.1.1 Administration The Vice President for Research is the officer responsible for all
() university research contracts. The Engineering Experiment Station Director is administratively responsible for all research contracts of faculty within the College of Engineering, including financial matters. The Principal Investigator has the responsibility for performing the research tasks of the contract. All faculty investigators and staff report to the Principal Investigator on matters pertaining to the contract. 5.1.2 Responsibilities (by Title) I ! 5.1.2.1 Principal investigator l The Principal Investigator has overall responsibility for accomplishing the technical tasks included in tne contract. He will have responsibil-ity for hiring qualified staff and for arrangements with participating V faculty. He will maintain contact with the NRC project manager of the l
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pitn (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Page 50 contract and will be responsible for> timely progress reports on the ) research.
5.1.2.2 Faculty investigators The faculty investigators will provide their expertise to the tasks and perform research on the portions of the tasks as appropriate. 5.1.2.3 Post-doctoral research associate The post doctoral research associate will perform research as appro-priate and assist in the preparation of reports and scientific papers. He will supervise field and laboratory studies and maintain quality assurance at all stages of the studies, in cooperation with the quality assurance officer, l') V 5.1.2.4 Graduate research assistants The graduate research assistants will be assigned certain aspects of the tasks and they will perform the research under the guidance of the research associate and Principal Investigator. They will also perform tasks in general support of the project. 5.1.2.5 Quality assurance officer Develop and maintain all Quality Assurance files, ensure that laboratory procedures are followed, prepare documents, and maintain calibration schedules. The person will perform research tasks and assist with the preparation of reports and scientific papers resulting from the 3 research, (d
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1,1986 - P;gn 51 5.1.2.6 Technicians The technician will carry out tasks as defined by the research associate and Principal Investigator. The tasks will include laboratory and field measurements as appropriate. He will be responsible for maintaining equipment in working order and necessary supplies on hand. 5.1.3 Personnel Qualifications All experience summaries and qualifications are given in Appendix I. The major participants are: Daniel Evans Principal Investigator James McCray Faculty Investigator Arthur Warrick Faculty Investigator hi Jim Yeh Faculty Investigator Geochemist (TBA) Faculty Investigator Todd Rasmussen Post-Doctoral Research Associate Priscilla Sheets Quality Assurance Officer TBA Research Technician TBA Graduate Research Assistant (2) 5.2 Ouality Assurance Prooram Plan The Quality Assurance (QA) Plan goal is to assure the reproducibility of research results addressing regulatory issues. The methods and tech-niques used to collect, reduce, and interpret research data will be precise, accurate, traceable, and articulated in such a manner that the work could be duplicated and independently evaluated. Written proce-(] dures shall be used for the test design, equipment calibrations, control V of procedures, and reports. l
4 NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - October 1, 1986 - P;ge 52 3 (V 5.2.1 TASK 1: Analysis of instrument emplacement and scale-effects of unsaturated zone measurements The contractor shall:
- Identify the important contributors to measurement error and uncertainties associated with hydrologic instrumentation and measurements in the unsaturated zone;
- Investigate the uncertainties in field data resulting from the instruments, methods of measurement and the related field test procedures; and
- Provide a detailed work plan, including test procedures and instrumentation designs, for testing and analyzing, on a field-scale basis, the hydraulic and transport parameters and associated measurement errors for unsaturated fractured materials.
5.2.2 TASK 2: Characterization of matrix and fracture systems for groundwater flux properties The contractor shall identify the important hydraulic parameters in analyzing matric versus fracture flow in an unsaturated flow system, using a field site in fractured tuff. The contractor shall submit a detailed work plan of the field site setting forth the specific field techniques to be used, the parameters to be measured, their frequency of measurement and spatial distributions. 5.2.3 TASK 3: Analysis of fracture-matrix systems l The contractor shall examine fracture-matrix systems and perform sensi- - O t4v4tr e#elyses or tae <rectere eme metr 4x <'o 9ere eters emo comoi-tions using discrete fracture flow and dual porosity models. The con-
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - October 1, 1986 - pig 2 53 tractor shall assess stochastic fracture models and their ability to characterize the. f racture-matrix systems on different scales of reference.
5.2.4 TASK 4: Comparisons of computer programs for vapor-liquid flow systems The contractor shall compare the ability of computer programs developed under FI.1 B-7291 to assess vapor-liquid flow under a variety of site conditions, emphasizing site properties that affect the vapor phase fluxes and travel times in the model assessment. 5.2.5 TASK 5: Unsaturated zone liquid and vapor water sampling The contractor shall examine and evaluate geochemical sampling tech-O niques for fractured unsaturated materials and local ground-water condi-V tions. The contractor shall test the assdmption that groundwater sampled from the top of the saturated zone is chemically similar to that
~
overlying it in the unsaturated zone. 5.2.6 TASK 6: Ground-water recharge, infiltration and deep percolation studies The contractor shall assess methods for the determination of groundwater recharge, its redisposition with depth, and its potential for perching and/or lateral movement. The contractor shall test the assumption that recharge can be determined as the residual of precipitation minus mean evapo-transpiration. The contractor shall determine the feasibility of experimentally simulating abnormal recharge rates of sufficient duration () and intensity to determine whether fracture flow or matrix flow is the predominating process, i
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - PIge 54 5.2.7 TASK 7: Model simulation of field site conditions and () calibrations using groundwater chemistry The contractor shall assess unsaturated flow phenomena by modeling the field site using the derived field-scale data appropriate boundary conditions. The contractor shall use a stochastic model or an appro-priate deterministic model that utilizes statistically derived input data to simulate the ground-water flux and transport conditions. The contractor shall identify, examine and, if necessary, develop relation-ships between natural groundwater chemical conditions and unsaturated zone properties and flow conditions. Quarterly progress reports shall be submitted summarizing all technical tasks conducted during the cor-responding quarter. 5.3 Design Control
/N V.
5.3.1 Test Design Work plans will be submitted for review prior to the start of work. The work plan will be attached to a review comment sheet, initialed and dated by the Principal Investigator. Work plans will be identified by title, date of preparation, and revision number. The work plan with the most recent date will be the operative plan and supercede prior work plans. Periodic verifications (inspections) will be conducted to con-l firm that these activities are being performed in accordance with ap-proved procedures. The Principal Investigator will assure that theore-tical computer modeling will conform to the overall goals of the pro-ject. Work plans will be developed by the Principal Investigator or his designee which describe the purpose and goals for development of soft-(~} ware. These work plans will be documented by the QA officer and kept on v file in the QA records.
NRC 04-86<114 - Work'Pltn (REY. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - pig 2 55 0 -532 Theoret4ceSt tist4cai co"troi Pertinent experimental results will be analyzed statistically in a manner similar to that of Schrauf (1984), Trautz (1985), and other related techniques. Experimental design plans will be provided in such a way as to enable statistical evaluation and interpretation of the data in the manner described above. 5.3.3 Data Reduction / Review Data reduction, both manual (calculations) and computerized will be reviewed by someone other than the preparer. For computerized programs, random manual checks may be made using empirical results and formulas which give approximately the same results. Data sheet reviews prior to () indoctrination into a report will be conducted by the Principal Investi-gator or his designee to assure the integrity of the data. The Princi-pal Investigator or designee will initial and date checked entries. Data will be reported in commonly accepted units so data will be easily comparable to other results obtained through similarly comprehensive quality assured procedures. 5.4 Procedures 5.4.1 Field Procedures All field procedures will be controlled by issue date, revision number, and preparer's and reviewer's signatures; the most recent date/ revision number superceding previous procedures. Field work will be performed ("N according to these procedures. Any changes to these procedures will be l %] l in writing and approved by the Principal Investigator or his designee.
