Comprehensive appraisal of 239 + 240Pu in soils around Rocky Flats, Colorado

Plutonium contamination of soils around Rocky Flats Environmental & Technology Site, near Golden, Colorado, resulted from past outdoor storage practices and subsequent remobilization due to inadequate cleanup practices. Until now human-health risk assessment has not been performed because of a lack of sufficient information regarding the spatial extent of 239 + 240Pu in soils. The purpose of this work was to elucidate the extent of plutonium contamination in surface soils, and to assess the uncertainty associated with the spatial distribution of 239 + 240Pu around Rocky Flats Environmental & Technology Site. Four data sets were collected or compiled for this investigation: (1) samples collected from 240 plots of 1.01- or 4.05-hectare by compositing 25 evenly-spaced samples from the upper 0.64 cm in each plot; (2) samples collected from the upper 5 cm of soil in 167 of the same 240 plots by compositing 10 samples from the center of each plot; (3) historical data compiled from samples collected between 1969 and 1973, considered to be the most indicative of the original release; and (4) the exhaustive data set that contains the samples from 1, 2, and 3 and other published data sets collected between 1974 and 1994. These latter samples varied in depth and method of sampling. Plutonium activity reported in the exhaustive data set ranged from 0.03 Bq kg-1 to 407,000 Bq kg-1 with a mean of 1,443 Bq kg-1, median of 6.6 Bq kg-1, standard deviation of 18,463 Bq kg-1, and a coefficient of variation of 12.6. The technique of nonparametric indicator kriging was used to model four conditional cumulative distribution functions of 239 + 240Pu in soils around Rocky Flats Environmental & Technology Site. Each of the conditional cumulative distribution functions was used to generate an E-type (mean of the conditional cumulative distribution functions) surface. The resulted surfaces were consistent with the hypothesis that the westerly winds were the dominant mechanism of plutonium dispersal. Other processes, such as downstream transport of sediment along local southeast-trending drainages, may have additionally moved small amounts of plutonium. The conditional cumulative distribution functions were also used to construct probability of exceedance maps of 239 + 240Pu in soils. For the purpose of this report two threshold values for the probability maps were selected: (1) the mean and the highest measured global fallout of plutonium (1.48 and 2.96 Bq kg-1, respectively); and (2) the programmatic preliminary remediation goal for residential occupancy scenario (126 Bq kg-1).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)