Water found in desert near closed nuke dump

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2000 | 10:50 a.m.

Water has been discovered moving near the surface of the Amargosa Valley, not far from a former nuclear waste dump where radioactive material is believed to have escaped.

Radioactive tritium, which is soluble in water, has been found in Amargosa soils.

A new federal study shows that small amounts of water move in the top 27 feet of dry soils near Beatty, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The ongoing investigation by the U.S. Geological Survey will help experts determine the direction and how fast water is moving in the undisturbed soils, Brian Andraski, one of the lead scientists on the team, said.

In 1995 scientists at the USGS's Amargosa Desert Research Site discovered unexpected high levels of tritium and carbon-14 in the dry soils. Tritium comes from both nuclear weapons and nuclear power reactors. Carbon-14 is naturally occurring but is also found after nuclear weapons experiments.

The latest report was done in cooperation with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has investigated operations at the Beatty low-level radioactive site. The low-level nuclear dump was closed in 1993, but a hazardous waste landfill continues to operate.

The USGS scientists continued to track the tritium and the radiation levels as they continued to rise through 1998. The radiation levels were too high to blame on nuclear weapons experiments at the Nevada Test Site, the 1998 report said.

The Amargosa Valley soil's temperature and moisture have been tracked for 10 years, Andraski said, from 1987 through 1996.

The 37-page report by Mary Tumbusch and David Prudic of the USGS notes that water shifts within the soil as a result of seasonal temperatures and rainfall. The effects of warm summer-like temperatures were measured 43 feet deep.

Small amounts of moisture moved through the subsurface, leaving drier layers near the surface during hot, dry months. Below 27 feet, moisture remained nearly constant.