-,e - -
% w
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Pirn (REY. 0) - Octtb r 1, 198C - P g2 56 All pertinent work / test activity will be recorded in field and test data (] log books, initialed and dated by the responsible personnel. 5.4.2 Laboratory Procedures Detailed written procedures will be provided for laboratory sample testing, equipment calibrations, experimentation, record and report maintenance. Laboratory procedures will be controlled by issue .date, revision number, and preparer's and reviewer's signatures. A laboratory log book will be maintained by laboratory personnel. All laboratory data pertinent to experimentation and testing will be entered into the laboratory log book, initialed and dated by entrant. 5.4.3 Sample Receipt and Storage / Disposal O Each sample collected in the field will be immediately identified on a self-adhesive label as to date, time, sample number, sample location, depth of sample, name of sampler, and any other information pertinent to the accurate identification of that sample. All field to laboratory sample transfers will be accompanied with a field sample log containing information from the sample bottles identifying that set of samples. ! All incoming samples will be stored so as to prevent sample deteriora-tion prior to testing. Long-term storage will be determined by the Principal Investigator. Actual disposition of the analyzed samples will be recorded on the laboratory receipt sample log. 5.5 Test Eouipment: Calibration and Maintenance A list of equipment requiring calibration will be maintained. Each piece of equipment will have a unique identification number, a Calibra-l tion tag or sticker noting the last date of calibration, and due date of
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - P g2 57 recalibration. Calibration standards will be traceable to the National Bureau of Standards. The QA officer will maintain all equipment cali-
. (]
bration records. 5.5.1 Daily Analytical Calibration Calibration of analytical equipment performed on a daily basis wil1 be defined as per developed and approved calibration procedures. The quality of the surrogate standard, internal standard, or calibration standard will be verified prior to each recalibration. Calibration records will be maintained by laboratory / field personnel in their labor-atory/ field log books stating frequency of calibration and calibration results. Assessment of any adverse impact will be recorded in the laboratory notebook and brought to the attention of the QA officer who ~ will report to the Principal Investigator. (y V 5.5.2 Calibration Certification Field and laboratory primary and analytical equipment used for experi-mentation-testing will be checked for calibration certification. Graduated glassware will have manufacturer certification of compliance, + 5.6 Document Control 5.6.1 Documents Control All procedures will be on a controlled distribution. A transmittal log of the distribution of procedures will be maintained by the OA officer. A historic file of procedures will be maintained by the QA officer. ' ~' (V l l
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - Octeb:r 1, 1986 - Prga 58 5.6.2 Form Control O All forms will include an identifying title and number, initials of entrant, date of entry, and sequential page numbers (e.g.,1 of 7). 5.6.3 Log Book Control All personnel are required to record work activities pertinent to the goals of the project in a log book dispersed and controlled by the QA , officer. Log books will be identified on the cover by a number assigned by the QA officer, experiment or analysis name, and log book assignee. To prevent loss or damage to log books, copies of the log book informa-tion will be periodically forwarded (monthly basis) to the QA officer for safekeeping. The preferred method of log book entry is by ballpoint pen. Pencil entries will be restricted to field situation where rain is a factor. At the completion of the task or project, whichever is ap-plicable, the log books will be returned to the QA officer for distribu-i tion to the Principal Investigator for review after which they will be returned to the QA officer for storage. 5.6.4 Interfacing Acitivities Control A document file to interface activities, comunications, telecoms, cor-respondence, and reports among interrelated agencies involved in the project will be maintained by the QA Officer. 5.7 Nonconformances/ Corrective Action Any departure from the written requirements of the project will be reported to the QA officer, who in turn will report to the Principal Investigator. The Principal Investigator will evaluate the impact of 1
NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1, 1986 - Page 59 the nonconformance and document the conclusions of his assessment ("3 stating the required corrective action on a nonconformance/ corrective V action form generated by the QA officer. The QA officer is responsible for verifying &that the corrective action has been taken. 5.8 Records The OA file and related documents will be maintained by the 0A officer on the University of Arizona campus. USNRC will be provided with copies of all pertinent materials as they are produced. 5.9 Verification o_f fWork The QA officer will verify that field and laboratory personnel are performing work in accordance with developed procedures at quarterly intervals. Verification checklists will be prepared prior to the veri-fication highlighting important areas of procedures and calibrations. Nonconformance discovered during verification wilI be handled as noted above.-
. NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REY. 0) - October 1,1986 - Paga 60
- 6. REFERENCES Alessi, R.S. and L. Prunty,1986, " Soil-Water Determination Using Fiber Optics", Soil Sci. Soc. Am. h, 50:860-863.
Kilbury, R.K., T.C. Rasmus s en , D.D. E v an s , and A.W. Warrick, 1986,
" Water and Air Intake of Surface-Exposed Rock Fractures in Situ",
Water Resour. Res., 22(10):1431-1443. Meyn, R.L. and R.S. Wh i te , 1972, "Ca libration of Thermocouple Psychrometers: A Suggested Procedure for Development of Reliable Predictive Model", in R.W. Brown and B.P. Van Haveren (eds.), Psychrometry in_ Water Relations Research, Utah State University, p. 56-63. f] Montezer, P. and W.E. Wilson,1984, Conceoutal Hydrolocic Model of Flow 3 the Unsaturated Zone, Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USGS Water-Resources Investigation 84-4345, p. 36-43. Rahi, K.,1986, Hydraulic Conductivity Assessment for Variably-Saturated Rock Matrix, Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Arizona,
- Tucson.
Savin, S.M., 1980, " Oxygen and Hydrogen Isotope Effects in Low-Temperature-Minera l-Water Interactions", in P. Fritz and J.C. Fontes (eds.), Handbook of_ En v ironmenta l Geochemistry; The Terrestrial Environment, 1:283-327. Schrauf, T.W.,1984, Relationshio Between the Gas Conductivity and Geometry g a Natural Fracture, Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson. i
, NRC 04-86-114 - Work Plan (REV. 0) - Octob:r 1, 1986 - Page 61 O scareer. T w e#a o o eve #s.1988. "'enoretory st#aies or ses rio-through a Single Natural Fracture", Water Resour. Res., 22(7):1038-1050.
[ iraut2, R.C., 1984, Rock Fracture Acerture and Gas Conductivity Measurements, In Situ, Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson. Weber, D., 1986, Mineralogic, Isotocic and Soatial Procerties of Fractures in an Unsaturated, Partially-Welded Tuff near Superior, Arizona", Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson. 1 O O l
O t APPENDIX I: PERSONNEL RESUMES O O 1 t
n.su. - - on. . . . . o. m n.. Page 1 of 5 RESUME O Name Title Birthdate Daniel D. Evans Professor, Department of August 13, 1920 Hydrology and Water Resources University of Arizona Place of Birth Nationality Oak Hill, Ohio U.S. Citizen Education 4 Ohio State University B.S., Agronomy 1947 Iowa State University M.S., Soil Physics 1949 Iowa State University Ph.D., Soil Physics, Mathematics 1952 Research and Professional Exoerience 1974 - present University of Arizona; professor of hydrology and water resources. Duties include teaching and counseling of undergraduate and graduate students, and research. 1967 - 1974 University of Arizona; professor and head of the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources. Responsible for teaching and research and administration of educational and research programs of the department (earlier the Committee on Hydrology and Water Resources). 1963 - 1967 University of Arizona; professor of hydrology and water resources and of agricultural chemistry and soils, with teaching and researcn responsibilities. 1953 - 1963 Oregon State University; associate professor and professor in the Department of Soils. Duties included research and teaching in soils and hydrology. 1960 - 1962 (While on leave from Oregon State University). Advisor O to tae "4a4stry or ^9r4c='ture or xe#se oa so4' eme water research and development.
. . . . . ~ .. .... .. .. ."
Page 2 of 5 Research and Professional ExDerience (continued) I') 1952 - 1953 Iowa State University; assistant professor in the department of Agronomy. Duties included teaching and reasearch in soil physics and agronomy. 1949 - 1952 Iowa State University; research associate and research assistant. 1947 - 1948 Texas Research Fcundation; research assistant. Professional and Honorary Oroanizations:
- Society of Sigma Xi Gamma Sigma Delta American Water Resources Association, past president, fellow American Geophysical Union American Association for the Advancemenc of Science American Society of Agroncmy, fellow Soil Science Society of America, past division chairman, fellow '
q V Western Soil Science Society Arizona Acacemy of Science International Water Resources Associatior. Universities Council on Water Resources, official delegate and past president Past and Present Consultine Activities: Government of Saudi Arabia Government of Iraq Government of Kenya El Paso Natural Gas National Science Foundation National Research Council National Park Service
- U.S. Department of Agriculture l U.S. Nuclear Regulator Cec nissior.
IT corporation Aqua Science, Inc. i
Page 3 of 5 Biocrachical Listinos: (3 Men of Science Who's Who in Science National Faculty Directory Who's Who in the West Who's Who in North America Community Leaders and Noteworthy Americans Dictionary of International Biography Notable American Publications Since 1980 Evans, D.D., and Thames , J.S. , co-editors, Water in Desert Ecosystems. Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania: Dowden, Hutchir. son, and Ross, Inc.,
- 280 p., 1981.
Thames, J.S. and Evans, D.D., Desert systems: an overview. Desert Ecosystems, Chapter 1, pp.1-12,1981. In Water 1 Evans, D.D., Sammis, T.W., and Cable, D.R., Actual evapotranspiration g under desert conditions. In Water in,Deser: Ecosystems, Chapter 9,
's./ pp. 195-218, 1981.,
Evans , D.D. , and Thames , J.S. , Desert hydrologic systems. In Water g Desert Ecosystems, Chapter 13, pp. 265-272, 1981. Sammis , T.W. , Evans , D.D. , and Warrick, A.W. , Cceparison of methods to estimate deep percolation. Water Resources Bulletin, 18:465-470, 1982. Cullinan, S.R., Huang, C., and Evans, D.D., Nonisethermal vapor transport in a single unsaturated rock fracture (abstract). Amer. Geochys. Union, EOS, vol. 63, no. 45, p. 934, 1982. Evans, D.D. and Huang, C., Role of desaturation on transport through fractured rock. In Role of the unsaturated rene in radioactive and hazardous waste discosal. Ann Arbor Science, pp. 165-178, 1983. Evans D.D., Unsaturated flow and transport through fractured rock-- related to high-level waste repositories. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory O V Comission, NUREG/Cr-3206, 231 pages,1983
Page 4 of 5 Evans , 0.0. , Traut:, R.C. , Andrews , J.W. , and Earp, D.E. , Water flow in an unsaturated rock: a case study (abstract).
'(] Union, EOS, vol. 64, no. 18, p.228, 1983.
