Geohydrology of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho

In 1949, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which later became the U.S. Department of Energy, requested that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) describe the water resources of the area now known as the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) (fig. 1). The purpose of the resulting study was to characterize these resources before the development of nuclear-reactor testing facilities. The USGS since has maintained a monitoring network at the INEEL to determine hydrologic trends and to delineate the movement of facility-related radiochemical and chemical wastes in the Snake River Plain aquifer. This fact sheet, summarized from two published reports (Anderson and others, 1996; Bartholomay and others, 1997), describes the geohydrology of the eastern Snake River Plain (fig. 1) at the INEEL.