-- --··- - . ···~ .. .. ·- --· .. 

Ms. Sharon White 

Department of Energy 

Carlsbad Field Office 

P. 0 . Box 3090 

Carlsbad, New Mexico 88221 

OCT 2 4 2005 

Radiation Protection Division 

Office of Radiation and Indoor Air 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

1200 Pennsylvania Ave, N. W. 

Washington, DC 20460 

Subject: Magenta Transmissivity Fact Sheet 

Dear Ms. White: 

The enclosed paper was primarily developed in May 2005 to summarize our 

investigation of early testing of Magenta transmissivity and is being provided in 

response to a recent request by Mr. Peake of your staff. If additional information is 

required, please contact Daryl Mercer of my staff at 505-234-7452. 

Enclosure 

cc w/enclosure 

T. Peake, EPA *ED 

C. Byrum, EPA ED 

G. Basabilvazo, CBFO ED 

R.Patteffion,CBFO ED 

M. Rigali, SNL ED 

S. Kouba, WRES ED 

CBFO M&RC 

•eo denotes electronic distribution 

CBFO:OOD:DM:LR:05-Q688:UFC:2300 
Sharon White 

bee: w/enclosure 

D. Mercer, CBFO 

R. Beauheim , SNL 

·eo denotes electronic distribution 

CBFO:OOD:DM:LR:05-0688:UFC:2300 

ED 

ED 

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MAGENTA TRANSMISSIVITY FACT SHEET 

Summary: 

In 2000, the DOE thoroughly investigated allegations that were originally raised in the Citizens 

Against Radioactive Dumping (CARD) lawsuit filed in 1999 challenging the validity of the 

WIPP Disposal Phase Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. The DOE investigation 

concluded that there was no basis to believe that data important to the long-term performance of 

WIPP had been compromised. The EPA was provided the results ofthe DOE investigation and 

subsequently conducted their own independent investigation. This paper has been prepared to 

summarize the DOE evaluation. 

Background 

Overlaying WIPP, there are two principal subsurface water bearing zones (the Culebra and the 

Magenta) that could potentially transport contaminants from an inadvertent drilling intrusion into 

the WIPP. Such contaminants could find their way to water sources that could be used by either 

cattle or humans, thus posing the potential for adverse health impacts. The Culebra lies below 

the Magenta (closer to the repository level) and is more transmissive. Thus, in our model of a 

brine release subsequent to a drilling intrusion, the brine (water) tends to flow from the drill hole 

to and then through the Culebra, since it offers the path of least resistance. In scenarios modeled 

in performance assessment, the brine never even rises to the level of the Magenta, which in any 

case is less permeable and would offer more resistance to outward flow. 

Some stakeholders believe that the Magenta is filled with holes (karst in geologic terminology), 

offers less resistance to groundwater flow than the Culebra, and would, therefore, allow more of 

the repository's contents to be released subsequent to a drilling intrusion than is modeled by the 

WIPP performance assessment. 
Basis of the Allegations 

A WIPP stakeholder found a hand-edited page from a draft hydrology report in USGS files that 

showed a revision in the transmissivity range for the Magenta Member of the Rustler Formation 

from <1 - 40 ft2

/day to 10-4 - 1 ft2/day. By comparing the handwriting on the page to a signed, 

handwritten memo from Jerry Mercer, then a USGS hydrologist, the stakeholder identified 

Mercer as the person who edited the page. The stakeholder alleges that Mercer's revision was an 

"act of data falsification [that] has steered the entire WIPP hydrologic investigation in a false 

direction, allowing the DOE to completely ignore the most transmissive aquifer in the immediate 

vicinity ofthe WIPP waste panels." All this transpired in 1999. 

Summary of DOE Investigation and Results 

The transmissivity value of 40 ft2/day appears to derive from a preliminary bailing test 

performed by the USGS on the Magenta in well H-3 in 1977. Later evaluation of the data 

showed that a packer placed in the well to isolate the Magenta from the more transmissive 

Culebra was leaking during the bailing test, and that the test did not accurately reflect the 

properties of the Magenta. From the start, the bailing test was intended to determine whether or 

not the Magenta could be tested using standard hydrogeological techniques (i.e., slug or pumping 

tests), not to provide a reliable estimate of transmissivity. Subsequent to the bailing test, the 

leaking packer was replaced and a slug test was performed on the Magenta. The data from this 

test have never been published, but the test was interpreted by the USGS, and reported to show a 

transmissivity of 0.1 ft2 /day in a 1983 report by Mercer. Arrangements are being made with and 

by the USGS to publish these old data for public consumption. 