Amer Geochys. Earp, D.E., Evans, D.D., and Huang, C., An Osnotic Tensionmeter for measuring pressure head in unsaturated fractured rock. Amer. Geophys. Union, EOS, vol. 64, no.18, p. 228,1983. Schrauf, T.W., and Evans, D.D., Laboratory studies of gas flow through a single natural fracture, abstract, Amer. Geochys. Union, EOS, v. 64, no.45, p. 704,1983. Ostrowski, C, N., Nichol son, T.J., Evans, D.D., and Al exander, D.H., Disposal of high-level radioactive wastes in the unsaturated zone: Technical Considerations, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG-1046, 25 p.,1984. Schrauf, T.W., and Evans, D.D., Relationship between the gas conductivity and geometry of a natural fracture, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG/CR-3680, 131 p., 1984. (] Huang, C., and Evans, D.D., Modeling flow in unsaturated, fractured rock formations with application to nuclear waste repositories, abstract, Amer. Geohovs. Union, EOS, v. 64, no.18, p. 229,1983. Huang, C., and Evans, D.D., A 3-dimensional computer model to simulate fluid flow and contaminant transport through a rock fracture system, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG/CR-4042,109 p., 1984. Green, R.T., and Evans, D.D., Radionuclide transport as vapor through unsaturated fractured rocks, Memoires of Congress on Hydrology of Rocks of Low Permeability, v.17, Part 1, pp. 254-266, International Association of Hydrogeologists, Tucson, AZ, 1985. Rasmussen, T.C., Huang, C., and Evans, D.D., Numerical experiments on articficially - generated, three-demensional fracture networks: an examination of scale and aggregation effects, Memoires of Congress on Hydrology of Rocks of Low Permeability, v.17, no. 2, p. 676-682, International Association of Hydrogeologists, Tucson, AZ,1985. l {} Green, R.T., and Evans, 0.0., Radionuclide transport as vapor through unsaturated fractured rock, abstract, Amer. Gechonys. Union, EOS, , v. 65, nc. 45, p. 881,1984.
Page 5 of 5 Kilbury, R.K., Rasmussen, T.C., and Evans, D.D., Water intake across the
)
atmosphere-earth boundry into a fractured rock system, abstract, Amer. Geochys. Union. EOS, v. 66, no.18, p. 266,1985. Nicholson, T.J., and Evans, D.D., Hign level radioactive waste repository site characterization: unsaturated zone, abstract, Amer. Geophys. Union, EOS, v.66, no.18, p.269,1985. Rasmussen, T.C., and Evans, D.D., Three-dimensional computer modeling of discrete fracture networks: application to unsaturated media, aostract, Amer. Geophys. Union , EOS, v. 66, no.18, p. 275,1985. Green, R.T., Filipone, U.L., and Evans, D.D., Effect of electric fields on vapor transport near a high-level waste canister, in the Proc. of tne International Symposium on Coupled Processes Affecting the performance of a Nuclear Waste Repository, Lawerence Berkeley i Laboratories, in press, September 18-20, 1985. Kil bury, R.K.,'Rasmussen, T.C., Evans, D.D., and Warrick, A.W., Water and air intake measurement technique for fractured rock surfaces, A Water Resources Res., in press,1986.
'w)
Schrauf, T.W., and Evans, D.D., Laboratory studies of gas flow through a single natural fracture, Water Resources Res., in press,1986. I i V
Page 1 of 3 RESUME q(/ Name Title A.W. Warrick Professor, Department of Soil Physics, University of Arizona Education Iowa State University B.S., Mathematics 1962 Iowa State University M.S., Soil Physics
- 1964 Iowa State University Ph.D., Soil Pnysics 1967 Research and Professional Excerience 1975 - present University of Arizona; professor of soil physics.
1975 - 1976 University of California, Davis, CA.; visiting professor, Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, O) i s 1967 - 1975 U:.iversity of Arizona; assistant and associate professor of soil physics. 1966 - 1967 Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, Iowa State Water Resources Research; research associate. and administrative assistant. ! Honors and Awards l Fellow, Soil Science Society of America i Fellow, American Society of Agronomy Outstanding Research Award for 1984, College of Agriculture Current Maior Resconsibilities SWS Graduate Admission Chairman, College Promotion and Tenure Committee (84-85) Assistant Editor, Geoderma k
Page 2 of 3 Publications ( Books Fuller, W.H. and A.W. Warrick, 1985. Soils in waste treatment and utilization. Vol. 1. Chemical Rubber Co. 258 pp. Fuller, W.H. and A.W. Warrick, 1985. Soils utilization. Vol. 2. in waste treatment and Chemical Rubber Co. 235 pp. . Selected Refereed Publications (1983 - ) Ben-Asher, J., A.D. Matthias and A.W. Warrick.1983. Assessment of evaporation from bare soil by infrared thermometry. Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. J. 47:185-191. Warrick, A.W. 1983. Interrelationships of irrigation uniformity terms. J. Irrig. Dr., ASCE 103:317-332. Warrick, A.W. and W.R. Garoner. 1983. Crop yield as affected by spatial variations of soil and irrigation. Water Resources Res. 19:181-86. Amoozegar-Fard, A., A.W. Warrick and D.0. Lomen. 1984. Design monographs for trickle and subsurface irrigation. J. of Irrig, and Dr. Engr., ASCE 110:107-120. Ben-Asher, J., A.W. Warrick and A.D. Matthias. 1984. Bare-soil evaporation determined in situ by infared thermometry. J. of Hydrology 69:325-334. Warrick, A.W., D.0. Lomen and S.R. Yates. 1985. A generalized solution to infiltration. Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. J. 49:34-38. Warrick, A.W. 1985. Point and line infiltration -- Calculation of the wetted soil surface. Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. J. 49:1581-1583. Lomen, D.0., P.J. Tonellato and A.W. Warrick. 1984 Salt and Water
' transport in unsaturated soil for non-conservative systems.
Agr. Water Manag. 8:397-409.
Page 3 of 3 Tabor, J.A., A.W. Warrick, D.A. Pennington and D.E. Myers. 1984. (~')
'" Spatial variability of nitrate in irrigated cotton. I.
Petioles. Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. J. 48:602-607. Tabor, J.A., A.W. Warrick, D.E. Myers and D.A. Penningten. 1985. Spatial variability of nitrate in irrigated cotton. II. Soil nitrate and correlated variables. Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. J. 49:390-394. Yates, S.R., D.0. Lomen and A.W. Warrick. 1985. Hillside seepage - an analytical solution t~o a non-linear, Dupuit-Forchheimer problem. Water Resources Res. 21:33'l-336. Yates, S.R., A.W. Warrick and D. E. Myers. 1986. Disjunctive Kriging 1, Overview of estimation and conditional probability. Water Resources Res 22:615-621. Yates, S.R., A.W. Warrick and D. E. Myers. 1986. Disjunctive Kriging 2, Examples. Water Resources Res. 22:615-621. p Kilbury, R.K. , T.C. Rasmussen, D.D. Evans and A.W. Warrick. 1986. Water and air intake measurement technique for fractured rock surfaces. Water Resources Res. 22 (Accepted) i Schramm. M., A.W. Warrick and W.H. Fuller. 1986. Permeacility of soils to four organic solvents and water. Ha:ardous Wastes (Approved). Amoozegar, A., A.W. Warrick and W.H. Fuller. 1986. Movement of selected organic solvents through soils. Hazardous Wastes (Approved).
,. Page 1 of 3 RESUME s
Name Title Birthdate Tian-Chyi Jim.Yeh Assistant Professor, August 3, 1952 Department of Hydrology and Water Resources University of Arizona Place crf Birth Nationality Taiwan, Republic of China U.S. Pernament Resident Education College of Chinese Culture B.S., Geology 1975 University of Illinois, Chicago M.S., Geol. Sci. 1979 New Mexico Institut of Mining Ph.D., Hydrology 1983 and Technology Research and Professional Exoerience 1986 - University of Arizona; assistant professor of hydroicgy and water resources. 1983 - 1986 University of Virginia; assistant professor of environmental sciences. 1983 Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas; invited lecturer.
- Unsaturated flow in heterogeneous soils.
1982 Petroleum Recovery Research Center, New Mexico Institute i of Mining and Technology; research associate.
- Numerical simulation of the development and propagation of viscous fingers in oil reservoirs.
1979 Dames and Moore; assistant project engineer.
- Computer simulation of contaminant migrations in a groundwater basin.
O
Page 2 of 3 Research and Professional Excerience (continued) (l V 1979 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology; research assistant.
- Stochastic analysis of spatial variability in the vadose zone.
- Computer simulation of the water quality of irrigation return flow, San Acacia, New Mexico.
- Development of finite element and finite difference models of unsaturated flow.
- Numerical investigations of seepage from cpen channels.
- Application of the Kriging technique to' the calibration of a groundwater Dasin model.
- Well logging, well constructions, water level and water quality data collection.
- Field monitoring soil tension variation.
1977 University of 11inois, Chicago, School of Public Health; computer programer.
- Data processing and statistical analyses.
1976 University of Illnois, Chicago; laboratory insturctor in tne department of geological sciences. 1974 Chinese Petroleum Corporation, Taiwan, Republic of China; assistant field geologist.
- Field investigation of geologic structures in northeast Taiwan.
