Executive SummaryThe purpose of this study was to quantify the influence of physical and/or geochemical heterogeneities in the Hanford 100D area In Situ Redox Manipulation (ISRM) barrier that may be contributing to the discontinuous chromate breakthrough locations along the 65-well (2,300-ft-long) barrier. Chromate breakthrough has been observed in as many as 17 of the 70 ISRM injection wells. Breakthrough has occurred at various locations along the barrier length with, in many cases, adjacent wells indicating good barrier performance. In addition to this spatial variability, observed chromate concentrations over the degraded sections of the barrier also vary seasonally. There is widespread nitrate upgradient of the ISRM barrier (60 mg/L) and lower nitrate concentrations downgradient. A recent nitrate study showed that, while the presence of nitrate will decrease barrier longevity uniformly, it cannot account for specific locations of chromate breakthrough.Possible causes of chromate breakthrough that were investigated during this study include:• high hydraulic conductivity zones• zones of low reducible iron• high hydraulic conductivity zones with low reducible iron.This laboratory-scale investigation used geochemical and physical characterization data collected at 0.5-to 1-ft intervals from four borehole locations. The four characterization borings were 10 to 12 ft up-and downgradient of two existing ISRM injection wells that have seen high chromate breakthrough concentrations. Additional data collected over the past few years pertaining to the ISRM barrier were also used to interpret both redox and flow conditions and the lateral extent of these hydrogeologic and geochemical properties. Supplemental data used in this interpretation included electromagnetic borehole flow meter data, multilevel sampler data, core pictures, and previous reductive capacity measurements.Results of this laboratory study did not provide definitive support for any of the proposed hypotheses for explaining chromate breakthrough at the Hanford 100D Area ISRM barrier. While site characterization data indicate a significant degree of vertical variability in both physical and geochemical properties in the four boreholes investigated, lateral continuity of high-conductivity/low-reductive capacity zones was not observed. The one exception was at the water table, where there was some indication of low reductive capacity at all four boreholes, three of which also showed high-K zones near the water table. A lack of 1-D column data near the water table for two of the four boreholes made characterization of this effect at these locations less certain. If physical heterogeneity alone strongly influenced barrier oxidation (hypothesis 1), there should be an inverse correlation between zones of high hydraulic conductivity and the field reductive capacity, which was generally not supported by the data except at the water table and, to a lesser extent, isolated locations deeper in the profile. The average saturated hydraulic conductivity of the aquifer...