Introduction

Soils are of high interest to the WIPP EM because aerosol releases of contaminants would eventually be deposited in surface soils, which then can serve as a source for continuing contaminant exposure and uptake via direct contact, food chain pathways, and re-suspension. From this perspective, soil is an integrating medium of primary concern in predictive ecosystem and contaminant transport modeling. Such modeling requires good information about the dispersion of analytes of concern across the landscape.

Detailed summaries of the sampling design and analytical procedures for the WIPP EM soil studies were presented in the CEMRC 1998, 1999 and 2000 reports. Briefly, soil is collected within a 166 km² area centered on the WIPP operations facility, and at a comparable area encompassing the Cactus Flats aerosol sampling station. Within each of these two areas samples are collected at 16 locations at the vertices and midpoints of concentric rectangular grids. One sample was collected at a site within 25-m of the location’s reference point. An additional 4 field duplicates were collected at randomly selected locations. Individual sampling sites are selected on the basis of relatively flat topography and minimum surface erosion or disturbance due to human or livestock activity. Recent data presented herein are from 36 samples collected during the first quarter of 2001. More detailed summaries are provided in each year’s annual report, which is issued each February, and encompasses results from sampling and analyses completed through September of the previous year.