Professional'Oroanizations American Geophysical Union Awards American Water Works Association Award Wno's Who Among Students in America Universities and Colleges Award
Page 3 of 3 Publications
^)
(V Yeh, T.-C. Jim, and L.W. Gelhar,1983, Unsaturated flow in heterogeneous soil, in Role of the Unsaturated Zones in Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Discosal, edited by J.W. Mercer et al., Ann Arbor Science. Yeh, T.-C. Jim, and J.P. Heller, Numerical Simulation of Unstable Frontal Growth using Boundary Element Intergral Method. PRRC Report 83-26, New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center, Socorro, New Nexico 87801. Yeh, T.-C. Jim, L.W. Gelhar, and P.J. Wierenga,1985, Field observations of spatial variation of soil water pressure in the'vadose zone, Accepted for publication, Soil Sci. Yeh, T.-C. Jim, L.W. Gelhar, and A.L. Gutjahr, 1985, Stochastic analysis of unsaturated flow in heterogeneous soils: Part 1, Statistically isotropic media, Water Resour. Res., 21(4),447-456. Yeh, T.-C Jim, L.W. Gelhar, and A.L. Gutjahr, 1985, Stochastic analysis of unsatuated flow in heterogeneous soils: Part 2, Statistically anisotropic media, Water Resour. Res., 21(4),457-464. Yeh, T.-C. Jim, L.W. Gelhar, and A.L. Gutjahr,1985, Stochastic analysis of unsaturated flow in heterogeneous soils: Part 3, Observations and Applications, Water Resour. Res., 21(4),465-471. Co-author with L.W. Gelhar and others,1982, Irrigation return flow studies at Acacia, New Mexico: Monitoring, Modeling and Variability, EPA Grant No. R-806092. Khaleel, R. and T.-C. Jim Yeh,1985, A Galerkin finite element program for simulating unsaturated flow in porous media, Groundwater, 23(1). O
-y Page 1 of 4 RESUME /~N flame Title James G. McCray Adjunct Associate Professor And -
Acting Director, fluclear Fuel Cycle .i Research Program, Department of Nuclear and Energy Engineering, University of Arizona. Education U.S. Military Academy B.S. Military Engineering 1948, University of Arizona B.S. Electrical Engineering 1961 University of Arizona M.S. Electrical Engineering 1961 University of Maryland Ph.D. Electrical Engineering 1976 Research and Professional Exoerience 1977 - present Adjunct Associate Professor and Acting Director, Nuclear p\ Fuel Cycle REsearch Program, Department of Nuclear and Energy Engineering, Universicy of Ari:ena, , 1975 - 1976 Assistant Director for Safety and Facilities, DMA, Energy Research and Development Administration. Staff responsibility within the nuclear weapons-complex for nuclear and non-nuclear safety, all environmental impact assessments and statements, nuclear waste disposal and nuclear safeguards. 1972 - 1974 Deputy Assistant Director, Research and Development, DMA Atomic Energy Ccmission. Responsibility with the program planning and coordination of the R and D efforts of Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia Laboratories and in the nuclear weapons production complex. At this point in the responsibilities. 1954 - 1956 Assistant Professor of Military Science, Pcmona College. G
. . . . . . . m ,. .. ..... ..
Page 2 of 4 4
' Military Excerience
- 'J 1948 - 1976 United States Army Officer (Retired Col., U.S.A.)
, 1967 - 1968 Team Commander and Senior Advisor. Directed U.S.
military and civilian teams advising the Vietnam leadership in the wealthiest delta province (state) in South Vietnam. 1966 - 1367
- Battalian Commander. Leader of over 900 men in a' mechanized infantry unit in Germany.
1962 Technical Program Director, High Altitude Nuclear Tests, Joint Task Force 8. Contract supervisor for six technical research projects during the U.S. High Altitude Nuclear Tests. 1961, 1963-1964 Technical Liason Officer, Sandia Laboratories. A member of a research and development team with the f- responsibility of insuring the proper interfaces between (- 3/ the nuclear weapon users (military services) and the engineering laboratories (Sandia). Other Professional Activities 1981 - 1986 Member Advisory Committee and Chairman of Puolications and
, Publicity for the Waste Management Symposium _ Series, 1981-1986, Tucson, Ari:ena .
1981 - 1983 Consultant, EG and G Idaho, Inc., on the Development and Technical Review Committee for the Design and Operating Criteria for a Low-Level Radioactive Waste Greater Confinement Criteria, 1981-1983. l Scientific and Professional Societies American Nuclear Society On V i Y
,,,r_ _ _.
. . . . . . ~
..~........n.
Page 3 of 4 Publications i O Numerous reports and publications from the following research projects:
" Fuel Cycle Environmental Impact," Department of Energy, 1977-78 (Co-investigator)
" Assessment of Environmental Impact and Analysis of Control Technologies -
for Radioactive Materials Associated with the Thorium / Uranium-233 Nuclear Fuel Cycles," Department of Energy, 1977-80 (Co-investigator)
" Alternatives to Shallow Burial of Low Level Nuclear Waste," Los Alamos Scientific Laboatory, 1977-80 (Co-investigator)
" Field and Theoretical Investigations of Mass and Energy Transport in Subsurface Materials at Waste Disposal Sites, " Nuclear Regulatory Comission , 1978-85 (Co-investigator)
" Confirmatory Research Related to Dating of Ground Water," Nuclear Regulatory Comission, 1978-85 (Co-investigator)
A kJ " Indirect Rock Mass Investigations for Optimi:ing Borehole Drilling Programs," Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1978-82 (Co-investigaor)
" Sealing Rock Masses," Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1978-86 (Co-investigator)
" Engineering Evaluations of Low Level Waste Burial Sites," Nuclear Regulatory Comission, 1978-79 (Co-investigator)'
"Socio-Economic Evaluations in support of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Long-Term Management of INEL Transuranic Waste," EG and G Idaho, Inc., 1980 (Co-Principal Investigator)
"Socio-Economic Evaluations in support of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Long-Term Management of the Icano Chemical Processing Plant High-Level Waste," Exxon Nuclear, 1980 (Co-Principal Investigator)
" Low-level Nuclear Waste Processing and Shallow Land Burial Trench l
l {'} Isolation," Nuclear Regulatory Comission, Investigator) 1981-85 (Co-Principal L
... Page 4 of 4
" Monitoring of Low-Level Nuclear Waste Experimental Trenches at (V3 Sheffield, Illinois," Nuclear Regulatory Comission,1983 (Co-investigator)
" Unsaturated Flow and Transport Through Fractured Rock Related to High-Level Waste Repositories," Nuclear Regulatory Comission, 1982-83 (Co-investigator)
" Site Characterization Field Manual for Near Surface Geologic Disposal of Low-Level Radioactive Waste," USDOE Idaho Operations Office, 1984-86 (Co-Principal Investigator)
Research Interests
-E Nuclear Fuel Cycle with emphasis on high and low level nuclear waste disposal O
O g_ -, _ _ - . . . . . , . _ . . . . - - _ - . , .
~ .. Page 1 of 2 RESUME (D
Name Title Birthdate Todd C. Rasmussen Graduate Research Associate flovember 23, 1952 Hydrology and Water Resources University of Arizona Place M Birth Nationality Mt. Shasta, California U.S. Citizen Education ' Univ. Calif, Berkeley B.S., Forestry 1976 Univ. Ari:ana, Tucson M.S., Hydrology 1982 Univ. Ari:ena, Tucson Ph.D., Hydrology In Progress Research and Professional Excerience 1984 - present University of Arizona, Dept. of Hybrology and Water n \- / Resources; Graduate Research Associate. Responsible for the development of a three-dimensional computer model of variably saturated, discrete fracture networks for the purpose of characteri:ing geologic media for its suitability as a site for the storage of high-level nuclear wastes. Sponsor is the fluciear Regulatory Comnission, Division of Earth Sciences. 1982 - 1984 University of Arizona, D.ivision of Economic and Business Research; graduate research assistant. Responsible for the development of basin-wide groundwater management plans in accordance with the Arizona Groundwater Management Act, enacted June 1980. 1981 - 1982 University of Arizona, Dept. of Hydrology and Water Resources; Graduate Research Assistant. Developed theoretical formulation of ccmputer modeling strategy for the solution of problems relating to solute, gas and heat transport in saturated, fractured rock. Sponsor was Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Division of O e eth scie"ces-
.~. .
Paga 2 of 2 1981 University of Arizona, Dept. of Hycrology and Water Resources; Graduate Teaching Assistant, January 1981 to
,Q'# June 1981. Teaching aid for upper-division / graduate course in Hydrologic Systems. Instructor was Professor E.S. Simpson.
1980 University of Arizona, Dept. of Hydrology and Water
- i. Resources; Graduate Research Assistant. Responsible for providing statistical and computer support for study of aquifer recharge in Southwest Alluvial Basins (SWAB). Sponsor was USGS as part of the RASA program.
1976 - 1979 Peace Corps Volunteer, Honduras, Centra'l America, November 1976 to May 1979. Worked as a Watershed Technician which required the installation of precipitation, streamflow and erosion stations throughout the country. Gained experience with the design of stations, the training of personnel to collect data, and the comouter-assisted interpretation of data. Awards Harshbarger Fellow, Fall 1985 and Spring 1986. Fellowship awarded for outstanding student research. Cash stipend. Professional A:tivities: President, Student Chapter, American Water Resources Association, January 1981 to December 1981. Duties required the supervision of fund raising,. publication of newsletter, and professional meetings. l Membership in:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- American Geophysical Union.
