US Department of Energy (DOE) facilities are required to comply fully with all federal and state regulations. In response to this requirement, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has established the remedial action program, to provide comprehensive management of areas where past research, development, and waste management activities have been conducted and have resulted in residual contamination of facilities or the environment. One of the objectives of this program is to define the extent of contamination at these sites. The intent is to document the known environmental characteristics of the sites and identify the additional actions, such as sampling, analytical measurements, and modeling, necessary to confirm contamination and the possible migration of contaminants from the sites. One of these sites is the Old Hydrofracture Facility (OHF). The OHF was used for the permanent disposal of liquid radioactive waste in impermeable shale formations at depths ranging from about 230 to 300 m (750 to 1000 ft), from 1964 to 1979. The liquid waste was blended into a pumpable grout by mixing it with cement and special clays used to immobilize radionuclides against groundwater transport. This report summarizes the results of several studies at ORNL that have measured the concentration of radionuclides
展开▼