Modeling Surface Water Contamination Effect On Striped Bass
of Hudson River from Sub Par golf course fertilizer runoff.
October 13, 2015
ISAT 420
Exercise 2
Dr. Frysinger
By
Jamie Figler
Mickey Harding
Intro
Sub-par country club is a large golf community located on the bank of the Hudson River in Hastings-on-Hudson, New
York. The landscaping department uses copious amounts of fertilizer when maintaining the courses. When it rains,
the Nitrogen and Phosphorous in the fertilizer runoff into a storm drain which then gets released into the Hudson
River. Sub-par wants to model this scenario to see if the impact of the run-off is creating problems for the organisms
living there, in particular the sensitive species, striped bass which requires 5 mg/L of DO to live and grow.
Define the System: The system being modeled in this experiment is a subsection of the Hudson River, starting from
100 meters upstream of the golf course drain pipe and ending 200 meters downstream of the golf course drain pipe.
The system contains only the water in the river within this specified sub-section. Figure 1. illustrates the boundaries
of the system. The system assumes that natural DO is coming into the system at a constant rate. The effluent, in this
case, is the golf course’s storm runoff released from the drain pipe into the river immediately after rainfall. The
system only models this relationship when the drain pipe is actively releasing the run-off into the river. For our
purposes, we assume that the effluent is released at a constant rate, with a constant BOD. We assume that every
rainfall makes the drain pipe active for 2 hours. The striped bass can move in and out of the system boundaries. We
assume that the striped bass population is only affected by a lack of DO. The system also assumes that the only
incoming BOD/DO is coming in upstream of the golf course. All run-off from the golf course is collected in the stormdrain and released into the river. We also assume that the striped bass do not create organic matter within the
system until they die.
Figure 1. Map of Hastings-On-Hudson with specifications of system boundaries as well as area and location of golf course.
Figure 2. Zoomed in map of Hastings-On-Hudson with specifications of system boundaries as well as area and location of golf course.
Dynamic Systems Model:
Figure 3. This is a flow diagram of our dynamic system model showing the relationships between Natural BOD input, Effluent BOD input, BOD
output, re-oxygenation, de-oxygenation, dissolved oxygen, etc.
Figure 4. This is a flow diagram of our dynamic system model showing the relationships between Natural BOD input, Effluent BOD input, BOD
output, re-oxygenation, de-oxygenation, dissolved oxygen, etc., with the addition of a Striped Bass Population stock.
Relationships: Nitrogen and Phosphorous are organic matter found in fertilizer, they run-off into water and decay.
The biological oxygen demand, measures the amount of oxygen required or consumed for the microbiological
decomposition of the organic material in water. It is an indirect measure of the amount of organic matter present.
Decomposition requires dissolved oxygen. Dissolved oxygen naturally gets dissolved into water from the atmosphere
as well as released into the water from the photosynthesis of certain aquatic plants. A large amount of organic matter
creates a high BOD therefore requires a high amount of dissolved oxygen to decay. Fish need dissolved oxygen to
live, grow and thrive in the water. Without it, they will die or move to an area with higher DO availability. This
relationship is modeled in Figure 5 below:
Organic
Matter (N
& P)
+
-
BOD
+
DO
Fish
Population
Figure 5. This is a concept showing the relationship between the components being modeled.
Units: Dissolved Oxygen and Biological Oxygen Demand is measured in mg/L. The fish population is measured by
the number of individual organisms in the section of the river. In order to model this system, the following information
was needed:
Initial Dissolved Oxygen in the River = 7.3 mg/L
Dissolved Oxygen in the Effluent =1.8 mg/L
BOD Natural = 2.0 mg/L
BOD Before Mixing= 4.0 mg/L
BOD of Effluent = 45.0 mg/L
Volumetric Flow Rate of the Upstream River = 606.0 m3/s
Volumetric Flow of the Effluent = 5.0 m3/s
DO Saturation Before Mixing = 11.0 mg/L
Temperature of the River = 60 degrees Fahrenheit
k1= 0.30
k2= 0.40
Initial Oxygen Deficit= 3.7 mg/L
Calibrate: The numerical data used to simulate the system were acquired through past research done on the
Hudson River as well as similar experiments. The Dynamic Modeling book also aided in finding the information
necessary to simulate system. The model coefficients were adjusted accordingly. See works cited for a complete list
of works used to determine coefficients.