- National Water Well Association.
! - National Speleological Society i j ' Editor, Hydrology and Water Resources of Arizona and the Southwest,1982, 1983, 1984, Proceedings of Symposium co-sponsored by Arizona Section, American Water Resources Association and the Hydrology Section, A.merictn Academey for the Advancement of Sciences,
. . Page 1 of 1 O Ur1 FILLED POSITI0ft Applications due by October 1, 1986 Faculty position in hydrogeochemistry, Department of Hydrology and Water Pesources, Ph.D. required with strong background in hydrogeochemistry or hydrogeology applied to aquatic chemistry. Successful candidate will develop a strong research program, work with graduate students, and offer graduate seminars. The position.is primarily a research rather a teaching position, at the assistant professor level. ~
J l O )s V O
Page 1 of 3 RESUME tO (,) Name Title Birthdate Priscilla Sheets Research Assistant II August 19, 1948 Hydrology & Water Resources University of Arizona Place of Birth Nationality Chula Vista, California ~ U.S. Citizen Education Univ. Calif. , Los Angeles B.A., Political Science Oregon State Univ., Corvallis 1970 M.S., Soil Science 1981 Research and Professional Exoerience
- 1. 1986 - present .
University of Arizona, Dept. of Hydrology and Water Resources; Research Assistant II. Responsible for Quality Assurance on Nuclear Regulatory Commission project; drafting and report preparation; laboratory assistance. 1985-1986 Michigan Technological University, School of Forestry and Wood Products; Assistant Research Scientist. Laboratory
/~ Supervisor of Soil and Water laboratory; responsible for 'sT / water quality assessment of forested lands drainage project; responsible for working with Mich. Dept. of Agriculture on soil survey laboratory analysis and classification.
1982-1985 University of. Arizona, Dept. of Soil and Water Science; Research Assistant II. Developed screening protocol for determining the toxicity of hazardous wastes applied to soil; determined cadmium attenuation from non-aqueous solvents in soils under differing initial soil moisture contents; laboratory supervisor. 1981-1982 U.S. Bureau of Mines, Salt Lake City, UT; Soil Scientist. Conducted plant growth and microbiological experiments to document the reduction of soil fertility of stock-piled
' topsoil from strip-mined coal fields.
1978-1981 Oregon State University, Dept. of Soil Science; Graduate Research Assistant. Designed and conducted experiments to determine plant and soil response to two by-products of nickel-cobalt-chromium mining (mine tailings and a potential fertilizer). Responsibilities included chemical and physical analysis of soil and plant materials, statistical analysis and technical report writing. 1981
~ Oregon State University, Dept. of Soil Science; Graduate Teaching Assistant. Taught graduate-level soil chemistry l (_)s laboratory and assisted with lecture in soil chemistry class, t
- - ,-. . - - .. , _ - . _ . _ , . . _ . . _ , , _ . , , , _ . . m__, , , _ . . . . _ . - r -, , , . ,
1 Page 2 of 3 i-Awards l' O - Awarded first place for paper presented at the Western Society of Soil Science annual meeting, 1981. Professional Activities Membership in: j
- American Society of Agronomy
- Soil Science Society of America 4
4 4' - i 1 0 4 O 4 l 1 i I e l' l l 1 i l' . r k O. l l
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. Page 3 of 3 PUBLICATIONS g3 Sheets, P.J., V.V. Volk, and E.H. Gardner.
(_) soil reactions to nickel ore processed tailings. 1982. Plant and 11:445-451. J. Environ. Qual. Volk, V.V., E.H. Ga rdner, P.J. S heet s , a n d R.J. Gu l a c k. 1982. Utilization of nickel refining by-products mining on agricultural lands. A research contract report. Contract No. J0295058. Bureau of Mines, U.S. Dept. of Interior, Washington, D.C. Fu l l er , W.H., J.F. A rt i o l a , and P.J. S he e t s. 1982. Ef f ects of hydrogen ion concentration of acid wastes on soil used for disposal. EPA grant no. R807915-01. Washington, D.C. U.S. Environ. Protection Agency, F u l l er , W.H., P.J. S he e t s , an d R. B. L a r s o n . 1983. Predicting transport of metals from industrial wastes through soils. EPA Grant no. R807915-01. U.S. Environ. Protection Agency, Washington, D.C. Hemphill, D.D., V. V. Volk, P. J. Sheets, and 1985. C. Wickliff. from tannery Lettuce andapplications. waste broccoli response and soil properties resulting J. Environ. Qual. 14:159-163. Sheet s , P. J. and W. H. Fu l l er. 1986. Transport of cadmium by organic solvents through soils. Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. J. 50:24-28. P; Sheets, P.J. 1986. U Analytical procedures for soil s, plants and water laboratory. used in the Michigan Technological University soils Mich. Tech. Univ., Houghton, MI. f l i O l
t 3 O l f I t I i , 1 l l APPENDIX II: QA REPORT FORMS 4 i I O l i i b J i e I 4 i i 1 i !O 1 i
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NRC-04-86-ll4 ' O WORK PLANS--REVIEW COMMENTS LOG Form 1 Date Work Plan Review Comment 4 O
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NRC-04-86-114 A 4 V LABORATORY NOTEBOOK CHECKLIST Lab Book No. Subject Name/Date O l l
f4RC-04-86-il4 COLLECTION OF FIELD SAMPLES LOG Site Depth Date/ time Collected Comments By O o O
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NPC-04-86-ll4 (, Form 5
's LOG OF SAMPLES FOR Af1ALYSIS AT THE Uf1IVERSITY OF ARIZONA Collection Performed Site Depth Date/ Time Type of Sample Analysis By a Date O
f O Log reviewed by P.I. Date
flRC-04-86-il4 C Form 6 g] . EQUIPMENT CALIBRATION
- . . Standard Veri fied sate tquipment Calibration BY I
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NRC-04-86-114 c Form 7 (v) PROCEDURES TRANSf4ITTAL LOG ransmitted Trans tted Date Procedure 1 I 1 W O 4 a
NRC-04-86-il4 Form 8
. DOCUtiENT CONTROL PROCEDURE DATE AD0PTED DATE MODIFIED O
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NRC-04-86-114 NONCONFORt11NGMATERIALS,PARTSANDCORRECTIVEAChlIN DATE DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM CORRECTIVE ACTION i A iO l I l l lO
s NRC-04-86-ll4 VERIFICATIONS REPORT Verified Date Procedure Verification By O I l l O
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- O EVALUATIONOFUNSATURATEDFLOW&ThANATMETHODOLOGY ~
WITH EMPHASIS ON PRECISION & ACCURACY OF MEASUREMENT METHODS UNITS MEASUREMENT MEASUREMENT PRECISION ACCURACY PROPERTY PARAMETER TECHNIQUE UNITS l soil-good THETA cm*3/cm*3 NEUTRON PROBE counts / min good i WATER CONTENT rock-good GAMMA PROBE counts / min good matrix-very good fracts-not good ' GRAVIMETER wt.diff./wt. good good i PSI bars TENSIOMETER bars good good WATER POTENTIAL 7 -
, 0-0.8 bars OSMOTIC hyd.P underdevelopment good except TENSIOMETER for drift 4
0-2 bars PSYCHROMETER microvolts fair fair 2-50 bars ABSORBER microvolts good good i PRESSURE - EXTRACTOR air P good good LIQUID PERMEABILITY , K(THETA or PSI) cm*2 TEMPE CELL bars fair fair
- 4 FRI* cm*3/sec very good very good DOWNHOLE i FLOWMETER cm*3/sec very good very good l
l PACKER TESTS kg/sec good good AIR PERMEABILITY cm*2 FRI DELTA (P)/t good good P(THETA)
- NOTE: FRI is for Fractured Rock Infiltometer l
O O O
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4 PROPERTY PARAMETER UNITS EASUREMENT MEASUREMENT PRECISION ACCURACY j TECHNIQUE UNITS
! (PERMEABILITY FRACTURE -
& POROSITY) APERATURE cm CORE ANALYSIS cm very good very good i PORE SIZE micr.m. Hg PORESIZER micro.m. good unknown DIST.
, TRANSPORT CONC.(SOLUTE) mg/l LIQUID mg/l very good very good esp.
CHROMAT0 GRAPH for low conc. 3 - CONC.(GAS) mg/l GAS CHROMAT0G. mg/l very good very good , LIQUID SAMPLING mg/l POROUS CUP fair-soil fair-soil
- LYSIMETER cm*3 undeveloped for rock i
; VAPOR SAMPLING mg/l THERM 0 PILE cm*3 under development 1
! TEMPERATURE deg. C. THERMISTERS ohms very good very good THERMOCOUPLE micr. volts very good very good I i {' UNDER DEVELOPMENT NO ESTIMATE POSSIBLE NOT GOOD + or - 50% POOR + or - 20%
!' FAIR + or - 10%
GOOD + or - 5% , VERY GOOD + or - 1% l
i
.i - .
