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WASTE DISCHARGE REQUIREMENTS ORDER NO. R5-2008-0148 -12- LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL SECURITY, LLC AND THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY FOR LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY SITE 300 SAN JOAQUIN AND ALAMEDA COUNTIES identified as down and upgradient monitoring wells after the required studies are completed, as described in Provision 5 and discussed in Finding 56. 49.Occasionally these cooling towers may discharge onto the ground when the percolation pits undergo maintenance. These discharges are of short duration, usually no more than seven days, and the Discharger takes steps to minimize flow and prevent the blowdown from reaching surface water drainage courses. 50.All but three of the existing cooling tower percolation pits are in the High Explosives Process Area and Chemistry Area, described in Finding 39. The three cooling tower percolation pits outside these two areas receive blowdown from cooling towers at the Buildings 801 Complex, 812 Complex and 851 Complex. These buildings are used for testing of explosives. Building 801 and 812 are located in Elk Creek Ravine in the East Firing Area. Groundwater is approximately 50 feet bgs at Building 801 and about 30 feet bgs at Building 812. Building 851 is in the West Firing Area near the San Joaquin/Alameda County line. Groundwater below Building 851 is greater than 120 feet bgs. Land use within 1 ,000 feet of these building complexes is open space and explosive storage facilities. Locations of the buildings with percolation pits are shown on Attachment 2. 51 .The cooling tower percolation pits are rectangular excavations (ranging from 6x6x3 to 18x18x5 feet) filled with drain rock covered by a concrete cap. These percolation pits were constructed in 1994. Because the cooling tower percolation pit at Building 827 had a recurring overflow problem, it was reconstructed in a new location in March 2001 . 52.The Discharger has registered the cooling tower percolation pits as Class V Injection Wells with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 53.Currently, NALCO TRASAR 23246 is added to the cooling towers for corrosion control. The MSDS sheet indicates that this substance contains carbon, nitrate and phosphorus. 54.The Discharger analyzed the blowdown from the cooling towers at Buildings 801, 827A and 836A for analytes suspected to be in the blowdown. (The cooling tower discharge at Building 836A was discontinued on 13 April 2005.) The analyses included volatile organic compounds (VOCs), general minerals, and metals, as shown in Attachments 18, 19 and 20 respectively. The VOCs detected are trihalomethanes resulting from the breakdown of the corrosion and microbiocide additives.