The allegation of data falsification and misdirection of the WIPP hydrology program is utterly 

erroneous. The Magenta has been tested in 18 WIPP wells, most of them since the time of the 

alleged data falsification. In all but two wells, the transmissivity of the Magenta has been found 

to be less than or equal to 1 ft2

/day. The other two wells were tested AFTER Mercer made his 

revisions, and the correct values for those two wells (53 and 375 ft2

/day) were accurately 

reported in Mercer's 1983 USGS report. The Culebra dolomite has been tested at all of the 

locations where the Magenta has been tested and at many additional locations, and is consistently 

found to be one or more orders of magnitude more permeable than the Magenta. 

Detailed Discussion of Allegations, and DOE's Investigation 

and Findings: 

Allegations 

A WIPP stakeholder, Dr. R.H. Phillips, gained access to USGS records in Albuquerque in March 

1999 under an FOIA request. In the USGS files, he came across a draft hydrology report from 

approximately 1978 or 1979 that showed handwritten corrections (this was when reports were 
. ···· ··· ----· - · -·- . -· 

still typed on typewriters) made by Jerry Mercer, then a USGS hydrologist. One page in the 

report shows a revision in the transmissivity range for the Magenta Member of the Rustler 

Formation from <1 - 40 ft2

/day to 104 - 1 ft2/day. Phillips alleges that Mercer's revision was an 

"act of data falsification [that] has steered the entire WIPP hydrologic investigation in a false 

direction, allowing the DOE to completely ignore the most transmissive aquifer in the immediate 

vicinity of the WIPP waste panels. Jerry Mercer, for his services, was rewarded with a job at 

Sandia National Laboratories." 

Phillips' allegation was contained in a motion filed in the United States District Court for the 

District of New Mexico in June 2000, Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping et al. vs. 

Bill Richardson, et al. (CIV No. 99-321 JC/WWD). That motion was denied, but another motion 

was filed in appeal on July 14, 2004, Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping et al. vs. 

Spencer Abraham, et al. (CIV No. 99-321 ACT/MCA (ACE)). The district court dismissed that 

motion and subsequently ultimately dismissed all claims against the Federal Government and the 

private defendants on September 30, 2004. The sole basis of the appeal to the l01

h Circuit Court 

of Appeals from the district court dismissal is the alleged Mercer falsification. 

Summary of DOE Investigation 

The report page in question does not seem to correspond to any published USGS or Mercer 

report or paper. Our investigation identified no published report that contains a substantially 

similar page. The reported upper value of transmissivity for the Magenta was shown as 40 

ft2/day in the Geological Characterization Report (GCR; Powers et al., 1978; reprinted as 

Appendix GCR of the CCA) for the WIPP prepared by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). 

This was later shown as 2 ft2

/day in Mercer and Orr (1979). This is similar to the information in 

the document that was identified by Phillips. A summary of the data examined in the 

investigation of this discrepancy in Magenta transmissivity values is set forth below: 

1. In April 1977, a bailing and recovery test was performed on the Magenta Member of the 

Rustler Formation in well H-3. At the time of the testing, an inflatable packer was placed in the 

well to separate the Magenta interval from the lower, more permeable, Culebra interval. Thirty 

bailing runs were made in the well, removing approximately 360 gallons of water and causing 

the water level to drop from only 405.1 to 411.1 ft below land surface. The water level was then 

monitored for 33 days, during which it rose to 401.3 ft below land surface. Later monitoring 

showed the Magenta water level to typically be at approximately 250ft, whereas the water level 

in the lower Culebra interval was typically at approximately 405ft. Given that all of the 

"Magenta" water levels measured at the time ofthe bailing test were typical of the Culebra, not 

the Magenta, we surmise that, in fact, the packer separating the Magenta from the Culebra was 

leaking during the test. 

