New Mexico State University

As part of the WIPP EM project, surface water and sediments are collected from three regional reservoirs situated along the Pecos River. Brantley Lake and Red Bluff Reservoir were selected for sampling because they are impoundments located “upstream” and “downstream”, respectively, relative to surface and ground water flows from the area immediately surrounding the WIPP site. Both reservoirs support a warm water fishery and are used for irrigation, livestock watering, wildlife habitat and recreation. Lake Carlsbad is an impounded section of the Pecos River within the city of Carlsbad that is used extensively by the local population for recreational warm water fishing, boating and swimming.

More detailed information about the Surface Water and Sediments Monitoring program is available in CEMRC’s Annual Reports.

Surface Water Samples

On March 20th and on March 28th, CEMRC technicians collected surface water samples from the three public reservoirs in the area including Brantley Lake, Lake Carlsbad (lower tansil), and Red Bluff Lake. These samples included both shallow and deep water samples as well as sediment samples from the bottom of the reservoirs. Once the actinide separation process was completed, the samples were counted initially for 24 hours and again for a total of five days. For quality control purposes, a duplicate sample was randomly selected from one of the three reservoirs and was analyzed along with the primary samples. As can be seen in the table below, there were no detectable levels of Americium (²⁴¹Am) or Plutonium (^239+240Pu, ²³⁸Pu) for any of the surface water samples collected.

Sediment Samples