The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (as amended in 1987) designated Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the candidate site for the Nation's first permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste. The Act charged the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) with overseeing the necessary studies of the geotechnical, geochemical, geologic, and hydrologic characteristics to assess the technical and regulatory requirements for Yucca Mountain as the proposed permanent repository. These studies were set up as a collaborative effort between U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), DOE-OCRWM, and other cooperators. To meet this effort, USGS established the Yucca Mountain Project Branch Office (YMPB) to oversee investigations and analyses run by scientists from the USGS Geologic Division and Water Resources Division. YMPB was administered by the USGS in Denver, Colorado.

Participation in hydrologic studies was provided by the USGS Nevada Water Science Center (NVWSC) in response to YMPB or other project requests. USGS developed the Site Characterization Project (SCP) in cooperation with DOE, to document conditions of and changes in groundwater resources in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain (La Camera and Westenburg, 1994; Savard, 2001). Water-level data were collected under SCP from wells and boreholes near the proposed Yucca Mountain repository from 1981 to 2001.

NVWSC continued to assist YMPB by establishing and maintaining the USGS Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP) in 1989 (Locke, 2008). The purpose of this monitoring program also was to monitor conditions of and changes in groundwater resources in the Yucca Mountain region. Water-level data were collected under EMP from 1990 to 2009. The EMP network was discontinued in March 2009.

Water-level data collected as part of these various programs were compiled, quality assured, and stored in the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) and are available through this project website. Water-level monitoring in the Yucca Mountain area has continued through other projects such as the National Nuclear Security Administration Environmental Protection and Nuclear Nonproliferation Programs, and the Amargosa Integrated Monitoring Network.