Surface Environmental Surveillance Project: Locations Manual Volume 1 ? Air and Water Volume 2 ? Farm Products, Soil & Vegetation, and Wildlife

This report describes all environmental monitoring locations associated with the Surface Environmental Surveillance Project. Environmental surveillance of the Hanford site and surrounding areas is conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Sampling is conducted to evaluate levels of radioactive and nonradioactive pollutants in the Hanford environs, as required in DOE Order 450.1, Environmental Protection Program, and DOE Order 5400.5, Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment. The environmental surveillance sampling design is described in the Hanford Site Environmental Monitoring Plan, United States Department of Energy, Richland Operation Office (DOE/RL-91-50). This document contains the locations of sites used to collect samples for the Surface Environmental Surveillance Project (SESP). Each section includes directions, maps, and pictures of the locations. A general knowledge of roads and highways on and around the Hanford Site is necessary to successfully use this manual. Supplemental information (Maps, Gazetteer, etc.) may be necessary if user is unfamiliar with local routes. The SESP is a multimedia environmental surveillance effort to measure the concentrations of radionuclides and chemicals in environmental media to demonstrate compliance with applicable environmental quality standards and public exposure limits, and assessing environmental impacts. Project personnel annually collect selected samples of ambient air, surface water, agricultural products, fish, wildlife, and sediments. Soil and vegetation samples are collected approximately every 5 years. Analytical capabilities include the measurement of radionuclides at very low environmental concentrations and, in selected media, nonradiological chemicals including metals, anions, volatile organic compounds, and total organic carbon

River Data Package for Hanford Assessments

This data package documents the technical basis for selecting physical and hydraulic parameters and input values that will be used in river modeling for Hanford assessments. This work was originally conducted as part of the Characterization of Systems Task of the Groundwater Remediation Project managed by Fluor Hanford, Inc. and revised as part of the Characterization of Systems Project managed by PNNL for DOE. The river data package provides calculations of flow and transport in the Columbia River system. The module is based on the legacy code for the Modular Aquatic Simulation System II (MASS2), which is a two-dimensional, depth-averaged model that provides the capability to simulate the lateral (bank-to-bank) variation of flow and contaminants. It simulates river hydrodynamics (water velocities and surface elevations), sediment transport, contaminant transport, biotic transport, and sediment-contaminant interaction, including both suspended sediments and bed sediments. This document presents the data assembled to run the river module components for the section of the Columbia River from Vernita Bridge to the confluence with the Yakima River. MASS2 requires data on the river flow rate, downstream water surface elevation, groundwater influx and contaminants flux, background concentrations of contaminants, channel bathymetry, and the bed and suspended sediment properties. Stochastic variability for some input parameters such as partition coefficient (kd) values and background radionuclide concentrations is generated by the Environmental Stochastic Preprocessor. River flow is randomized on a yearly basis. At this time, the conceptual model does not incorporate extreme flooding (for example, 50 to 100 years) or dam removal scenarios

Summary of Radiological Monitoring of Columbia and Snake River Sediment, 1988 Through 2004

From 1988 through 2004, samples of upper-layer sediments from the Columbia River and Snake River were collected under the Hanford Site Surface Environmental Surveillance Project to document concentrations and trends of radionuclides. Low concentrations of potassium-40, cesium-137, uranium isotopes, and plutonium isotopes were detected consistently in sediment samples over the entire sampling period. The concentrations of most radionuclides were similar to values measured upstream of the Hanford Site behind Priest Rapids Dam. For all locations, the concentrations of radionuclides in sediment samples from the Columbia and Snake rivers were below concentrations that would result in a 1-mrem effective dose equivalent to a hypothetical exposed individual using a shoreline exposure scenario (i.e., 500 hr/yr of external dose). The DOE limit for public exposure is 100 mrem/yr

Isotopic Tracking of Hanford 300 Area Derived Uranium in the Columbia River

Our objectives in this study are to quantify the discharge rate of uranium (U) to the Columbia River from the Hanford Site's 300 Area, and to follow that U down river to constrain its fate. Uranium from the Hanford Site has variable isotopic composition due to nuclear industrial processes carried out at the site. This characteristic makes it possible to use high-precision isotopic measurements of U in environmental samples to identify even trace levels of contaminant U, determine its sources, and estimate discharge rates. Our data on river water samples indicate that as much as 3.2 kg/day can enter the Columbia River from the 300 Area, which is only a small fraction of the total load of dissolved natural background U carried by the Columbia River. This very low-level of Hanford derived U can be discerned, despite dilution to < 1 percent of natural background U, 350 km downstream from the Hanford Site. These results indicate that isotopic methods can allow the amounts of U from the 300 Area of the Hanford Site entering the Columbia River to be measured accurately to ascertain whether they are an environmental concern, or are insignificant relative to natural uranium background in the Columbia River

Chromium Toxicity Test for Fall Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) Using Hanford Site Groundwater: Onsite Early Life-Stage Toxicity Evaluation

The objective of this study was to evaluate site-specific effects for early life-stage (eyed eggs to free swimming juveniles) fall chinook salmon that might be exposed to hexavalent chromium from Hanford groundwater sources. Our exposure conditions included hexavalent chromium obtained from Hanford groundwater wells near the Columbia River, Columbia River water as the diluent, and locally adapted populations of fall chinook salmon. This report describes both a 96-hr pretest using rainbow trout eggs and an early life-stage test beginning with chinook salmon eggs

Methods for Assessing the Relative Amounts of Groundwater Discharge into the Columbia River and Measurement of Columbia River Gradients at the Hanford Site’s 300 Area

This report summarizes FY08 activities conducted under the Remediation and Closure Sciences Project

Caltech Faint Galaxy Redshift Survey. XI. The Merger Rate to Redshift 1 from Kinematic Pairs

