Defense Industry, Impact on Water Resources
Water Pollution from defense industry activity is wide-spread throughout the West. The negative effects of nuclear bomb tests and radioactive waste from weapons manufacture to western aquifers are well document. However, the effects of other types of weapons testing and production are less well known. For example, trichloroethylene (TEC) used to wash planes at the Davis Monthan Air Force base near Tucson, Arizona, have percolated into the local aquifer and helped make that city’s water among the worst in the nation; nitrogen from conventional weapons use/storage at army depot (National Guard) at Belmont, Arizona threatens the Woody Mountain aquifer, which supplies the city of Flagstaff, Arizona with its drinking water.
Regarding military training areas: All Studies point to the conclusion that soils in military campsites will take about a century to regain normal soil densities and healthy plant coverage…The very delicate biological soil crusts probably recover even more slowly. Enough crusts may grow in a few decades to help stabilize the soils, but the complex aggregate of species making up the biological crusts probably takes much longer to recover, perhaps millennia. Soil denuded of these stabilizers erodes faster than it did before and provides less support for plants. [From: The American West at Risk…by, Wilshire, Nielson, and Hazlett]
The following is from a report regarding the effects of nuclear bomb testing on water supplies (available in electronic format at TRAIL):
“Prediction of the Dosage to Man From the Fallout of Nuclear Devices. 6. Transport of Nuclear Debris by Surface and Groundwater”
Corporate Author : CALIFORNIA UNIV BERKELEY LAWRENCE LIVERMORE LAB, Personal Author(s) : Fisher, H. L.
Abstract : This report presents a two-part discussion of the surface and ground- water transport of the radionuclides and debris produced by a large-scale nuclear cratering detonation such as might be used in the course of a nuclear excavation project. The first section briefly discusses the transfer of crater debris to surface- water systems associated with the excavation site as the result of erosion and the subsequent transport of debris, through the combined actions of rainfall and runoff. It makes two major points. First, the amount of debris that can be eroded as the result of a single storm, or a series of storms, is a function of (1) the amount of rainfall, its intensity, and the distribution of intensity with time, (2) the infiltration and erosibility characteristics of the debris, (3) the topography, length, slope, and size of the area being eroded, and (4) the type and nature of vegetative cover, if any. Second, the amount of debris that can actually be transported to the surface water system of concern is governed by (1) the amount of debris eroded, (2) the amount, velocity and turbulence of the run-off water, and (3) the distance from the erosion site to the stream channel. Since most of these variables vary widely from area to area, each proposed excavation site presents a unique problem that requires hydrologic and topographic study specifically directed to the determination of the amount of crater debris that can be transferred to an aquatic system associated with that site. The second section of this report briefly examines the Darcy's Law description of groundwater flow and shows that in certain geologic situations, the groundwater travel-times and paths predicted on the basis of standard field measurements of aquifer properties, especially the permeability, can be high misleading with regard to the actual movement of a significant portion of the contaminated water. [Full Report: http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA383519&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf]
