Environmental tracers of groundwater source, age, and geochemical evolution

Hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI), was discharged in cooling wastewater to unlined surface ponds from 1952 to 1964 and reached the underlying unconsolidated aquifer at the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) Hinkley compressor station in the Mojave Desert, 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, California. A suite of environmental tracers was analyzed in water samples collected from more than 100 wells to characterize the source, age, and geochemical evolution of groundwater within and near the Cr(VI) plume in Hinkley and Water Valleys. This information was used to help determine the extent of Cr(VI) associated with releases from the Hinkley compressor station and to identify Cr(VI) associated with natural sources.

The source of water in most wells, indicated by stable oxygen and hydrogen isotope values for water, delta oxygen-18 and delta deuterium, was recharge by infiltration of intermittent surface flows in the Mojave River. With the exception of small flows in 1958, the Mojave River was largely dry between 1952 and 1969. This dry period spans the period of Cr(VI) releases from the Hinkley compressor station; 1952–69 also spans the period of high tritium levels in precipitation resulting from the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and, as a consequence, tritium concentrations in groundwater in Hinkley Valley were comparatively low. Groundwater ages (time since recharge) increased downgradient from the Mojave River and with depth. Tritium, measured by helium ingrowth with a study reporting level of 0.05 tritium unit, was detected in water from 51 percent of wells, with detectable tritium as far as 7 miles downgradient from the Mojave River. Tritium concentrations were higher, and tritium/helium-3 groundwater ages younger, in water from wells near the Mojave River and in water from shallower wells downgradient. Agricultural pumping has decreased groundwater levels as much as 60 feet since 1952. As a result of this pumping, some groundwater containing tritium, and presumably anthropogenic Cr(VI), has been removed from the aquifer. The distribution of wells having carbon-14 activities near or greater than 100-percent modern carbon, consistent with post-1952 recharge water, was similar to the distribution of wells containing detectable tritium. Carbon-14 activities as low as 8.9-percent modern carbon, with carbon-14 ages (unadjusted for reactions with aquifer materials) of almost 20,000 years before present (ybp), were sampled in water from some deep wells. Hexavalent chromium concentrations in older groundwater were as high as 11 micrograms per liter but did not exceed 3.6 micrograms per liter in older water from wells completed in “Mojave-type” deposits (composed of felsic Mojave River stream and near-shore lake deposits sourced from the Mojave River); this value may represent an upper limit on Cr(VI) concentrations in groundwater within Mojave-type deposits that likely approximates background Cr(VI) concentrations in the study area. Chlorofluorocarbons were released to the atmosphere and hydrologic cycle as a result of industrial activity beginning in the 1930s. Chlorofluorocarbon data were not generally suitable for groundwater-age dating in Hinkley and Water Valley because of nonatmospheric contributions from local sources.

Strontium-87/86 isotope ratios and stable chromium isotopes, delta chromium-53, provide information on the geochemical evolution of groundwater in the aquifer. Highly radiogenic strontium-87/86 ratios greater than 0.71000 were present in water from wells completed in coarse-textured Mojave-type deposits having low chromium concentrations but were not diagnostic of these materials. Nonradiogenic strontium-87/86 ratios less than 0.70950 were diagnostic of weathered materials in the northern subarea of Hinkley and in Water Valley that were eroded from Miocene (23–5 million ybp) deposits east of the study area. Values for delta chromium-53 ranged from near 0 to 2.8 parts per thousand (‰) difference. The extent of reductive fractionation, mixing with native groundwater, and longitudinal dispersion within the October–December 2015 (Q4 2015) regulatory Cr(VI) plume can be estimated on the basis of the delta chromium-53 isotope composition of groundwater within the plume. Reduction of Cr(VI) to trivalent chromium, Cr(III), can occur in the presence of natural reductants in oxic groundwater. Although not diagnostic of anthropogenic chromium at the concentrations of interest near the Q4 2015 regulatory Cr(VI) plume margin, delta chromium-53 data indicate anthropogenic Cr(VI) within the plume is not conservative and has reacted with aquifer materials; these reactions have removed some anthropogenic Cr(VI) from groundwater.

Environmental tracers, and the distribution of modern (post-1952) and premodern (pre-1952) groundwater, inform understanding of the extent of anthropogenic and naturally occurring Cr(VI) near the Q4 2015 regulatory Cr(VI) plume and the understanding of geochemical processes occurring in and near the margins of the Cr(VI) plume. The oxygen and hydrogen isotope compositions of water, tritium/helium-3 groundwater-age data, and carbon-14 data were used with mineralogy and chemistry data as part of a summative-scale analysis to determine the Cr(VI) plume extent later in this professional paper (chapter G).