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Small Mammal Soil Burrowing as a Radionuclide Transport Vector at a Radioactive Waste Disposal Area in Southeastern Idaho¹

ABSTRACT

During 1978 and 1979, small mammals excavated a total mass of 12,450 kg soil to the 36-ha surface of a solid radioactive waste disposal area in southeastern Idaho. Elevated concentrations of ²³⁸Pu, ^239,240Pu, and ²⁴¹Am were detected in excavated and surface soils in the waste disposal area. The inventory of 66 µCi (⁹⁰Sr, ¹³⁷Cs, ²³⁸Pu, ^239,240Pu, and ²⁴¹Am) transported to the surface of the waste disposal area by small mammal excavations was significantly (P 0.05) greater than the 20 µCi estimated to occur in excavated soils at a control area where no radioactive waste was disposed. Seventy-seven percent of the radioactivity in soil excavated to the surface of the waste disposal area by small mammals was ²³⁸Pu, ^239,240Pu and ²⁴¹Am; 98% of the radioactivity in excavated soil in the control area was ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs. Small mammal burrowing is a mode of transuranic radionuclide transport to the surface of the waste disposal area; however, the total amount of plutonium in excavated soils was only 0.05% of the amount estimated to occur in waste disposal area surface soils in 1974.

Key Words: americium • nuclear waste • plutonium • radionuclide migration • soil excavations

¹ Funds for this research were provided by the Division of Waste Products and the Office of Health and Environmental Research, U.S. Dep. of Energy.

² Radioecologist and Research Ecologist, respectively, U.S. Dep. of Energy, Radiological and Environmental Sciences Laboratory, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83401.

Received for publication April 26, 1982.

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