A case study simulation of DBCP groundwater contamination in Fresno County, California 2. Transport in the saturated subsurface

This paper is the second installment of a multipaper series concerned with simulating regional-scale groundwater contamination in Fresno County, CA as the result of long-term nonpoint source applications of 1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane (DBCP). In the first part of this study [Loague, K., Lloyd, D., Nguyen, A., Davis, S.N., Abrams, R.H., 1997. A case study simulation of DBCP groundwater contamination in Fresno County, California: 1. Leaching through the unsaturated subsurface. J. Contamin. Hydrol. (this issue)], our focus was on the unsaturated zone and DBCP leaching to the water table. Our focus in this paper is the assessment of DBCP transport in the saturated subsurface. Here, the groundwater flow code MODFLOW is coupled to the solute transport code MT3D to simulate the potential fate and transport of DBCP below the water table in the Fresno County study area for a 35-yr period. The results presented here illustrate the long-term regional-scale evolution of the DBCP plume in the study area. The simulated DBCP concentrations are limited to the relatively shallow younger sediments and are generally well below the maximum contaminant level set for the chemical. The simulations presented here suggest that nonpoint source applications of DBCP are not responsible for the observed hot spots in the study area. At the end of this paper we discuss the implications and extensions of the Fresno case study which has been reported here and in the companion paper mentioned above (Loague et al., 1997).