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• <br />ExxonMobil Global Services <br />Colony Shale Oil Project <br />ESR Reclamation Studies <br />Weighing Lysimeter Performance 1990-2003 <br />Project No. 353 <br />Page 20 <br />sized commercial pile, there would be considerably more ESR combusted shale available to <br />hydrate water until a permanent and mature plant cover can be established. <br />4.3.3 1994 through YE 1996 <br />Each yeaz there is a lazge seasonal swing of moisture content in the shallow soils (Fig. <br />r: <br />4.1), starting with the increase in April followed by a reduction back to about 17% by eazly <br />summer. Some moisture appears to have made its way into the ESR combusted shale (red line <br />in Fig. 4.1), and in each year there is percolation continuing into May or June; concurrent that <br />increase. The individual yeaz 1994 Jensen-Haile plot shows a curve very similar in shape to <br />those presented by Wymore (Wymore, 1974). Of more interest however, is the yeaz 1995. <br />Here a very wet May (6.69 inches of rain) allowed the actual Et to almost match the Jensen- <br />Haise theoretical "water not limiting" amount. Clearly, in May 1995, water was not"limiting." <br />The heary May rains actually show up as temporary weight gain in May on Fig. 4.1, and <br />apparently some of this water made it into the ESR shale and caused the percolation to extend <br />into June for that yeaz. <br />The weighing lysimeter appears to have reached somewhat of a steady state in these <br />years, and the actual Ete very neazly matches the "water not limiting" theoretical Et. These <br />years also represent a relatively wet period, with annual precipitation 3 to 5 inches above the <br />19.45 inch average for 1990 through 2003. <br />• <br />4.3.4 1997 <br />Percolate was about the same as the apparent steady state years of 1994 to 1996, but in <br />1997 there began an unusually lazge moisture swing in the "mixed zone", which is the 6-inch <br />thick layer of 2/3 topsoil 1/3 combusted shale immediately undereath the topsoil. The yeaz <br />1997 had a very wet summer, with over 5 inches of rain in June and July, enough to produce <br />runoff in July and August, but the moisture content in the combusted shale did not increase <br />during this period. Unlike the 1995 thunderstorms, this time the increase in moisture appeared <br />LACHEL FELICE & Associates <br />