Flow and Transport in the Hanford 300 Area Vadose Zone-Aquifer-River System

Contaminant migration in the 300 Area unconfined aquifer is strongly coupled to fluctuations in the Columbia River stage. To better understand the interaction between the river, aquifer, and vadose zone, a 2-D saturated-unsaturated flow and transport model was developed for a vertical cross-section aligned west-east across the Hanford Site 300 Area, nearly perpendicular to the river. The model was used to investigate water flow and tracer transport in the vadose zone-aquifer-river flow system, in support of the ongoing study of the 300 Area uranium plume. The STOMP simulator was used to model 1-year from 3/1/92 to 2/28/93, a period when hourly data were available for both groundwater and river levels. Net water flow to the river (per 1-meter width of shoreline) was 182 m3/y in the base case, but the cumulative exchange or total flow back and forth across the riverbed was 30 times greater. The low river case had approximately double the net water and Groundwater tracer flux into the river as compared to the base case.