2. No analysis of data collected in April 1977 is documented in any USGS report. However, the 

GCR (Powers et al., 1978) states (p. 6-36) "Preliminary transmissivity values [for the Magenta] 

computed by Mercer and Orr (1978) range from 40 ft2

/d to less than 1 ft2/d." In the references 

section of that report, the Mercer and Orr ( 1978) report is identified as a preliminary report 

submitted by USGS to DOE. It appears to have been a draft version of the later Mercer and Orr 
(1979) report, and may well be the report containing the page edited by Mercer. The published 

Mercer and Orr (1979) report, however, states (p. 174) "Preliminary values of transmissivity for 

the Magenta range from 2 ft2

/day in H-3 to less than 1 ft2/day in H-1.", but provides no 

indication of the test from which the H-3 value was derived, or the method used for its 

derivation. The USGS files contain a hand-drawn semilog plot of the water-level recovery data 

following the bailing in April 1977, showing straight-line analysis of two segments of the data: 

the first day of recovery and the subsequent 32 days. From the data for the first day, a 

transmissivity of 45.44 ft2

/day was inferred. From the data for the last 32 days, a transmissivity 

of 1.79 ft2/day was inferred. This plot may be the source of both the 40 ft2/day ascribed to 

Mercer and Orr (1978) and the 2 ft2

/day published in Mercer and Orr (1979). In any case, given 

the anomalous water levels throughout the bailing and recovery test and the suspected 

connection to the Culebra, no reliable value of Magenta transmissivity could be inferred. Nor 

did the USGS ever intend this to be a definitive test- the purpose of bailing was to obtain data 

that would allow design of a proper hydraulic test. 

3. The Mercer (1983) report gives a transmissivity value for the Magenta at H-3 of 0.1 ft2/day, 

with no indication of the source of the data. However, the USGS files contain full 

documentation of a slug test performed on the Magenta in H-3 in May 1979, and also contain a 

semi log plot of the test data with a type-curve match showing a transmissivity estimate of 0.12 

ft2/day. This slug test provides, by far, the data most suited to a reliable analysis, and appears to 

be the source of the transmissivity value given in Mercer (1983). The Mercer (1983) report also 

presents Magenta transmissivity values from more wells (12) than had been tested at the time of 

the Mercer and Orr (1979) report, with a range from 4 x 10-3 to 375 ft2/day. Hence, far from 

concealing the "true" range of Magenta transmissivity values as alleged by Phillips, the USGS 

openly expanded the range as additional data became available. 

4. Since the Mercer (1983) report, SNL has tested the Magenta in six additional wells, and also 

retested the Magenta at H-3 in 1989. From the tests in H-3, Beauheim et al. (1991) inferred 

Magenta transmissivity values between 0.14 and 0.18 ft2 /day. The highest Magenta 

transmissivity measured by SNL on the WIPP site is 0.38 ft2

/day (Beauheirn and Ruskauff, 

1998). 

5. Mr. Mercer left the USGS in 1984 to take ajob with SNL, where he is still employed. 

6. The Culebra dolomite has been tested at all of the locations where the Magenta has been 

tested and at many additional locations, and is consistently found to be one or more orders of 

magnitude more permeable than the Magenta. Hence, the WIPP project has appropriately 

focused more attention on the characterization of the Culebra than on the Magenta. 

References: 

Beauheim, R.L., and G.J. Ruskauff. 1998. Analysis of Hydraulic Tests of the Culebra and 

Magenta Dolomites and Dewey Lake Redbeds Conducted at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Site. 

SAND98-0049. Albuquerque, NM: Sandia National Laboratories. 
Beauheim, R.L., T.F. Dale, and J.F. Pickens. 1991. Interpretations of Single-Well Hydraulic 

Tests of the Rustler Formation Conducted in the Vicinity of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Site, 

1988-1989. SAND89-0869. Albuquerque, NM: Sandia National Laboratories. 

Mercer, J.W. 1983. Geohydrology ofthe Proposed Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Site, Los 

Medaiios Area, Southeastern New Mexico. Water-Resources Investigations Report 83-4016. 

Albuquerque, NM: US Geological Survey. 

Mercer, J.W., and B.R. Orr. 1979. Interim Data Report on the Geohydrology of the Proposed 

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Site, Southeast New Mexico. Water-Resources Investigations Report 

79-98. Albuquerque, NM: US Geological Survey. 

Powers, D.W., S.J. Lambert, S.-E. Shaffer, L.R. Hill, and W.D. Weart, eds. 1978. Geological 

Characterization Report, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Site, Southeastern New Mexico. 

SAND78-1596, Volume II. Albuquerque, NM: Sandia National Laboratories.