The desorption rate of Co-60, Sr-85, Cs-137, Eu-152, and Am-241 from soil collected from Inshas disposal site in Egypt was investigated to understand the desorption and mobility of these radionuclides in the environment. Effect of a synthetic groundwater (GW) and the GW amended to 2 x 10(-5)M of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) or ethylenediaminediacetic acid (EDDA), GW+ETDA and GW+EDDA, respectively, was studied in flow-through experiments. These experiments were designed to compare the influence of EDTA relative to one of its degradation products that can exist in natural water, EDDA. First-order desorption and two-site first-order desorption equations were used to describe the time-dependent desorption data. The desorption rate for Sr-85 and Cs-137 was high in the first 50 h followed by a slow release suggesting that two different mechanisms involved. The trace metal removal was not completely reversible for all radionuclides tracers except for Sr-85. The quantity of Sr-85, Cs-137, Eu-152, and Am-241 desorbed from soil follows the order GW+EDTA > GW+EDDA > GW, while Co-60 gives unexpected trends where the effect of EDDA is twice as high as that of EDTA. This behavior was discussed based on the aqueous species distribution of Co-60 in both aqueous solutions.