!O l t i HYDR 0L0GICAL , M0DELING RESEARCH 4 i I ACRS PRESENTATION BY JOHN D. RANDALL, RES/ DES /WMB ! lQ i FEBRUARY 20, 1987 e i l l l 1 1 i \O i l e
O V UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA AND IN-SITU, INC. SATURATED AND UNSATURATED FRACTURED ROCKS SITE CHARACTERIZATION METHODS (PARAMETER MEASUREMENTS FOR USE IN MODELS) FUNDAMENTAL STUDIES TYPES OF MODELS THAT ARE APPROPRIATE FICKIAN VERSUS NON-FICKIAN DISPERSivN O TENSORIAL NATURE OF EFFECTIVE POROSITY APPLICATION OF SITE CHARACTERIZATION DATA TO INVERSE PROBLEMS (CAllBRATION) , IDENTIFICATION OF DOMINANT FLOW AND TRANSPORT MECHANISMS AND PATHWAYS O
O BEDDED SALT-AFFECTED HYDROLOGY NO RESEARCH AT THIS TIME FLOW AND TRANSPORT MECHANISMS THAT ARE NOT WELL UNDERSTOOD FOR MODELING
- MIGRATION OF BRINE INCLUSIONS MIGRATION OF BRINE POCKETS
- FORMATION OF FLOW AND TRANSPORT PATHWAYS BY
(]) DISSOLUTION EFFECT OF SALT CREEP ON FLOW AND TRANSPORT PATHWAYS , i ! MOVEMENT OF WATER AND CONTAMINANTS ALONG CLAY SEAMS IN SALT (OBSERVED AT WIPP) 1 1 ] O i i ' 4
- _ - - ~_,_.---_--_.-.-_,___----._______..-_._.._..._..-....-----.__--..___..,--.-...m...,- - -
j i ^ I !O i-i t I i I i 1 1 1 j i 1 ' l COMPUTATIONAL METHODOLOGIES l - FOR ESTIMATING 9 1 i HYDROLOGICAL ASPECTS OF l i HLW REPOSITORY PERFORMANCE O i i : i. a l i l 1 2 t i I i I I i l O . 6 k a l
- - + - - ~ . . _ -- . . . . _ . . _ . . . . . _ . . . . . . . . . . _ . . . . . . . . _ _ _ _ _ . . . . . . . . . . . . _ _ . . . . _ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _ _ . . . . . . . _ . . . . _ . . . . . . . . . . _ . . . _ . . _ _ .
O . SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES l DEVELOPMENT OF A METHODOLOGY FOR RISK ASSESSMENT OF NUCLEAR WASTE ISOLATION IN BEDDED SALT ! DEVELOPMENT OF.A METHODOLOGY FOR RISK ASSESSMENT OF NUCLEAR WASTE ISOLATION IN ALTERNATIVE GEOLOGIC MEDIA i !O 1 3 ! a i i l l \ i !O i i 0
, - - - - , - - .-.n.-,. -
O
SUMMARY
OF COMPUTATIONAL TOOLS GENERIC ASPECTS STATISTICAL SAMPLING PROCEDURES FOR CONDUCTING SENSITIVITY STUDIES AND ESTIMATING UNCERTAINTIES REGRESSION PROCEDURES FOR IDENTIFYING DOMINANT EFFECTS PREDICTED BY MODELS. PROCEDURES FOR INTEGRATING MODEL PREDICTIONS FOR FORMING ESTIMATIONS OF PERFORMANCE MEASURES. CUMULATIVE RELEASE OF RADIONUCLIDES OVER 10,000 YEARS (10 CFR 60,112, 40 CFR 191) O GROUNDWATER TRAVEL TIME (10 CFR 60.113) SPATIAL DISTRIBUTIONS AND HISTORIES OF CONTAMINANT CONCENTRATIONS (10 CFR 60.21 AND 40 CFR 191) a
- GENERAL LIMITATIONS EXCEPT FOR A SIMPLE MODEL OF SALT CREEP NEAR EMPLACED HLW, NO MECHANICAL EFFECTS ARE CONSIDERED.
ALL GEOCHEMICAL MODELING IS BASED ON SIMPLIFIED
" RETARDATION FACTOR" MODELS.
l STRONGLY COUPLED THERMAL, HYDROLOGICAL, MECHANICAL, AND CHEMICAL INTERACTIONS THAT MAY OCCUR NEAR EMPLACED HLW CAN NOT BE MODELED. O a
pQ x
SUMMARY
OF COMPUTATIONAL TOOLS BEDDED SALT (CA. 1980) SWIFT (SANDIA WASTE ISOLATION FLOW AND IRANSPORT) LIQUID FLOW IN POROUS MEDIA (SALT IS ASSUMED TO BE POROUS) l BRINE TRANSPORT IN POROUS MEDIA HEAT TRANSPORT IN POROUS MEDIA s
.IRACE RADIONUCLIDE TRANSPORT IN POROUS MEDIA
- O. .
t NWFT (NETWORK FLOW AND TRANSPORT)
~
LIQUID FLOW AND TRACE RADIONUCLIDE TRANSPORT ALONG MAJOR FLOW AND TRANSPORT PATHWAYS (AS INDICATED BY
- SWIFT) IN POROUS MEDIA , 1 EFFECT OF BRINE IS SIMULATED BY SPECIFYING DIFFERENT WATER DENSITIES ALONG EACH OF THE MAJOR PATHWAYS.
i DNEi(DYNAMICNETWORK) IMPLEMENTS SIMPLE THERM 0 MECHANICAL MODEL OF SALT l COLLAPSE, BY CREEP AND DISSOLUTION AND REPRECIPITATION, AROUND EMPLACED HLW. e __L__....
t . O
SUMMARY
OF COMPUTATIONAL TOOLS BASALT (CA. 1984) SWIFT 11 (SANDIA WASTE ISOLATION FLOW AND IRANSPORT, MODIFIED FOR FRACTURED MEDIA IDEALIZED AS DUAL POROSITY MEDIA)) LIQUID FLOW IN POROUS OR FRACTURED (DUAL POROSITY OR ANISOTROPIC EQUIVALENT POROUS) MEDIA BRINE TRANSPORT IN POROUS OR FRACTURED (DUAL POROSITY OR ANISOTROPIC EQUIVALENT POROUS) MEDIA HEAT TRANSPORT IN POROUS OR FRACTURED (DUAL POROSITY OR ANISOTROPIC EQUlVALENT POROUS) MEDIA (]) TRACE RADIONUCLIDE TRANSPORT IN POROUS OR FRACTURED (DUAL POROSITY OR ANISOTROPIC EQUIVALENT POROUS) MEDIA , NEFTRAN (NETWORK FLOW AND TRANSPORT, NWFT MODIFIED FOR 3 DUAL POROSITY FRACTURED MEDIA) s
,; r LIQU10) FLOW AND TRACE RADIONUCLIDE TRANSPORT ALONG 2 3 MAJOR FLOW AND TRANSPORT PATHWAYS (AS INDICATED BY SWIFT II) IN POROUS OR DUAL-POROSITY FRACTURED MEDIA EFFECT OF BRINE IS SIMULATED BY SPECIFYING DIFFERENT WATER DENSITIES ALONG EACH OF THE MAJOR
