Optimal groundwater remediation design: Methodologies and software for contaminated aquifers. Final report

This document comprises the final report of work performed under sub-contract B-239648 between the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the University of Vermont (UVM). This contract was subsidiary to one between LLNL and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This project had the goal of developing tools and strategies regarding how and where and when to apply the environmental restoration (ER) technologies that are under development. The development of decision support software for advanced environmental remediation technologies is tentative; many of the ER technologies are poorly understood, the applicability of methods to new untested sites is questionable, the ability to predict the effects of alternative remediation designs is very limited, and there are a large number of uncertainties associated with processes and parameters (physical, chemical, and biological), contaminants (distribution and type), and sociopolitical environment. Nevertheless, the potential for significant savings by using optimal design methods and the need to make decisions regardless of uncertainties has made this project worthy. A stop-work order was received in September 1994. An additional upper limit of $15,000 was provided for project termination activities, including report preparation. One of four deliverables was completed and provided to LLNL. MODLP is a computational tool for use in groundwater remediation design. It is a FORTRAN program that incorporates the well known and widely used MODFLOW simulator to represent flow of water in a saturated natural porous medium. MODLP is designed to allow the user to create and solve optimization problems for hydraulic control in groundwater systems. Inasmuch as environmental restoration costs are very large, savings of on the order of ten percent represent significant amounts, and optimal design has been demonstrated to help produce savings larger than ten percent, these activities have an important role to play within DOE