Prepared for the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration under contract W-31-109-Eng-38. "ANL/WR-76-4." Includes bibliographical references (leaf 48).

The field phase of the experimental design was implemented on February 14-16, 1976, and consisted of (1) tagging 170 l of simulated refinery waste with 1.4 kg of a 50-percent acid solution of dysprosium acetate and spreading the tagged waste on the water surface at the entrance to the Indiana Harbor Canal (IHC), (2) tagging 3600 m/sup 3/ of water at the IHC mouth with 13.6 kg of samarium complexed with DTPA, (3) sampling the surface and subsurface waters of the lake downflow for 10 km using three boats with submersible pumping systems, and (4) sampling raw-water from the shore and Dunne Crib intakes at Chicago`s South Water Filtration Plant (SWFP).^The laboratory portion of the experimental design involved neutron activation analysis of the samples after evaporation of the water phase.^Reactors and low-energy, photon spectrometers at Argonne and Ames, Iowa were used for sample irradiation and counting.^Results indicate that the methodology, with appropriate changes, can be used successfully to study the transport and dispersion of simulated refinery waste injected into the IHC`s sinking plume.^Deficiencies in the original experimental design are discussed, and recommendations are given for their remedy.^More-frequent sampling at the SWFP, and the use of an underway water-sampling system that will permit sampling coverage farther offshore, are the principal improvements required for the 1976/1977, full-scale, sinking-plume study.