Predicting Entrainment of Ichthyoplankton at a Power Plant Intake on the East River, NY

Abstract

A random-walk particle-tracking model was developed for the East River, the New York Harbor, the Long Island Sound and the New York Bight to predict the distribution of ichthyoplankton and their probability of entrainment at the cooling water intake of the Charles Poletti power plant. The model was configured into a three-dimensional hydrodynamic and particle tracking model, ITM, which uses neutrally buoyant passive particles as surrogates for ichthyoplankton. In ITM, particles are transported by multidimensional advection and dispersion processes. The model was driven by time-dependent water levels, temperature and salinity along open boundaries, meteorological forcing and freshwater inflows. It was calibrated using observed surface and bottom salinity and temperature, water surface elevations and surface, mid-depth and bottom currents at locations across the New York harbor and the East River during 1994 and 1995. Results indicate that estuarine circulation greatly determined the distribution of particles in the East River. The probability that ichthyoplankton would be entrained into the Charles Poletti plant intake structure was highly dependent on the location and time of their release and the assumption that ichthyoplankton behave like neutrally buoyant particles.