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Seven soil samples were submitted for hydraulic conductivity tests to Sierra Testing <br /> Laboratories in 1996. One sample of the Modesto channel deposit was collected from <br /> boring GT-4 at a depth of 45 feet, 6 feet above the base of the channel. This boring is <br /> located in the axial (deepest) part of the channel. The sampled consisted of fine-to-coarse- <br /> grained sand with small pebbles. The vertical hydraulic conductivity of the sample was 1.2 <br /> X 10"2 cm/sec, which is indicative of high permeability. At the time the sample was <br /> collected,the water depth was 67 feet in the monitor wells (13 feet below the bottom of the <br /> boring). However, the sample at the base of the channel deposit (51 feet) was saturated but <br /> the sample of the underlying silt bed (54 feet) was only moist to damp. This indicates that <br /> water at the base of the channel deposit was "perched" above the silt bed. A grab water <br /> sample was collected with a hydropunch from this perched zone, and the laboratory <br /> reported a diesel concentration of 1,730,000 ppb in the sample. <br /> The other hydrologic unit that lies within the zone of interest and is known to have <br /> moderate to high permeability is a sand bed that lies at the top of the Riverbank Formation <br /> below the post-Riverbank soil horizon. In some borings, the top of this sand bed is near 60 <br /> feet and the upper several feet of are weathered, cemented, and hard, due to soil formation. <br /> In others, evidence of soil formation was not observed and the sand is fine grained or poorly <br /> sorted at the top but grades rapidly downward to loose,coarser-grained sand. Three samples <br /> of the upper part of this sand at a depth of 65 feet were tested for hydraulic conductivity in <br /> 1996 from borings GT6, GT-8, and GT-9. The vertical conductivity ranged from 1.8 x 10'3 <br /> cm/sec to 9.8 x 10"5 cm/sec. This indicates that the sample from the Modesto channel was <br /> 10 to 100 times more permeable than the samples from the Riverbank Formation. This bed <br /> varies in thickness above an erosional base, which is at a depth of approximately 70 feet in <br /> GT-11 but may be deeper in other places. No samples from the lower part of this bed were <br /> tested for hydraulic conductivity. <br /> There are several possible reasons for the lower permeability of the Riverbank samples, <br /> including: 1) they were collected from the upper portion of the channel (fluvial sand bodies <br /> generally become finer grained upward as the channel is abandoned); 2) permeability may <br /> have been reduced by post-depositional soil formation; 3) primary differences in the <br /> Modesto and Riverbank depositional systems (i.e. channel hydraulics, geometry, flow <br /> regime, etc.); or 4) differences in primary mineralogy and susceptibility to post-depositional <br /> weathering (the Modesto sand contains unaltered lithic grains and is fresh and loose, <br /> whereas the Riverbank sand appears to be more quartzose and less feldspathic, suggesting <br /> that these less stable minerals have been altered to clay or dissolved during sediment <br /> diagenesis,reducing the original permeability. <br /> No samples from sand beds lower in the Riverbank Formation were submitted for hydraulic <br /> conductivity testing, although it is known from drilling that this sand is coarser grained and <br /> less weathered than sand near the top of the formation, which suggests that it is probably <br /> also more permeable. Samples were not tested because these beds were interpreted as being <br /> below the zone of soil contamination. Several samples from GT-3 and GT-11 were <br /> submitted for diesel analysis, and concentrations ranged downward from 3.4 ppm to below <br />