Originally Posted by lvleph

The issue is not whether radioactive contaminants will enter the groundwater, but when. The other issue is how far will that contaminant move. There are many contaminants that are not considered to be much of a hazard due to their short half-lifes. However, there may others with long half-lifes and travel through ground water relatively quick and are not considered conservative (absorption and adsorption must be taken into account). Other issues are that the rate of release are quite variable and so are difficult to model. Many, many more issues exist making the entire process of determining contaminant plume modeling quite difficult and so determine a place to dispose of nuclear waste becomes quite difficult. In the USA we require a 95% confidence interval on the plume extent after 10000 years. Not an easy task.

Sorry, we are just talking about a subject that I am, in fact, a bit of an expert. I tried to keep it as simple as possible. If any one cares to ask question, have at it.