American River Temperature Management
Topic: American River Temperature Management:
Operational Challenges
strong>Speakers: Randi Field, US Bureau of
Reclamation, Central Valley Operations Office
When: Friday, November 17th, 2017, 12 p.m.–1
p.m.
Where: University Library, 2000 State
University Drive, Library 11
Map
Topic Overview
This presentation reviews American River temperature management
operations, challenges, and the unique difficulties presented during
periods of drought. Temperature management provides protection to
endangered and threatened fishery species and provides suitable habitat
for fish hatchery operations.
The US Bureau of Reclamation operates Folsom Lake for water supply use,
power generation, and environmental purposes, including water
temperature management in the Lower American River. Thermal
stratification of Folsom Lake affords the opportunity for selective
withdrawal of waters of various temperatures at different elevations. A
temperature shutter structure at Folsom Dam blends the selected waters
for desired downstream performance. Seasonal temperature strategies are
developed annually, depending on the hydrologic year type, storage
conditions, cold-water reserves, and fishery objectives.
Operational challenges to temperature management include uncertain future
hydrologic, downstream water demands, and meteorological conditions.
Additional challenges include balancing tradeoffs between water release
volumes, different fishery species, power generation, and water
temperature. To assist in temperature management, computational tools
are employed to project the efficiency of cold-water reserve use, future
downstream temperature performance, physical shutter operations, and
bypass of power generation. Drought periods are particularly challenging
for temperature management due to limited water supply and cold-water
reserves.
About the Speaker
Randi Field has 16 years of experience with the
US Bureau of
Reclamation, working on California’s federal Central
Valley Project. Eight of those years, she was directly involved
in reservoir and water operations management with the remaining
years spent working on water modeling studies for environmental
regulatory compliance and future projects. Randi has expertise
in system-wide operational forecasting, temperature modeling,
seasonal downstream temperature management, and forecast-based
flood control methods. She has been responsible for the daily,
real-time decision-making regarding operational reservoir
releases at New Melones Reservoir, Folsom Lake, Shasta Lake, and
Trinity Lake. Previously, Randi worked for the US Forest Service
studying watershed science. Randi has a Bachelor of Science
degree in Environmental Resources Engineering from Humboldt
State University and a Master of Science degree in Civil and
Environmental Engineering from the University of California,
Davis.
