Investigation of Isotopic Signatures for Sources of Groundwater Contamination at the Hanford Site

The Hanford Site Groundwater Monitoring Project at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) investigated selected isotopic signature techniques to aid interpretation of contaminant plumes in Hanford Site groundwater. The main approach was to select groundwater samples expected to exhibit a variety of contaminant characteristics and then develop inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analytical methods for the groundwater matrix. Initial broad scans were used to identify interferences and to focus the method development on isotopes showing the greatest promise of practical application. In addition, earlier work characterizing chlorine-36 in Hanford Site groundwater by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) will be discussed.