The modeling efforts of Dr. Georgio Tachiev and his team of researchers was recently published in the Spring 2012 edition of the Remediation Journal. The paper describes the development of an integrated surface and groundwater model for flow and mercury transport in EFPC. A model with even greater detail has been developed and is currently being used to predict transport patterns of mercury and evaluate risks during deactivation and decommissioning of mercury contaminated facilities at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN. The following is an abstract which summarizes the publication.<\/p>\n
Simulation of Flow and Mercury Transport in Upper East Fork Poplar Creek, Oak Ridge, Tennessee ABSTRACT
\n<\/strong>By Siamak Malek-Mohammadi, Georgio Tachiev, Elsa Cabrejo, Angelique Lawrence<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>\u201cAs a result of nuclear processing activities started back in the 1950s, the environment in the vicinityof the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12 NSC) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and surrounding\u00a0watersheds has been contaminated by nearly 1,000 tons of elementary mercury. To comply with the\u00a0state and federal surface water quality standards, a significant reduction in mercury concentration to\u00a0parts-per-trillion levels has been proposed. In order to analyze the mercury cycle in the environment\u00a0and provide forecasting capabilities for the flow and transport of mercury within the Upper East\u00a0Fork Poplar Creek (UEFPC) watershed, an integrated surface and subsurface flow and transport\u00a0model has been developed using the hydrodynamic and transport numerical package, MIKE,\u00a0developed by the Danish Hydraulic Institute. The model has been constructed and calibrated using\u00a0an extensive collection of historical records (i.e., hydrological data, and mercury concentration\u00a0measurements in groundwater, soil, and sediment) obtained from the Oak Ridge Environmental\u00a0Information System database. Daily fluctuations in stream flow, as a result of scattered rainfall,\u00a0flooding, and flow augmentation, resuspend the contaminated streambed sediments and\/or erode\u00a0the polluted streambank soil and provide a secondary source of mercury to the creek. In order to\u00a0investigate the significance of sediment-mercury interactions on the fate and transport of mercury\u00a0within the UEFPC study domain, simulations were performed for two different cases (i.e., with and\u00a0without consideration of sediment-mercury interactions). Computed total suspended solids and\u00a0mercury concentrations at the integration point of the creek are compared with the corresponding\u00a0historical records in both cases. As confirmed by the numerical simulations, a substantial portion\u00a0of the mercury detected in the river is likely in the form of sediment particle\u2013bound mercury (i.e.,\u00a0mercury particulates).\u201d<\/p>\n