A field test of tracer transport and organic contaminant elution in a stratified aquifer at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.)

A tracer-elution experiment was conducted in a 9-m-thick alluvial sand aquifer at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Denver, Colorado, within an extensive 1,1,1-trichloroethene and trichloroethene plume. The forced-gradient flow field was controlled by an injection well and an extraction well separated by 8.4 m and aligned in the direction of the natural-gradient flow. Upon extraction, the contaminant-laden water was treated by air stripping and reinjected into the injection well. Iodide tracer was added to the injection flow during the initial 27.5 h of the experiment. Tracer transport and organic contaminant elution were monitored by four 0.15-m-screened drive points and a fully penetrating monitoring well. Relative permeabilities, dispersivities and retardation factors were estimated from tracer breakthrough and contaminant elution curves by the moment method and by curve-fitting with an advection-dispersion model. Tracer transport through the four strata sampled by the drive points indicated a permeability variation of three orders of magnitude. Contaminant elution was not observed in the lowest-permeability stratum monitored during the experiment. In all monitored strata, contaminant elution was controlled primarily by permeability effects on water flow and exhibited minimal retardation or desorption effects. The fully penetrating monitoring well exhibited a tracer response primarily from the more permeable strata with the addition of tracer from the less permeable strata producing an increased breakthrough spreading. This increased spreading or dispersion was reflected in a higher longitudinal dispersivity estimate (1.2 m assuming a homogeneous aquifer) than dispersivity estimates from the drive-point sampler tracer curves (ranging from 5 to 21 cm). Contaminant elution curves from the fully penetrating monitoring well exhibited an initial response primarily from the more permeable strata (rapid elution of contaminants) and provided no insight into the elution response of the majority of the aquifer strata. Low mass recoveries of tracer within low-permeability layers are suspected to be due to the initial transient flow field and/or the initially high range of hydraulic conductivities along the injection well screen.