Validation: It was difficult to validate system due to the very specific nature of the scenario. The results were slightly
skewed from what is thought to happen in reality, therefore making the system difficult effectively validate.
Documentation: This report serves to document the simulation in order for it to be useful and deemed credible.
Results: In order to determine the DO of the water after the fertilizer runoff has been added, as well as the BOD of
the water after the fertilizer runoff, we used the mass balance equation below (and applied the same principles to
calculate BOD values immediately after mixing):
DOnQn + DOeQe = DOout(Qn + Qe)
Then, we used our mock model of the complete systems diagram for DO sag model from Figure 5.5 of our text, and
added an additional process component into the BOD stock, which was the value for the effluent fertilizer runoff BOD
into the Hudson River, shown in the Figure 6 below:
Figure 6. This is a graphical representation of the model in Figure 4, showing the relationship between BOD and DO over time.
Once the simulation was a success, we then added a stock for the Striped Bass population and connected it to our
original model, which resulted in the graph below:
Figure 7. This is a graphical representation of the model in Figure 5, showing the relationship between BOD, DO, and fish population over
time.
Our feedback loop that goes from the striped bass deaths to the natural BOD input is meant to portray that the
decaying bodies of the dead fish are contributing to the increase in natural BOD. This is shown in the graph above
because as the striped bass population approaches zero, the BOD is increasing simultaneously, because the organic
matter from the dead fish is decaying. Once the population was completely diminished, the BOD immediately begins
to decline because there are no more fish bodies for decay.
The model fails to enable the regeneration of oxygen, effectively resulting in a permanent loss of the bass population
and causing the DO to be unable to recover, which would not happen in a real scenario so rapidly. This leads us to
believe that the temporal resolution of the model is skewed.
Using the Streeter-Phelps Model, shown by Equation 1, the relationship between BOD and DO was calculated. The
oxygen deficit in the river after time t was able to be determined.
Our calculations resulted in an oxygen deficit equal to 3.398 mg/L.
Works Cited
"USGS Current Conditions for USGS 01315500 HUDSON RIVER AT NORTH CREEK NY." USGS Current Conditions for
USGS 01315500 HUDSON RIVER AT NORTH CREEK NY. US Dept of the Interior, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
<http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ny/nwis/uv?site_no=01315500>.
"Gravity Fed-Pipe Flow." Hazen Williams Formula. Calc Tool, n.d. Web. <http://www.calctool.org/CALC/eng/civil/hazenwilliams_g>.
Poppe, Wayne L. "Dissolved Oxygen in Streams and Reservoirs." Journal (Water Pollution Control Federation) 61.6, 1989:
Literature Review Issue (1989): 953-54. Dissolved Oxygen in the Hudson River. New York City College of Technology,
1989. Web. <https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/quantitativereasoning/files/2014/10/HudsonRiverProject.pdf>.
"River Temperatures on 10/13/2015 at 19:11:28." River Temperatures on 10/13/2015 at 19:11:28. N.p., n.d. Web. 13
Oct. 2015.
Bramble, Angela, Joshua S. Jones, and Raymond Govus. The Effects of Golf Course Runoff on Macroinvertabrates and
Nutrient Levels in the Carp Lake and Maple Rivers . University of Michigan Biological Station , 11 June 2009. Web.
Comments:
 I think you need to review the BOD/DO relationship, and disentangle fish from plants.
 Include a Table of Contents – use Word’s TOC tool
 Include an Assumptions section