54. 



seepage and the plan was to study it carefully to determine whether 

 the seepage created a hazard. So far we think it has not. The 

 Operations Division is considering the use of, say, a total of five pits, 

 the idea being that an operating seepage system would contribute fluids 

 continuously to the soil over a large area and that the seepage of fluid 

 would balance the production of waste. That is the general concept. 

 If we find that it creates a hazard, we can put liners in the new pits 

 to minimize seepage, or again start building storage tanks. Some 

 people in the more arid areas are quite interested in this concept be- 

 cause they do not have the unfavorable balance between rainfall and 

 evaporation which we have. We have more rainfall than evaporation 

 but in many places it is the reverse. 



DR. KOHMAN: Why not build shed roofs over the pits? 



MR. MORTON: That is a possibility that has been discussed 

 with the Weather Bureau, but a roof will restrict evaporation as well 

 as the entrance of rainwater and we might not gain much. 



The work of estimating the evaporation loss is being done with 

 the collaboration of the Weather Bureau, the U. S. Geological Survey, 

 and others. It includes measuring liquid temperatures at the surface 

 and below the surface, air temperatures and wind velocities, the chem- 

 ical content of the waste liquid, and other measurements that the 

 Weather Bureau people tell us are necessary in order to calculate 

 evaporation losses. 



DR. HUBBERT: What is the temperature of this material? Is 

 it hot ? 



MR. MORTON: No, it is not hot? Ic may be above ordinary tap 

 water temperatures, but not much. 



Waste disposal research at ORNL is a cooperative program in- 

 volving several agencies: the Public Health Service, the U.S. 

 Weather Bureau, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Tennessee Valley 

 Authority, and the U. S. Engineers. The program takes into consid- 

 eration the interests of many agencies besides our own. For example, 

 the U.S. Geological Survey and our own workers are studying in de- 

 tail the geologic structures and the hydrology at the sites which we 

 propose to use for high level wastes disposal facilities. The objective 

 is to see whether or not the behavior of wastes below ground can be 

 correlated with the movement of underground water. The evidence 



