Demonstration of an Integrated Compliance Model for Predicting Copper Fate and Effects in DoD Harbors
Abstract
Site-specific water quality standards (WQS) are developed in order to reach regulatory criteria appropriate for individual bodies of water. These WQS are required as the nationally suggested water quality criteria (WQC) for seawater was derived with clean coastal seawater that does not include the natural ingredients that buffer the toxic effects of contaminants. As such, federal WQC could be overprotective, enforcing effluent characteristics that are very difficult and expensive to attain. The regulatory community overcame this problem with the development of total maximum daily loads (TMDL) and water effects ratios (WER), approaches that require long-term demanding and expensive studies. In an effort to speed up the development of WQS for copper (Cu), the USEPA recently incorporated the Biotic Ligand Model (BLM) into a freshwater WQC (USEPA, 2007). This model takes into account the natural characteristics of each body of water to derive a site-specific WQS. In a similar effort, the regulatory community is supporting the development of a seawater-BLM for application in marine waters. The object of this project is to demonstrate an integrated modeling system that provides an improved methodology for achieving compliance for Cu in Department of Defense (DoD) harbors in a manner consistent with the current regulatory framework for freshwater systems (USEPA, 2007). This system also provides a management tool for the optimization of efforts on source control, as it is robust enough for forecasting their effects on ambient Cu concentration and the potential for toxicity in DoD harbors. The integrated model consists of the Curvilinear Hydrodynamics in Three Dimensions (CH3D) and a seawater Cu toxicity model (seawater-BLM), for simultaneous evaluation of fate and transport (F&T) and potential effects of Cu on a harbor-wide scale. Demonstration of the integrated model in San Diego Bay and Pearl Harbor fulfilled most of the performance objectives.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA499564
Entities
People
- Adam Ryan
- Andrea Leeson
- D. B. Chadwick
- Ernie Arias
- Gunther Rosen
- Ignacio Rivera-duarte ;pei-fang Wang
- Luis A. Cruz
- Paul Paquin
- Robert C. Santore
- William Swietlik
Organizations
- Environmental Security Technology Certification Program