Non-Salado flow and transport position paper. Revision 1

摘要

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is preparing to request the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to certify compliance of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) with long-term requirements of the environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Management and Standards for Management and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel, High-Level and Transuranic Waste (40 CFR Part 191). The DOE must also demonstrate compliance with the long-term requirements of the Land Disposal Restrictions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) (40 CFR Part 268.6). Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) has ben conducting iterative performance assessments (PAs) for the the WIPP to provide guidance to the project on the technical activities required to determine long-term performance of the WIPP disposal system. The most recent PA was conducted in 1992. The objectives of this paper are to: (1) Identify and describe the relationship between non-Salado hydrology and the array of scenarios that might be relevant to the long-term performance of the repository. (2) Identify and describe the array of conceptual and mechanistic models that are required to evaluate the scenarios for the purpose of compliance. (3) Identify and describe the data/information that are required to support the conceptual and mechanistic models.