An aerial radiological survey was conducted over the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory (SSCL) site from July 22 through August 20,1991. Parallel lines were flown at intervals of 305 meters over a 1,036-square-kilometer (400-square-mile) area surrounding Waxahachie, Texas. The 70,000 terrestrial gamma energy spectra obtained were reduced to an exposure rate contour map overlaid on a United States Geological Survey (USGS) map of the area. The mean terrestrial exposure rate measured was 5.4 {mu}R/h at 1 meter above ground level. Comparison to ground-based measurements shows good agreement. No anomalous or man-made isotopes were detected.

Remote sensing images provide useful physical information, revealing such features as geological structure, vegetation, drainage patterns, and variations in consolidated and unconsolidated lithologies. That technology has been applied to the failed Sierra Blanca (Faskin Ranch) shallow burial low-level radioactive waste disposal site selected by the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority. It has been re-examined using data from LANDSAT satellite series. The comparison of the earlier LANDSAT V (5/20/86) (30-m resolution) with the later new, higher resolution ETM imagery (10/23/99) LANDSAT VII data (15-m resolution) clearly shows the superiority of the LANDSAT VII data. The search for surficial indications of evidence of fatal flaws at the Sierra Blanca site utilizing was not successful, as it had been in the case of the earlier remote sensing analysis of the failed Fort Hancock site utilizing LANDSAT V data. The authors conclude that the tectonic activity at the Sierra Blanca site is much less recent and active than in the previously studied Fort Hancock site. The Sierra Blanca site failed primarily on the further needed documentation concerning a subsurface fault underneath the site and environmental justice issues. The presence of this fault was not revealed using the newer LANDSAT VII data. Despite this …

Surface remedial action will be completed at the Falls City, Texas, Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project site in the spring of 1994. Results of water sampling activity from 1989 to 1993 indicate that ground water contamination occurs primarily in the Deweesville/Conquista aquifer (the uppermost aquifer) and that the contamination migrates along four distinct contaminant plumes. Contaminated ground water from some wells in these regions has significantly elevated levels of aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, sulfate, and uranium. Contamination in the Dilworth aquifer was identified in monitor well 977 and in monitor well 833 at the southern edge of former tailings pile 4. There is no evidence that surface water quality in Tordilla and Scared Dog Creeks is impacted by tailings seepage. The following water sampling activities are planned for calendar year 1994: (1) Ground water sampling from 15 monitor wells to monitor the migration of the four major contaminant plumes within the Deweesville/Conquista aquifer. (2) Ground water sampling from five monitor wells to monitor contaminated and background ground water quality conditions in the Dilworth aquifer. Because of disposal cell construction activities, all plume monitor wells screened in the Dilworth aquifer were abandoned. No surface water locations are proposed …

This report presents the results of geological characterization studies in a typical Grayburg reservior in the Permian Basin. The work applies geological models developed in outcrop studies to better constrain the geological reservoir framework and heterogeneity in a typical Grayburg reservoir, The South Cowden Grayburg reservoir. This framework provides a strong basis for defining petrophysical and flow unit properties in the reservior and serves as a prototype model for other Grayburg reservoir characterization studies. The Grayburg Formation in the South Cowden field of eastern Ector County displays an internal stratal architecture that typifies Grayburg shallow-water platform successions throughout the Permian Basin. Study of core and wireline logs in South Cowden field documents three orders of cyclicity in the Grayburg. The entire Grayburg constitutes a single long-duration accommodation cycle that commenced with a major sea-level rise. Two major diagenetic events strongly affect reservoir character in some parts of the field. Recrystallized dolomite is developed along vertical burrows in highly cyclic mud-dominated packstones and wackestones of the HFS 4 Grayburg highstand succussion. Later alteration and removal of anhydrite are focused in structurally low sections along the eastern and southern margins of the field.

Historical evidence is presented for natural uranium series radioactive disequilibrium in uranium bearing soils in the Bargmann property area of karnes County on the Gulf Coastal Plain of south Texas. The early history of uranium exploration in the area is recounted and records of disequilibrium before milling and mining operations began are given. The property contains an open pit uranium mine associated with a larger ore body. In 1995, the US Department of Energy (DOE) directed Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to evaluate the Bargmann tract for the presence of uranium mill tailings (ORNL 1996). There was a possibility that mill tailings had washed onto or blown onto the property from the former tailings piles in quantities that would warrant remediation under the Uranium Mill Tailings Remediation Action Project. Activity ratios illustrating disequilibrium between {sup 226}Ra and {sup 238}U in background soils during 1986 are listed and discussed. Derivations of uranium mass-to-activity conversion factors are covered in detail.