<br />the Lees Ferry gaging station (Glen Canyon reach)
<br />and a separate injection at the Lees Ferry gage and
<br />sampling at locations down stream from Lees Ferry
<br />(Grand Canyon reach), In each case, the injection at
<br />Lees Ferry'was made two days hefore the correspond-
<br />ing injection at the dam to avoid commingling of the
<br />injections,
<br />Established techniques for estimation of dye
<br />dosage, sampling, and laboratory analysis of dye sam-
<br />ples were used for this study (Wilson et ai" 1986; Kil-
<br />patrick and Wilson, 1989), For the Glen Canyon
<br />reach, a dosage of 21.5 kg of dye was used for the
<br />1989 measurement and 9,1 kg of dye was used for
<br />both 1991 measurements, For the Grand Canyon
<br />reach, a dosage of 127 kg of dye (635 kg of 20 percent
<br />stock solution) was injected in the first measurement,
<br />Very low dispersion rates kept peak concentrations
<br />higher than estimated during that measurement;
<br />therefore, half the amount of dye - 63,5 kg - was
<br />injected for the second measurement,
<br />Dye was injected as a line source over a period of a
<br />few minutes, For the 1989 measurement in the Glen
<br />Canyon reach, dye was divided into four equal parts
<br />and poured into the river simultaneously from the
<br />transfonner deck of the dam, For the 1991 measure-
<br />ment in the Glen Canyon reaches, dye was poured
<br />from a boat as the boat moved across the center part
<br />of a cross section of the channel just downstream from
<br />the dam, For the Grand Canyon reach, dye was
<br />poured from a raft as the raft passed through the cen-
<br />ter two-thirds of the flow in the cableway section at
<br />Lees Ferry,
<br />
<br />Tracer Sampling and Sample Analysis. Most
<br />samples were collected by dipping a sample bottle just
<br />under the surface near the stream bank or tossing a
<br />bottle in a sample holder into the flow a short dis-
<br />tance from the bank, Samples were collected where
<br />velocity was judged to be evenly distributed across the
<br />channel, An automatic sampler (Kilpatrick, 1972) was
<br />used to collect samples over much of the dye cloud at
<br />Pumpkin Springs, For measurements in the Glen
<br />Canyon reach, samples were collected from the center
<br />of flow from cableways at gaging stations Colorado
<br />River below Glen Canyon Dam (09379910) and Col-
<br />orado River at Lees Ferry (09380000) (Figure 1). For
<br />the May 1991 measurement, near-surface dip samples
<br />were coUected from a boat with a hand sampler from
<br />three points across the channel. Dye was sampled at
<br />seven sites in the Grand Canyon reach during the
<br />steady-flow measurement (Figure 1) and at six sites
<br />during the unsteady-flow measurement, The leading
<br />edge of the dye cloud was not sampled at the three
<br />downstream sites during the unsteady-flow measure-
<br />ment,
<br />
<br />WATER RESOURCES BULLETIN
<br />
<br />Graf
<br />
<br />Filter fluorometers were used to measure dye con-
<br />centration in the field to pennit adjustment of sam-
<br />pling interval and to ensure that sampling continued
<br />until dye was past the site. Samples were collected in
<br />glass vials and transferred to the U,S, Geological Sur-
<br />vey laboratory in Tucson, Samples were remeasured
<br />under constant temperature conditions in the labora-
<br />tory,
<br />An equivalent background concentration of from
<br />0,01 to 0,14 11g/l, resulting from suspended material
<br />rather than dye fluorescence, was established at most
<br />sites from measurements of samples collected before
<br />arrival of the dye cloud, The background concentra-
<br />tion was subtracted from concentrations measured in
<br />the laboratory to give the dye concentrations used in
<br />the analysis,
<br />
<br />Data Analysis. The weight of injected dye recov-
<br />ered at each sampling site during steady flow was
<br />computed by multiplying the area under the time-
<br />concentration curve by the discharge during sampling
<br />and a factor to correct the units, The computation
<br />showed that more than 90 percent of dye injected was
<br />recovered at sampling sites, Rhodamine WT dye
<br />decomposes in sunlight and adheres to sediment,
<br />Losses in the range of 30-50 percent have been mea-
<br />sured in other rivers (Graf, 1986), Initial estimates at
<br />two sites sampled during the unsteady flow measure-
<br />ment indicate that dye Joss was greater during
<br />unsteady flow, Greater loss may be attributed to
<br />stranding of dye in eddy zones when stage dropped,
<br />Because recovery of dye was very high, concentrations
<br />presented in this report have not been adjusted to
<br />account for dye losses,
<br />Curves of dye concentration as a function of time at
<br />a sampling site were plotted, and the first three
<br />moments of the distributions were computed using
<br />numerical integration, The first moment is dye-cloud
<br />centroid - the rate of travel of the centroid gives
<br />velocity through the measured reach, The second and
<br />third moments - variance and skewness - are mea-
<br />sures of the dispersion or spreading of the dye cloud,
<br />A quantity called unit-peak concentration was
<br />defined in previous studies (Kilpatrick and Taylor,
<br />1986; Hubbard et ai" 1982) to compare results from
<br />different measurements, Unit-peak concentration is a
<br />peak concentration that has been normalized for dis-
<br />charge, amount of dye injected, and dye loss during
<br />measurement, For this study, unit-peak concentration
<br />was computed by dividing the measured peak dye
<br />concentration by the weight of dye injected and multi-
<br />plying by the discharge, Dye loss was insignificant
<br />during each measurement, and no adjustment of con-
<br />centration for loss was required,
<br />Discharges at each gaging station were detennined
<br />from recorded stage and a stage-discharge relation -
<br />
<br />270
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