Modeling Contaminant Spills in the Upper Truckee River, CA and NV

Originating from Lake Tahoe at Tahoe City, California, the Truckee River flows alongside highway, interstate, and railroad into the Reno/Sparks metropolitan area where it provides 85% of the drinking water to the municipal population. The proximity of this traffic to the river increases the risk of a contaminant spill that could have detrimental effects on the area's drinking water supplies. A one-dimensional solute transport model has been applied to the Truckee River from Lake Tahoe to the Truckee Meadows Water Authority's municipal intakes in Reno, Nevada. The model provides an estimate of travel times and concentration curves for simulated spills that accounts for upstream transient storage observed in tracer studies. Because of lack of information about transient storage in the river, surface-groundwater interactions were evaluated using temperature in a companion study. The completed model will assist water managers in planning for adequate measures in the event of a spill.