GoldSim Modeling of the
Greater Confinement Disposal Boreholes
As featured in the inagural
GoldSim newsletter.
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Note: Clicking on the illustrations (except the photo) will bring up
larger versions of the figures.
Background
GoldSim modelers at Neptune and Company have devised a variety of models
to aid in environmental decision making. One such model is a contaminant
transport and regulatory compliance model of a radioactive waste disposal
site at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), near Mercury, northwest of Las Vegas,
Nevada. In addition to the classical waterborne transport of radionuclides,
Neptune's model includes transport of subsurface materials to the ground
surface by burrowing animals (of widely divergent taxa), and the transport
of contamination to the surface by plants. Since the desert at the NTS
is so dry, biotic transport mechanisms are likely to play a critical role
in the movement of contaminants from waste forms at depth to the accessible
environment. The GCD wastes are deeply buried (21 to 36 m below the ground
surface), and contaminants are hypothesized to move upward from that depth
to near the ground surface in water, advecting with and diffusing within a
small amount of interstitial water. The upward flux is inferred from the
observed strong gradient of interstitial water potentials from depth to the
ground surface. Once the contaminants are within reach of plant roots and
burrowing animals, they can be brought to the surface and pose a potential
threat to human health through exposure to surface soils.
The GCD boreholes were designed to isolate wastes to a greater degree than
the standard excavated pit or trench used for low-level radioactive waste.
The design is simple: Using a large augering bit (10 or 12 ft in diameter)
on a drilling rig, create a hole in the deep alluvial fan deposits of the
Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Site (RWMS) at the NTS. The total depth
of the borehole is about 36 m, and waste packages are stacked in the hole up
to a depth of about 21 m. Screened alluvium is used to backfill the spaces
around the packages and the top 21 m of the borehole. The great depth
to the top of the wastes essentially obviates intrusion by plants and
animals, as well as any homesteader who may choose to dig a basement.
The only intrusion scenario not protected against (it is essentially
impossible to do so) is the inadvertent driller, as is the case with all
subsurface disposal technologies to date.
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Conceptual Model of Contaminant Transport
The conceptual model of a GCD borehole is closely patterned after
the real thing: The waste is assumed to fill a cylindrical space
at the bottom of the hole. This space is surrounded on the bottom
and the sides by undisturbed alluvial deposits, and on top by the
backfill. The backfill is essentially the same material as
the original alluvium, except that the larger cobbles have been
screened out, the natural imbrication and minor cementation
have been lost, and the backfill was apparently not compacted.
For the purposes of modeling, however, the backfill is assumed
to be equivalent in material properties to the natural alluvium.
The material is essentially homogeneous and isotropic, and that's
not just a modeling convenince -- it really is.
It can be argued that there is no significant movement of water
in the alluvium below a meter or two from the surface until the
saturated zone is reached some 250 m below the surface. If this is
truly the case, then there is no credible pathway for contaminants
to get out of this disposed configuration, shy of direct intrusion.
That would be a very short performance assessment!
To keep things interesting, however, the model assumes the vailidity of the
counterargument: that there could be a very small, very slow upward
flux of interstitial water from below the waste horizon to the
surface, driven by the existing gradient in matric pressures.
That is, it seems that the water content actually decreases from
below the wastes to within a meter or two of the surface. If there
were enough water to provide a continuous phase of interstitial
water, so that advection and diffusion were possible, then perhaps
this small upward flux could exist. We assume that it does.
Water is assumed to move by this slow advective process and by
diffusion as well. Since the vertical advection-dispersion has
a lateral component, and since diffusion has no preferred direction,
a lateral ring of alluvial material is included in the model.
The principal reason for this feature is that since the wastes
contain contaminants at concentrations above the saturation in
water (such as in metallic form) more contamination can find its
way out of the container through the sides than just through the top.
To ignore this would be to risk underestimating the amount of
contamination leaving the waste space.
If water is capable of transporting contaminants to within a couple
of meters of the surface, then they are within reach of the hardy
plants and animals that inhabit Frenchman Flat. Plants are limited
to grasses and shrubs, and significant animals include rodents, ants,
and termites. Plants can bring contaminants to the surface by
uptake in the root systems, fixing them in the aboveground parts of
the plant, and shedding those plant parts as litter on the ground
surface. Animals can transport bulk materials through the excavation
of burrows, where materials are assumed to be brought directly to
the surface from various subsurface layers, and the burrows are also
subject to collapse so that the mass balance of material is preserved.
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GoldSim Model
The modeled subsurface consists of a vertically-oriented cylinder
of waste and alluvial overburden nested inside another cylinder of
surrounding alluvium.
Both the interior cylinder and the annular ring are subdivided into
several cells, in order to model contaminant transport by advection
of water, diffusion in the water phase, advection of alluvium by
burrowing animals, and plant-induced transport.
Contamination brought to the surface by plants is modeled not by
moving any contaminated medium, but rather by the simple addition
to surface cells (and complementary subtraction from subsurface
cells) of predetermined amounts of each contaminant. This transfer
of contamination is implemented using a GoldSim Consequence element,
once the appropriate amounts of contamination have been calculated
based on plant uptake factors and productivity rates. (We have since
developed more computationally efficient ways of implementing
plant-induced contaminant transport, and look forward to the
opportunity to build those into this model.)
Transport by animals is done simply by creating an advective connection
between upper subsurface cells and the topmost surface soil cell
in both the inner cylinder and the surrounding lateral ring. These
advective connections move bulk allivium (part dirt and part water).
Complementary connections are made to account for burrow collapse,
with materials cascading from the topmost cell to the one below,
to the one below that, and so on.
As much as possible, the parameters defining this model are
expressed as probability distributions. This includes, for example,
the initial radionuclide inventory, the maximum rooting depths for
the various plant types, the shape of burrow densities as a function
of depth, plant uptake factors, soil/water partition coefficients,
burrow excavation rates, water advection rates, diffusion coefficients,
and such.
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Future Work
Neptune and Company anticipates adding to this model various dose
assessment methodologies, corresponding to different regulatory drivers,
based on surface soil and water contaminant concentrations. The model is
a management system tool that will support effective long-term management
of the NTS low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities.
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John Tauxe
Last modified: 12 March 2002
Water is assumed to move by this slow advective process and by
diffusion as well. Since the vertical advection-dispersion has
a lateral component, and since diffusion has no preferred direction,
a lateral ring of alluvial material is included in the model.
The principal reason for this feature is that since the wastes
contain contaminants at concentrations above the saturation in
water (such as in metallic form) more contamination can find its
way out of the container through the sides than just through the top.
To ignore this would be to risk underestimating the amount of
contamination leaving the waste space.
