Assessing environmental risk of the retired filter bed area, Battelle West Jefferson

Initial investigations conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy, Chicago Operations Office, and by Argonne National Laboratory used seismic refraction profiling, electrical resistivity depth sounding, conductivity profiling, magnetic gradiometry, and ground-penetrating radar to study environmental geophysics in the area of the Battelle West Jefferson site`s radiologically contaminated retired filter beds. The investigators used a combination of nonintrusive technologies and innovative drilling techniques to assess environmental risk at the filter beds and to improve understanding of the geology of the Big Darby Creek floodplain. The geophysical investigation, which showed that the preferred groundwater pathway is associated with a laterally extensive deposit of silty sand to sand that is less than 12 ft deep in the floodplain area, also guided the location of cone penetrometer test sites and piezometer installation. Cone penetrometer testing was useful for comparing continuous logging data with surface geophysical data in establishing correlations among unconsolidated materials