Abstract
The Waste isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facility located in southeastern New Mexico which is currently being evaluated to assess its suitability for isolating transuranic wastes generated by defense programs in the U.S. The proposed repository is located within the bedded salt of the Salado Formation at a depth of about 660 meters. The Culebra Dolomite, located within the Rustler Formation at a depth of about 250 meters, has been characterized as the most transmissive, laterally continuous hydrogeologic unit above the repository, and is considered a potentially important transport pathway for offsite radionuclide migration within the subsurface. This could occur if, for example, in the future, a well drilled for exploration purposes created an artificial connection between the waste and the Culebra aquifer. Such a scenario is part of a Probabilistic Performance Assessment (PA) that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires the DOE to perform to demonstate the compliance of the repository system with regulations governing disposal of radioactive wastes. Because the EPA regulation is probabilistic, Pas must accurately reflect the variability and uncertainty within all factors that contribute to the simulation of repository performance for isolating the wastes.
This work was sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC04-76DP00789
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Zimmerman, D.A., Axness, C.L., De Marsily, G., Marietta, M.G., Gotway, C.A. (1996). Results from a Comparison of Geostatistical Inverse Techniques for Groundwater Flow. In: Gottlieb, J., DuChateau, P. (eds) Parameter Identification and Inverse Problems in Hydrology, Geology and Ecology. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1704-0_5
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