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CERCLA Preliminary Assessment of DOE's Nevada Operations Office Nuclear Weapons Testing Areas Vol Preliminary Studies1B ackground Book 1 CERCLA Preliminary Assessment of DOE'S Nevada Operations Office Nuclear Weapons Testing Areas Vol. I, April 1988 This page intentionally left blank CERCLA PREWARY ASSESSMENT OF DOE'S NEVADA OPERATIONS OFFICE NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING AREAS Prepared for U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Operations Office Las Vegas, Nevada April 1988 vo I CERCLA PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF DOE'S NEVADA OPERATIONS OFFICE NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING AREAS DRAFT Prepared for U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Operations Office Las Vegas, Nevada under contract DE-AC08-85NV10384 April 1988 Richard D. McArthur .! . Desert Research institute I CERCLA PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF DOE'S NEVADA OPERATIONS OFFICE NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING AREAS Prepared for U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Operations Office Las Vegas, Nevada April 1988 VOLUME I CONTENTS VOLUME I I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 11. NEVADA TEST SITE TESTING AREAS 2.1 Frenchman Flat (Area 5) 2.1.1 2.2 YuccaFlat(Areas1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9, 10, 11,andlS) 2.2.1 2.3 Rainier Mesa (Area 12) 2.3.1 2.4 Shoshone Mountain (Area 16) 2.4.1 2.5 Pahute Mesa (Areas 19 and 20) 2.5.1 2.6 Mercury Valley (Area 22 and 23) 2.6.1 2,7 Area 25/26 (Jackass Flats, NRDS) 2.7.1 VOLUME II 111. OFF-SITE AREAS 3.1 Tonopah Test Range, Nevada 3.2 Central Nevada Test Area, Nevada 3.3 Amchitka, Alaska 3.4 Shoal Test Area, Nevada 3.5 Rio Blanco Gas Stimulation, Colorado 3.6 Rulison Gas Stimulation, Colorado 3.7 Gasbuggy Gas Stimulation, New Mexico 3.8 Gnome-Coach Site, New Mexico 3.9 Tatum Dome Test Site, Mississippi 3.10 Area 13, Nellis Air Force Range, Nevada SECTION I INTRODUCTION The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), as amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA), provides that all U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations and criteria pertaining to inactive hazardous waste sites are applicable to U.S. Gov- ernment facilities. Included among the provisions of these acts are requirements for a preliminary assessment (PA) of each facility and an evaluation based on the same Hazard Ranking System (HRS) that is applied to non-federal facilities. This report contains the PA's and draft HRS scores for the facilities operated by the U.S. Depart- ment of Energy's Nevada Operations Office (DOEINV). The primary mission of the Nevada Operations Office is and has been the test- ing of nuclear explosives. Most nuclear tests have been conducted on the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in southern Nevada, and the evaluation of hazardous waste sites on the NTS makes up most of Volume 1. Tests have been conducted at other sites in the continental U.S., and those sites are evaluated in Volume 2. The several Pacific Ocean sites used for testing in the 1950's and 1960's are not evaluated here. A listing of CERCLA sites to be considered was compiled by DOEMV to be assessed in this study. Additional sites likely exist, primarily on the NTS as alluded to in the Environmental Assessment of the NTS (1977). It will be therefore necessary to update the assessment if more sites are discovered by DOEN. This report do&- ments preliminary assessments of 31 sites in 7 geographic areas of the NTS and 10 off-site areas containing 13 sites. These sites are listed in Tables 1.1. and 1.2, re- spectively. The PA's were prepared chiefly by reviewing as much published data as possible in the short time available. Because of time constraints, no attempt was made to insure the validity of reported data. Where repoked data were clearly in error (see Gasbuggy reported precipitation), they were discussed in the text and appropriate values used. No field visits of non-NTS sites were conducted, and only cursory inspections were made of the NTS sites. It is anticipated that thorough data review and site inspections will be carried out (if needed) in subsequent stages of investiga- tion. TABLE 1.1. ON-SITE CERCLA AREAS COVERED IN THIS REPORT. Area Site Type HRS (Migratory) HRS (Direct) HRS (FIE) - Frenchman Lake Above-Ground Nuclear Test Cambric Below-Ground Nuclear Test xus=E& Haymaker Below-Ground Nuclear Test Sedan Below-Ground Nuclear Test Project 56 Safety Shots and Waste Dumps EPA Farm Waste Sump U15e Muck Pile Contaminated Mine Waste CP 2 & 6 Leachfield Contaminated Leachfield BJY Rad Sump Waste Sump ' U9y Crater Mud Disposal Site U8d Injection Well Ud6 Injection Well Area 3 Subdock Injectidn ~e~ls/~pil~s Core Storage Yard Injection Wells U12b Muck Pile Contaminated Mine Waste 0.94 