' PATHWAYS. f e
/
4
4 I .
SUMMARY
OF COMPUTATIONAL TOOLS UNSATURATED WELDED TUFF (CA. NOW) TOUGH (MODIFICATION OF LBL PROGRAM MULK0M (MULTICOMDONENT SIMULATOR)) IMPLEMENTS MATHEMATICAL MODELS OF WATER, VAPOR, AND AIR MOVEMENT IN NONIS0 THERMAL POROUS MEDIA. IMPLEMENTS NO TRANSPORT MODELS. OTHERS O OTHER COMPUTER PROGRAMS THAT IMPLEMENT MATHEMATICAL MODELS OF WATER, VAPOR, AND AIR MOVEMENT IN UNSATURATED WELDED TUFF ARE BEING CONSIDERED BY SANDIA, BUT NONE HAS TOUGH'S , VERSATILITY. NONE OF THE OTHER PROGRAMS IMPLEMENTS MATHEMATICAL MODELS OF TRANSPORT OF CONTAMINANTS IN UNSATURATED MEDIA. l l l IO
1 . COMMENTS THERE IS NO CONSENSUS IN THE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY ON HOW THE MOVEMENT OF WATER AND THE TRANSPORT OF CONTAMINANTS SHOULD BE MODELED IN UNSATURATED FRACTURED MEDIA. SANDIA HAS CONCLUDED, ON THE BASIS OF BOUNDING CALCULATIONS, THAT THE TRANSPORT OF RADIONUCLIDES, IN AIR OR WATER VAPOR WILL BE SMALL COMPARED TO TRANSPORT IN LIQUID WATER. IHE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA'S POSITION IS SOMEWHAT " SOFTER" ON THIS ISSUE, BUT BOTH CONTRACTORS AGREE THAT SANDIA SHOULD BE DIRECTING ITS RESOURCES TOWARD MODELING TRANSPORT IN LIQUID WATER. , () RESOLUTION OF ISSUE OF MODELING WATER MOVEMENT AND CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT IN UNSATURATED FRACTURED MEDIA REQUIRES EXPERIMENTS. SIMPLE LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS ARE BEING DONE , BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO UNDER SUBCONTRACT TO SANDIA. FIELD EXPERIMENTS ARE BEING DONE BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA. LABORATORY VISUALIZATION EXPERIMENTS FOR BOTH WATER MOVEMENT AND CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT ARE BEING PROPOSED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA. O
O Potential pH Diagram for Iron including Cracking Regimes (AfterFord) e
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Hydrologic Code Intercomparison Study urpose: OBTAIN IMPROVED KNOWLEDGE OF THE INFLUENCE OF VARIOUS STRATEGIES FOR GROUND-WATER FLOW MODELUNG FOR THE SAFETY ASSESSMENT OF RADIDACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL Members: NRC, DOE, FRANCE, UNITED KINGDOM, WEST GERMANY, JAPAN, CANADA, SWITZERLAND, NETHERLANDS, SWEDEN, FINLAND O
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Level 1: Verify the numerical accuracy of ground-water flow programs . O Level 2: Study the capabilities of different ground-water flow models to simulate laboratory and field experiments (" validation"). Level 3: Examine the influence an the ground-water flow simulations of incorporating various physical phenomena (sensitivity and uncertainty analysis). O
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O l s ee . _N:- (Vern.ca: ion), ( ) l ! Lessons Learned: l ! o Scalar quantities compared very well for linear problems Oo Differences were seen in the comparison of vector quantities j for linear problems o Non-linear problems posed extreme difficulty for all codes ( e.g., unsaturated flow, density driven flow) 1 l O
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.O i l l _:V: _ 2 1(Va .ic a: ion) 1 j l PROBLEM TIME SCALE LENGTH SCALE l , o Coupled heat and fluid flow years 10 meters O Sall convection analog days meters o Fracture flow days 100 meters l o Regional flow in low permeability steady state 100 km rock o Unsaturated flow days meters O
o _NE_2 (Vc 'cc 'ol) l Lessons Learned: o An adequate validation data set does not currently exist o Two independent data sets are necessary for model validation (one data set for model calibration and .O l one data set for model evaluation) o Data collection should be sufficiently broad to allow for evaluation of different conceptual models o Successful " validation" requires a repetitive data collection /modeling process (INTRAVAL) l o Laboratory experiments in conjunction with field experiments may be necessary to attain validation O (INTRAVAL)
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O _V_3 : (Sens...r:ivr:y anc, Jncer:a.in~:y Ana ys. sisj o Near-surface disposal (low-level waste o!ternative) o Deep disposal in partially saturated, fractured tuff Q Hypothetical salt repository o Coupled ground-water flow ond brine transport o Fluid flow in crystalline rock o Three-dimensional regional ground-water flow in low permeability rock o Efficiency of particle tracking algorithms i
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DRAFT LOW-LEVEL WASTE LONG RANGE PLAN . INTRODUCTION: STEADY STATE (5-10 YEARS) NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE LEADING TO NRC PERSPECTIVE OVERALL ALARA PRODUCT ORIENTED ASSUMPTIONS: ()' STEADY-STATE BY 1993. LIMITED EPA AND DOE RESOURCES AVAILABLE POTENTIAL LIMITED ABILITY OF STATES TO FULFILL ACT APPROX I MATELY CONSTANT CUR I ES ': DRAFT GOALS: LOW-LEVEL WASTE POLICY AMENDMENTS ACT OTHER REGULATORY GOALS CASEWORK GOALS r~s
'% j M. KNAPP 2/20/87
g-DRAFT GOALS r (vT LLRWPAA GOALS A) NRC COMPLIANCE i-B) STATE AND COMPACT COMPLIANCEx C) ON-LINE DISPOSAL CAPACITY FOR GREATER THAN CLASS C OTHER REGULATORY GOALS D) RESOLUTION OF MIXED WASTE ISSUE E) NO ORPHAN WASTES F) NO PROTRACTED STORAGE G) THRESHOLD FOR LLW H) NRC SUPPORTED INTERNATIONAL REGULATORS MEETINGSX I) RESOLUTION OF NARM l () J) 3-5 REGIONAL LLW DISPOSAL FACILITIESX K) NO STATE LLW FACILITIES LICENSED BY NRC L) PRE-DlSPOSAL TREATNENTx l M) FULL SET OF NATIONALLY CONSISTENT REGS AND GUIDES N) REDUCTION IN LLW VOLUMEX l l CASEWORK GOALS l-O) ON-GOING INSPECTION PROGRAM l P) CLOSURE PLANS IN PLACE Q) FULL SUPPORT OF WEST VALLEY R) NRC OBSERVATION OF EXISTING SITES
)
M. KNAPP 2/20/87 l
6 ADD lTIONAL DRAFT GOALS OPERATIONAL SAFETY PROGRAF.1 MATURE QA PROGRAtl FULL PERFORf.tANCE ASSESSMENT CAPABILITY COMMERCIAL STORAGE AND DISPOSAL AT REACTORS" O O M. KNAPP 2/20/87 1
h. O f l FLOW OF GROUNDWATER AND TRANSPORT OF CONTAMINANTS THROUGH SATURATED FRACTURED GEOLOGIC MEDIA FROM HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE O Contract No. NRC-04-85-114 in-Situ Project No.1057 O
- O O O i
- Relevant to ACRS interest a bo ut
e Development of field data on the movement of radionuclides in the e n viro n m e n t. e Predicted p erf o rma n c e of reposito ry system s under realistic field conditions. l 9
KiDE 1 l FLOW OF GROUNDWATER AND TRANSPORT OF CONTAMINANTS THROUGH SATURATED FRACTURED GEOLOGIC MEDIA FROM HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE Contract No. NRC-04-85-114 in-Situ Project No.1057 l O Study Purpose ,
- To provide the NRC with research products which may support and/or confirm the basis for certain specific staff technical positions, and
- To provide a capability sufficient to evaluate DOE l documents related to groundwater flow and transport in saturated fractured rocks in which high-level radioactive waste might be stored.
l l O , in Sau inc Annual seminar Presentation January 26 27,1957 Slide 1.1 1
w oi r l. O Study TASKS:
- 1. Evaluate methods of assigning effective parameter values to fluid flow and contaminant-transport models.
- 2. Characterize potentially important hydraulic-flow and contaminant transport features.
. Pr vide NRC with technical guidance on certain O saturated flow models.
- 4. Investigate methods for reducing uncertainties in measurement of effective porosity.
- 5. Test theories for spatially projecting dispersion coefficients.
- 6. Develop and test methods for effects of matrix diffusion.
- 7. Investigate methods to field-calibrate models using radiogenic dating and selective tracers.
O In.se Inc. Annual seminar Presentation January 26 27,1967 Stor 1 1 2
O e : MAJOR TASKS: l l \ '
- l. Evaluate relationships of field sampling and l ,
! meas u re m e nts to model pa ra meters and variables. l
- 2. Importance of field features such as faults, boreholes, shaf ts, dikes, etc. in the con-fig ura tio n of models.
- 3. Test appropriatness of contimuum or discrete f ractu re models for re prese n tation of in field flow and transport situations.
- 4. Investigate the calibration of models with radiogenic dating and non radioactive tracers.
9,
/m U NRC BASALT-AQUIFER STUDY 1.2 Interactive Vork-Task Flovchart Study Purpose and Objectives Conceptual Site-Specific Field Studies Investigations Modeling Theoretical Compilation / Review of Aspects Aspects Regional & Study-Area Data and Information Mode $-Length Model Tensorial Dispersion Scales Comparisons Porosity Coefficients Landovner Negotiations and Model (Task 3) (Task 4) (Task 5) l Development Reconnaissance-Level (Task la) Field Investigations I Site and Target Basalt O u#it sei ciio# vellfield and Field-Scale Discrete Field-Test Design Measurements Bydraulic l (Task Ib) Fractures wellfield (Task 2) Implementation ' Pump Multivell Single-Well Groundwater Tests Tracer Test Push-Pull Test Dating (Task 2) (Tasks 4 & 5) (Task 6) (Task 7) l [ Matrix l Diffusion) I Field Site Visits Data Analyses
,and Model Applications Project Reviev Meetings (Task 7) l Annual Seminars Final Study Documentation (Task 6)
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- Model length scales Q + Comparison of alternative models
- Model applications O
In Situ inc. Annual Seminar Presentation January 26 27,1987 Slide 1.4.4 1
SLIDE 1 O MODEL LENGTH SCALES
*REV i O + Fracture Sets
- Discrete Hydraulic Features O
in Situ inc. Annual Seminar Presentation January 26 27,1987 Slide 4.1 1 I -_ - . _ - _ - . _ _.- . .
SLIDE 1 O MODELS COMPARED
- SWIFT 11 Q
- NWFT/DVM
= SCHWARTZ
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.
