Data on dye dispersion in a reach of the Sacramento River near Red Bluff, California

Open-File Report
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Abstract

Late in October 1969, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the California Water Resources Control Board, obtained data on the dispersion of injected dye in a reach of the Sacramento River near Red Bluff, Calif. The study area was in the vicinity of the Red Bluff diversion dam, immediately downstream from the mouth of Red Bank Creek (fig. 1).

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is presently constructing the Tehama-Colusa Canal. The canal will receive water from the reservoir behind the diversion dam and the first 3.5 miles of the canal will be used as an artificial spawning channel. As many as 60 million king salmon fingerlings a year are expected to hatch in the spawning channel. Sewage and industrial effluents enter the Sacramento River upstream from the headgates to the canal. The poorly dispersed and diluted effluents discharged into the river may have damaging effects on eggs and fingerlings in the artificial spawning channel.

According to a study made by David R. Minard of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration (written commun., May 2, 1969), a 1 percent solution of the upstream industrial effluent from a low-grade papermill increased the growth of the bacterium Pseudomonas and caused 100-percent fatalities by suffocation among the salmon fingerlings.

Study Area

Publication type Report
Publication Subtype USGS Unnumbered Series
Title Data on dye dispersion in a reach of the Sacramento River near Red Bluff, California
Series title Open-File Report
DOI 10.3133/70260859
Year Published 1970
Language English
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Description iv, 9 p.
Country United States
State California
City Red Bluff
Other Geospatial Sacramento River
Additional publication details