0.0 4.4 CWD-1 Contaminated Waste Dump 0.94 0.0 5.0 U12c, d, f Contaminated Mine Waste 0.94 0.0 4.44 U12i, j, k Contaminated Mine Waste 0.94 8.33 5.0 TABLE 1.1. (continued) Area Site Type HRS (Migratory) HIS (Direct) HRS (F/E) Rainier Mesa [cont'd) U12e Contaminated Mine Waste and Lagoons 1.41 25.0 3.33 U12t Below-Ground Nuclear Test 13.92 25.0 5.0 -U16a Contaminated Mine Waste 1.88 0.0 0.56 U16a Below-Ground Nuclear Test 2.26 0.0 0.56 EahkMsa Palanquin Below-Ground Nuclear Test 1.35 0.0 0.55 Cheshire Below-Ground Nuclear Test 25.95 0.0 0.55 Mercunt Building 155 Leachfield Desert Rock Airstrip Jet Fuel Spill Leachfield and Waste Dump 1.18 E-Mad Waste Dump, Leachfield, Underground Tasks 1.18 0.0 3.89 Test Cell A Leachfield 13.86 0.0 4.44 Test Cell C Leachfield 26.48 0.0 6.66 Building 401 Leachfield and Waste Dump 1.72 0.0 2.78 Site State Type HRS (Migratory) HRS (Direct) HRS (FIE) Tonopah Test Range Nevada Double Tracks (Safety Shot) Tonopah Test Range Nevada Clean Slates 1-3 (Safety Shots) Central Nevada Test Area Nevada Underground Nuclear Test Amchitka Test Area Alaska Long Shot (Underground Nuclear Test) Amchitka Test Area Alaska Milrow (Underground Nuclear Test) Amchitka Test Area Alaska Cannikan (Underground Nuclear Test) Project Shoal Nevada Underground Nuclear Test Rio Blanco Colorado Gas Stimulation (Underground Nuclear Test) Project Rulison Colorado Gas Stimulation (Underground Nuclear Test) Gasbuggy New Mexico Gas Stimulation (Underground Nuclear Test) Gnome-Coach New Mexico Underground Nuclear Test Taturn Dome Mississippi Underground Nuclear Tests Area 13 Nevada Safety Shot In general, the published data were sufficient for preliminarily assessing the environmental and hydrogeologic conditions at most sites. Large amounts of moni- toring data (air, soil, ground water, and milk) are also available for most nuclear tests, though only a limited amount of these data could be reviewed for this report. However, nearly all sites are lacking in data pertaining to the quantity of waste pre- sent. Only approximate yields are published for most nuclear tests, and the precise composition of any particular weapon is usually classified information. The PA's were therefore written using rough approximations based on published data about nuclear explosions in general. PRELIh4INARY ASSESSMENTS FOR THE NTS For administrative purposes, the NTS is divided into 25 numbered areas (Figure 1.1). For preparing the PA's, however, it was more practical to consider seven larger areas where testing or disposal took place: Frenchman Flat, Yucca Flat, Area 25/26, Rainier Mesa, Shoshone Mountain, and Pahute Mesa. A waste disposal site in Mer- cury Valley was also assessed. Every site of a nuclear test may in principle qualify as a CERCLA site, but it was impossible to assess each one separately. Instead, the effort was limited to the sites that were expected to produce the highest HRS scores for a given area. Criteria for choosing these sites included proximity to human populations or water supply wells, documented contamination of ground water, and release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. All known waste disposal sites were individually assessed. To avoid excessive repetition in the following PA's, a general description of the NTS and its environment is given here. Most of this information comes from a 1977 environmental impact statement3 and a report on the ecology of the NTS.4 HISTORY When nuclear weapons development was accelerated in 1949 and 1950 in re- sponse to the national defense policy, it became increasingly clear that, if nuclear weapons could be tested safely within the continental boundaries, weapons develop- ment lead times could be reduced and considerably less expense incurred. After review of known information about fallout, thermal, and blast effects, it was deter- mined that under careful controls, an area within what is now the Nellis Air Force Range could be used for relatively low-yield nuclear detonations with full assurance FIGURE 1.1. The Areas of the Nevada Test Site. of public safety. Originally, 680 mi2 were withdrawn under Public Land Order 805 dated February 19, 1962, for nuclear testing purposes, from an area used by the Air Force as a bombing and gunnery range. This resulted in the formation of approxi- mately the eastern half of the present Nevada Test Site, including Yucca Flat. Addi- tional land withdrawals in 1958, 1961, and 1964 added to the site, and with the use of Pahute Mesa area acquired by Memorandum of Agreement with the Department of Defense in 1967, the present size of 1,350 mi2 was attained. Construction of the Nevada Test Site facilities began on January 1, 1951. Operation Ranger was the first series of tests for which the Nevada Test Site was utilized. The first test was of a 1 kt device which was air-dropped and detonated on January 27, 1951, in Frenchman Flat.
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