To meet their permit requirements under the water-temperature Total Maximum Daily Load for the Willamette River, Oregon Association of Clean Water Agencies members need to understand the potential thermal effects of various heat-mitigation alternatives for their treated wastewater discharges to the Willamette River, such as the installation of cooling towers that would decrease the temperature of their effluent. CE-QUAL-W2, a two-dimensional, hydrodynamic water quality model, has been used to investigate temperature and heat patterns in the Willamette River, the downstream effects of dam operations, and other anthropogenic effects on stream temperature such as effluent discharge from waste-water treatment plants. This data release child item includes flow and temperature input files for CE-QUAL-W2 scenarios that were simulated to investigate the potential effect of releasing cooled waste-water treatment effluent to the Coast Fork Willamette and Willamette Rivers by the Cities of Cottage Grove and Albany, and the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission near Springfield. By applying these boundary conditions to the appropriate CE-QUAL-W2 model documented in the primary landing page of this data release, a user may reproduce scenario results investigating the potential effect of cooling towers or other heat cooling devices for treated effluent on the temperature of the Coast Fork Willamette and Willamette Rivers.
Modeling to quantify the thermal effect of selected point sources to the Willamette River under existing and modified conditions: 2011, 2015, and 2016