Preliminary evaluation of environmental uranium concentration originated from trench disposal facilities

Ogawa, Rina; Abe, Daichi*; Sugaya, Toshikatsu; Sakuma, Kota; Saito, Tatsuo  ; Sakai, Akihiro 

Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has planned to dispose of the Uranium-bearing waste, whose radioactivity concentration is low, in trench disposal facility. In Japan, uranium is a material to impact on human health, therefore Environmental quality standards for water pollution for uranium has been established, and the standard value is 0.002mg/L. Safety of trench disposal facilities will be assessed that radionuclides contained in the radioactive waste are transferred to the biosphere by seepage water and groundwater. Therefore, JAEA considers that not only dose evaluation but also environmental pollution evaluation is needed as a safety assessment. In this report, we examined whether the concentration of uranium leaching from the trench facility in the aquifer can meet the Environmental quality standards. In addition, parameter study under various conditions of disposal facility were done. Based on the results, conditions and issues of future basic design of trench disposal facility were discussed. The uranium concentration in the aquifer was calculated by the one-dimensional dose evaluation code "GSA-GCL2" for the disposal of LLW. As the result, the uranium concentration in the aquifer significantly changed depending on the conditions of design of disposal facility and so on. However, if the shape and arrangement of the trench facility to groundwater flow direction, the distribution coefficient of uranium of the waste layer, the specification of the impermeable layer and their combination are appropriately designed we consider that the uranium concentration of aquifer can made to adapt the environmental quality standard.