Development of a multimedia radionuclide exposure model for low-level waste management

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Abstract
A method is being developed for assessing exposures of the air, water, and plants to low-level waste (LLW) as a part of an overall development effort of a LLW site evaluation methodology. The assessment methodology will predict LLW exposure levels in the environment by simulating dominant mechanisms of LLW migration and fate. The methodology consists of a series of physics-based models with proven histories of success; the models interact with each other to simulate LLW transport in the ecosystem. A scaled-down version of the methodology was developed first by combining the terrestrial ecological model, BIOTRAN; the overland transport model, ARM; the instream hydrodynamic model, DKWAV; and the instream sediment-contaminant transport model, TODAM (a one-dimensional version of SERATRA). The methodology was used to simulate the migration of /sup 239/Pu from a shallow-land disposal site (known as Area C) located near the head of South Mortandad Canyon on the LANL site in New Mexico. The scenario assumed that /sup 239/Pu would be deposited on the land surface through the natural processes of plant growth, LLW uptake, dryfall, and litter decomposition. Runoff events would then transport /sup 239/Pu to and in the canyon. The model provided sets of simulated LLW levels in soil,more » water and terrestrial plants in the region surrounding the site under a specified land-use and a waste management option. Over a 100-yr simulation period, only an extremely small quantity (6 x 10/sup -9/ times the original concentration) of buried /sup 239/Pu was taken up by plants and deposited on the land surface. Only a small fraction (approximately 1%) of that contamination was further removed by soil erosion from the site and carried to the canyon, where it remained. Hence, the study reveals that the environment around Area C has integrity high enough to curtail LLW migration under recreational land use. « less

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