View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UNT Digital Library ORNL/TM-2005/188 Assessment of Dissolved Oxygen Mitigation at Hydropower Dams Using an Integrated Hydrodynamic/Water Quality/Fish Growth Model MARCH 2006 Prepared by Mark S. Bevelhimer Charles C. Coutant Environmental Sciences Division DOCUMENT AVAILABILITY Reports produced after January 1, 1996, are generally available free via the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Information Bridge. Web site http://www.osti.gov/bridge Reports produced before January 1, 1996, may be purchased by members of the public from the following source. National Technical Information Service 5285 Port Royal Road Springfield, VA 22161 Telephone 703-605-6000 (1-800-553-6847) TDD 703-487-4639 Fax 703-605-6900 E-mail [email protected] Web site http://www.ntis.gov/support/ordernowabout.htm Reports are available to DOE employees, DOE contractors, Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDE) representatives, and International Nuclear Information System (INIS) representatives from the following source. Office of Scientific and Technical Information P.O. Box 62 Oak Ridge, TN 37831 Telephone 865-576-8401 Fax 865-576-5728 E-mail [email protected] Web site http://www.osti.gov/contact.html This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. iii ORNL/TM-2005/188 Environmental Sciences Division ASSESSMENT OF DISSOLVED OXYGEN MITIGATION AT HYDROPOWER DAMS USING AN INTEGRATED HYDRODYNAMIC/WATER QUALITY/FISH GROWTH MODEL M. S. Bevelhimer C. C. Coutant Environmental Sciences Division Oak Ridge National Laboratory Date Published: March 2006 Prepared for U. S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Wind and Hydropower Technologies Prepared by OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6335 managed by UT-BATTELLE, LLC for the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ vii SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................ ix INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................ 1 1. BACKGROUND ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Dissolved Oxygen Dynamics.......................................................................................... 1 1.3 DEEP RELEASES AT HYDROPOWER DAMS................................................ 3 1.4 EFFECTS OF LOW DISSOLVED OXYGEN ON AQUATIC LIFE ..................... 4 1.5 MITIGATION MEASURES ............................................................................ 4 2. STUDY AND APPROACH ..................................................................................................... 9 2.1 PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY ........................................................................................ 9 2.2 STUDY SITE ................................................................................................. 9 2.3 MODEL DESCRIPTION................................................................................. 12 2.4 INPUT DATA ................................................................................................ 13 2.4.1 Hydrodynamic Model Data Requirements .......................................................... 14 2.4.2 Water Quality Model Data Requirements ........................................................... 18 2.4.3 Fish Growth Model Data Requirements .............................................................. 21 2.5 MODEL EXPERIMENTS.............................................................................................. 22 3. RESULTS ................................................................................................................................ 24 3.1 MODEL CALIBRATION AND BASELINE SIMULATION .................................... 24 3.1.1 Water Quantity and Quality.................................................................................. 24 3.1.2 Fish Growth .......................................................................................................... 28 3.2 MITIGATION SIMULATED BENEFITS OF TURBINE AERATION.................... 30 3.2.1 Water Quality ........................................................................................................ 31 3.2.2 Fish Growth ........................................................................................................... 34 3.3 SIMULATED BENEFITS OF FOREBAY AERATION............................................. 36 3.3.1 Water Quality ........................................................................................................ 36 3.3.2 Fish Growth ........................................................................................................... 37 4. DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................ 39 5. REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 42 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1.1 Typical seasonal thermal mixing and stratification that leads to low dissolved oxygen in lakes and reservoirs.. ......................................................................................... 2 2.1 Weight of 286 individual brown trout captured in Caney Fork River from April 2003 through April 2004. .................................................................................... 11 2.2 Average brown trout weight for three river reaches: Below Dam (RM 24.5-26.5), Upper (RM 19.5-26.5), and Lower (RM 12.5-19.5). ........................... 12 2.3 Map of the Caney Fork River below Center Hill Dam. The dam is at the lower right and the confluence with the Cumberland River is at the upper left.................... 14 2.4 Hourly flow from Center Hill Dam, which shows periods when one (approx. 3,500 cfs), two (approx. 7,000 cfs), or three (approx. 10,500 cfs) turbines are operating intermittently between periods of no flow ............................................... 15 2.5 A finer temporal scale view of flow from the Center Hill Dam illustrating the daily peaking operation of the project. ............................................................. 15 2.6 Daily flow at Smith Fork Creek, the largest tributary to the Caney Fork River downstream of the dam, which illustrates the difference between natural flow dynamics for the region and those below the dam................................................... 16 2.7 Flow duration curves for Smith Fork Creek and Center Hill Dam release for the period 1 March 2003 to 30 April 2004. ............................................................ 16 2.8 Daily minimum temperature in the tailrace of Center Hill Dam which was used to represent the temperature of the dam discharge .................................................. 18 2.9 Fitted relationship (5th order polynomial) between water temperature and Julian day for data collected since 1991 from Smith Fork Creek............................... 19 2.10 Polynomial relationship between day of year and dissolved oxygen derived from twelve years of grab samples below the Center Hill Dam ................................ 19 2.11 Relationships between food consumption, growth, and respiration for brown trout in the fish growth model based on equations and parameters used in the model ................................................................................................................ 21 2.12 Relationship between ambient DO and the appetite mulitplier used to restrict food consumption at low DO. .............................................................................. 21 2.13 Example of dam release DO levels for simulated improvement to 5 mg/L compared to the baseline. .................................................................................... 22 v LIST OF FIGURES (continued) 3.1 Model generated temporal profile of hourly temperature for three reaches below Center Hill Dam under baseline conditions. ................................................. 24 3.2 Model generated temporal profile of hourly dissolved oxygen for three reaches below Center Hill Dam under baseline conditions. ................................................. 25 3.3 Maximum, mean, and minimum dissolved oxygen over the entire 26.5 mile tailwater during five 10-day