The rate of mass accumulation due to galaxy merging depends on the mass, density, and velocity distribution of galaxies in the near neighborhood of a host galaxy. The fractional luminosity in kinematic pairs combines all of these effects in a single estimator that is relatively insensitive to population evolution. Here we use a k-corrected and evolution-compensated volume-limited sample having an R-band absolute magnitude of M^(k,e)_R ≤ -19.8 + 5 log h mag drawing about 300 redshifts from the Caltech Faint Galaxy Redshift Survey and 3000 from the Canadian Network for Observational Cosmology field galaxy survey to measure the rate and redshift evolution of merging. The combined sample has an approximately constant comoving number and luminosity density from redshift 0.1 to 1.1 (Ω_M = 0.2, Ω_Λ = 0.8); hence, any merger evolution will be dominated by correlation and velocity evolution, not density evolution. We identify kinematic pairs with projected separations less than either 50 or 100 h^(-1) kpc and rest-frame velocity differences of less than 1000 km s^(-1). The fractional luminosity in pairs is modeled as f_L(Δv, r_p, M^(k,e)_τ)(1 + z)^(m,L), where [f_L, m_L] are [0.14 ± 0.07, 0 ± 1.4] and [0.37 ± 0.7, 0.1 ± 0.5] for r_p ≤ 50 and 100 h^(-1) kpc, respectively (Ω_M = 0.2, Ω_Λ = 0.8). The value of mL is about 0.6 larger if Λ = 0. To convert these redshift-space statistics to a merger rate, we use the data to derive a conversion factor to a physical space pair density, a merger probability, and a mean in-spiral time. The resulting mass accretion rate per galaxy (M_1, M_2 ≥ 0.2M*) is 0.02 ± 0.01(1 + z)^(0.1±0.5)M* Gyr^(-1). Present-day high-luminosity galaxies therefore have accreted approximately 0.15M* of their mass over the approximately 7 Gyr to redshift 1. Since merging is likely only weakly dependent on the host mass, the fractional effect, δM/M 0.15M*/M, is dramatic for lower mass galaxies but is, on the average, effectively perturbative for galaxies above 1M*

Investigation of the Hyporheic Zone at the 300 Area,Hanford Site

The Remediation Task of the Science and Technology (S&T) Project is intended to provide research to meet several objectives concerning the discharge of groundwater contamination into the river at the 300 Area of the Hanford Site. This report serves to meet the research objectives by developing baseline data for future evaluation of remedial technologies, evaluating the effects changing river stage on near-shore groundwater chemistry, improving estimates of contaminant flux to the river, providing estimates on the extent of contaminant discharge areas along the shoreline, and providing data to support computer models used to evaluate remedial alternatives. This report summarizes the activities conducted to date and provides an overview of data collected through July 2006. Recent geologic investigations (funded through other U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) programs) have provided a more complete geologic interpretation of the 300 Area and a characterization of the vertical extent of uranium contamination. Extrapolation of this geologic interpretation into the hyporheic zone is possible, but there is little data to provide corroboration. Penetration testing was conducted along the shoreline to develop evidence to support the extrapolation of the mapping of the geologic facies. In general, this penetration testing provided evidence supporting the extrapolation of the most recent geologic interpretation, but it also provided some higher resolution detail on the shape of the layer than constrains contaminant movement. Information on this confining layer will provide a more detailed estimate of the area of river bed that has the potential to be impacted by uranium discharge to the river from groundwater transport. Water sampling in the hyporheic zone has provided results that illustrate the degree of mixing that occurs in the hyporheic zone. Uranium concentrations measured at individual sampling locations can vary by several orders of magnitude depending on the river and near-shore aquifer elevations. It is shown in this report that the concentrations of all the measured constituents in water samples collected from the hyporheic zone vary according to the ratio of groundwater and river water in the sample. One important aspect of this is that specific conductance provides a sensitive indicator of the relative contribution of groundwater and river water in a particular sample. This is because of the large difference is specific conductance of groundwater (~400 μS/cm) and river water (~130 μS/cm). It appears that in the hyporheic zone, advection of contaminates occurs very quickly, and variations in concentrations are a function of dilution rather than any chemistry effects caused by the difference in water chemistry between groundwater and river water

Investigation of the Strontium-90 Contaminant Plume along the Shoreline of the Columbia River at the 100-N Area of the Hanford Site

Efforts are underway to remediate strontium-laden groundwater to the Columbia River at the 100-N Area of the Hanford Site. Past practices of the 100-N reactor liquid waste disposal sites has left strontium-90 sorbed onto sediments which is a continuing source of contaminant discharge to the river. The Remediation Task of the Science and Technology Project assessed the interaction of groundwater and river water at the hyporheic zone. Limited data have been obtained at this interface of contaminant concentrations, geology, groundwater chemistry, affects of river stage and other variables that may affect strontium-90 release. Efforts were also undertaken to determine the extent, both laterally and horizontally, of the strontium-90 plume along the shoreline and to potentially find an alternative constituent to monitor strontium-90 that would be more cost effective and could possibly be done under real time conditions. A baseline of strontium-90 concentrations along the shoreline was developed to help assess remediation technologies

Upper limits on the strength of periodic gravitational waves from PSR J1939+2134

The first science run of the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors presented the opportunity to test methods of searching for gravitational waves from known pulsars. Here we present new direct upper limits on the strength of waves from the pulsar PSR J1939+2134 using two independent analysis methods, one in the frequency domain using frequentist statistics and one in the time domain using Bayesian inference. Both methods show that the strain amplitude at Earth from this pulsar is less than a few times $10^{-22}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of the 5th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Tirrenia, Pisa, Italy, 6-11 July 200