Draft Spokane River Modeling Report 2009

Ben Cope with EPA distributed the attached draft report “from Portland State on the update on the core water quality model to be used for development of the Spokane River TMDL. This document explains the work to date, and provides information on all model inputs and outputs, including comparisons between predicted and measured water quality throughout the river and Lake Spokane. The primary focus of the report is the 2001 model setup and predictions, because this is the baseline for the TMDL analysis. PSU has also applied the 2000 model as a check on the consistency of the model predictions over a wider range of conditions.”

According to the report “The models will be used to help determine the impact of the TMDL and the FERC relicensing on the Spokane River water quality. The models were originally developed by Portland State University for the Washington Department of Ecology and EPA to simulate temperature, dissolved oxygen, nutrients, algae, and organic matter. The updated model simulates the year 2001, and the calibration has also been checked for the year 2000.

The focus of this present study was to perform the following tasks:

• Converting the Upper Spokane River CE-QUAL-W2 models (Washington and Idaho) to version 3.6
• Reviewing and updating model boundary conditions
• Check model calibration
• Meet with stakeholders
• Develop and Run Modeling Scenarios”