- PLUME l
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l O i in Situ inc. Annual Seminar Presentation January 26-27,1987 Slide 4.2 1
SboE 1 r b) IV ODEL COMPARISON SWIFT NWFT/ Feature 11 DVM Schtz. FRAO PLUME Type C DF-(0) DF-(0) DF-(N) C(DF-N) Time-dependent hydrology? Yes No No No No Decay / adsorption? Yes Yes No No Yes Calculates O dispersivities? No No No Yes* Yes Dominant flow feature? No Yes No Yes* No Key: C = Continuum model DF = Discrete-fracture model (O) = Fractures are orthogonal (N) = Fractures need not be orthogonal
= Desired feature not necessarily currently part of program lO 1
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O O O i I 1 l 1 i SlM%RY OF NRC'S WORK ON Tile LICENSING ! 0F LOW-LEVEL RADICACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL FACILITIES I l i ) i i i
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O O i i FRN JANUARY 23, 1987
" NUEG-1199, STANDARD FORMAT AND CONTENT OF A -LICENSE APPL 1 CAT 1 FOR A LOW-LEVEL RADI0 ACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL FACILITY ,
- E CHANISM TO DETERMINE ADEQUACY OF LICENSE APPLICATION, LLRWPAA SEC 5(E)
- NU [G-1200, STANDARD REVIEW PLANS FOR REVIEW 0F A LICENSE
- APPLICATION OF A LOW-LEVEL RADI0 ACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL ESTABLISH PROCEDURES AND CAPABILITY TO PROCESS LICEN APPLICATION IN 15 M0lfiliS, LLRWPAA SEC. 9(A) l ,..
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NUREG-1199 Standard Format and Content of a license application for a Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility Safety Analysis Report U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards January 1987 l
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O O O' I I STANDARD FORMAT AND CONTENT SPECIFIES INFORMATION TO BE PROVIDED IN SAFETY ANALYSIS REPORT (SAR ESTABLISHES UNIFORM FORMAT FOR PRESENTING INFORMATION l O
O O 0; i f PURPOSE OF STANDARD FORMAT AND CONTENT i LICENSE APPLICATION (SAR) CONTAINS REQUIRED INFORMATION ENSURES COMPLETENESS OF INFORMATION i HELP PERSON LOCATE INFORMATION CONTRIBUTES TO SHORTENING THE REVIEW TIME l 1 1 i n i l
~ ~
O, O O i i k l STANDARD FORMAT AND CONTENT (NUREG 1199) CONSISTS OF 11 CHAPTERS l 1. GENERAL INFORMATION
- 2. SITE CHARACTERISTICS
] J l 3. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION J
- 4. FACILITY OPERATIONS i
! 5. SITE CLOSURE PLAN AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS i
- 6. SAFETY ASSESSMENT
- 7. OCCUPATIONAL RADIATION PROTECTION
- 8. CONDUCT OF OPERATIONS
- 9. QUALITY ASSURANCE
- 10. FINANCIAL ASSURANCE
- 11. REFERENCES 5
D
} NU REG-1200
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ - --
Standard Review Plan for the review of a license application for a Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility Safety Analysis Report U.S. Nuclear Regulatory O commissiom Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards January 1987 l l l ......,
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O a _. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - .
o o o PURPOSE OF THE SRP'S i ASSURES QUALITY AND UNIFORMITY OF STAFF REVIEWS WELL DEFINED BASE FROM WHICH TO EVALUATE PROPOSED CHANGES ! GUIDANCE TO STAFF REVIEWERS MAKES INFORMATION ABOUT REGULATORY MATTERS WIDELY AVAILABLE IMPROVE UNDERSTANDING 0F STAFF'S REVIEW PROCESS f i 4 i i i i 1 .. 7
O O o-SRP'S DEFINES REVIEW PROCESS IDENTIFIES INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE FOR REVIEW PROVIDES BASIS FOR THE REVIEW CONCLUSIONS SOUGHT 8
l O O o-i STANDARD REVIEW PLANS (NUREG-1200) ! CONSISTS OF 11 CHAPTERS: (60 INDIVIDUAL SECTIONS) i i 1. GENERAL INFORMATION l 2. SITE CHARACTERISTICS
- 3. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION l
l 4. FACILITY OPERATIONS
- 5. SITE CLOSURE PLAN AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS
! 6. SAFETY ASSESSMENT
- 7. OCCUPATIONAL RADIATION PROTECTION
- 8. CONDUCT OF OPERATIONS I
- 9. QUALITY ASSURANCE
- 10. FINANCIAL. ASSURANCE l 11. LICENSE CONDITIONS s
i 7
'l 1
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~
O O EACH CHAPTER OF THE SRP'S ARE DIVIDED INTO THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS:
- 1. RESPONSIBILITY FOR REVIEW
- 2. AREAS OF REVIEW
- 3. REVIEW PROCEDURES
- 4. ACCEPTANCE CRITEIRA
- 5. EVALUATION FINDINGS
- 6. IMPLEMENTATION
- 7. REFERENCES
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l O O O' STANDARD FORMAT AND CONTENT 6.3.1 LONG-TERM STABILITY - SURFACE DRAINAGE AND EROSION PROTECTION j A. PURPOSE OF INFORMATION AND ANALYSES
~
10 CFR 61'23(E) TERM STABILITY WITHOUT NEED FOR ONGOING 10 CFR 61'44 ACTIVE MAINTENANCE
~
B. INFORMATION AND ANALYSES NEEDED IN SAR i HYDROLOGIC DESCRIPTION - TOP 0GRAPlilC AND DRAINAGE FEARJRES FLOODING ANALYSES EROSION PROTECTION DESIGNS m
9 STANDARD EVIEW PLAN
- 6.3.1 SURFACE DRAINAGE AND EROSION PROTECTION
- 1. REVIEW RESPONSIBILITY - GE0 TECHNICAL BRANCH (WMGT)
DIVISION OF WASTE MANAGEM NT
- 2. AREAS OF REVIEW 2.1 HYDROLOGIC DESCRIPTION 2.2 FLOODING DETERMINATIONS 2.3 DAM FAILURES 2 . 14 EROSION PROTECTION DESIGN
- 3. REVIEW PROCEDURES 3.1 ACCEPTANCE REVIEW IS INFORMATION ADECUATE AND COMPLETE?
IS INFORMATION REQUESTED IN SF8C PROVIDED? 3.2 SAFETY EVALUATION REVIEW ARE DESIGN ASSUMPTIONS AND TECHNICAL ANALYSES CORRECT AND/0R CONSERVATIVE? ARE REGULATORY REQUIREIENTS ET? I
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CJ O Q l 4. ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA 4 4.1 REGULATORY REQUIREFENTS 1 10 CFR 61.11 1 10 CFR 61.12 REQUIRE SUEMITTAL OF INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL ANALYSES. I 10 CFR 61.13 1 10 CFR 61.23(E) REQUIRE REASONABLE ASSURANCE OF LONG-TERM STABILITY 10 CFR 61.44 WITHOUT NEED FOR ONG0ING ALTIVE iMINTENANCE ! 4.2 REGULATORY GUIDANCE l
- DRAFT REGl1ATORY GUIDE, " DESIGN OF LONG-TERM EROSION PROTECTION l
! COVERS FOR RECLAMATION OF URANIUM MILL SITES" (CURRElffLY UNDER . REVISION) i l
o o O 4.3. REGULATORY EVALUATION CRITERIA 4.3.1 HYDROLOGIC DESCRIPTION ACCEPTABLE IF: (1) INFORMATION IS ADEQUATE TO PERFORM INDEPENDENT ANALYSES (2) INFORMATION REQUESTED IN SF8C IS PROVIDED 4.3.2/4.3.3 FLOODING DETERMINATIONS AND DAM FAILURES ACCEPTABLE IF: (1) ANALYSES AND ASSUMPTIONS ARE REASONABLE, CORRECT, AND/0R CONSERVATIVE (2) SITE AND PROTECTIVE FEATURES CAN WITHSTAND PMP/PVF 4.3.4 EROSION PROTECTICN DESIGNS ACCEPTABLE IF: P (1) ANALYSES AND ASSUM.TIONS ARE CORRECT AND/0R CONSERVAT!\E (2) EROSION PROTECTION IS DESIGNED FOR PMP/ITF (3) EROSION PROlECTION IS DESIGNED IN ACCORDANCE WITlf C00r W ENGINEERING PRACTICE (4) EROSION PROTECTION IS DURABLE FOR LONG-TIE PERIODS
- 5. EVALUATION FINDINGS WILL STATE THE REGULATORY REQUIREENTS THAT liAVE BEEN MEf WILL DISCUSS STAFF ANALYSES AND REVIEW PROCEDURES LEADING TO
~
CONCLUSIONS
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l o o o~~ i ! STANDARD REVIEW PLAN 8.6 1 ' i ! FACILITY ADMINISTRATIVE AND OPERATING PROCEDURES i i 1 i l i i 4 l 1
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REQUIRED ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES REVIEW AND APPROVAL EQUIPMENT CONTROL MAINTENANCE AND MODIFICATION CONTROL EE RGENCY PLANNING TEFFORARY CHANGES STANDARD ORDERS TRAINING ACCESS QA/QC I l . l
/8
Yr O '([') OPERATING PROCEDURES OVERALL SYSTEMS OPERATION RECEIPT AND INSPECTION HANDLING STORAGE AND DISPOSAL , DISPOSAL UNIT DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION VEHICLE SURVEY INTERIM PROCEDURES FOR ABNORMAL EVENTS INSTRLPENT TESTING AND CALIBRATION FACILITY MAINTENANCE ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING
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s, O' SAFETY EVALUATION BASIS SITE VISITS EETINGS WITH APPLICANT QUALITATIVE DETERMINATION IWOffiED JUDCDDff r
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