Modeling Contaminant Spills in the Truckee River in the Western United States
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 140, Issue 3
Abstract
Originating at Lake Tahoe, the Truckee River provides 85% of drinking water for the Reno/Sparks metropolitan area. Major highways and a railroad run adjacent to the river, which increases risk of a contaminant spill into the river that could have detrimental effects on drinking water supplies. A one-dimensional solute transport model (OTIS) was applied to the Truckee River. Data from dye studies on the river were used to determine a relationship to estimate dispersion coefficients for the Truckee River and calibrate the model. Two sizes of hypothetical contaminant spills from 9 locations under 13 flow scenarios were simulated. Travel times to the first water intake for a train spill of 130,000 L ranged from 3 to 46 h and maximum simulated concentrations of a conservative water soluble contaminant at the intake ranged from 340 to . Model output was influenced by uncertainties in the equation for longitudinal dispersion, so model runs were executed with estimated dispersion values that were a factor of 1.5 greater and less than the equation-estimated value of dispersion.
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Acknowledgments
The Truckee Meadows Water Authority funded this research. The authors thank Jim Crompton of the U.S. Geological Survey and Brendan Belby of Entrix for collecting and sharing data used in the model, Rob Runkel of the U.S. Geological Survey for assistance with developing the dispersion equation for the Truckee River, and Benjamin Trustman for preparing Fig. 1.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 140 • Issue 3 • March 2014
Pages: 343 - 354
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 20, 2012
Accepted: Nov 30, 2012
Published online: Dec 3, 2012
Discussion open until: May 3, 2013
Published in print: Mar 1, 2014
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