General investigation of radionuclide retention in migration pathways at the West Valley, New York low-level burial site. Final report 1 Oct 78-14 Feb 80

This final report evaluates the containment capabilities of the low-level, solid radioactive waste burial ground at West Valley, New York. The investigation included a surface water study, a trench water study, geotechnical and radiochemical studies of soils, a geotechnical analysis of a research trench and analysis of subtrench core data. Tritium is the most abundant beta emitter in trench water while strontium-90 is the predominant beta emitter in surface water. Strontium-90 ranks as the second most abundant trench water radionuclide in 6 of the 11 trenches studied. Four radionuclides were found to have either definite or possible migration. Carbon-14 was found to migrate at a much slower rate than tritium, which migrated to a depth slightly greater than 3.2m below the trench flow. There is also inconclusive evidence for strontium-90 migration beneath the trenches. Plutonium-238 was detected immediately beneath all 3 trenches studied and in 4 of the 5 trench cores. Results predicted by testing performed in 1977 were confirmed by standard engineering tests on soils fron the site. Soil samples taken from the north burial area trench caps and analyzed for tritium showed approximate background levels at the surface and above background levels at depths of 20 to 50 centimeters