Curtain Leakage Testing

Back to Previous Page

Curtain Leakage Testing Page
Rhodamine Dye is a product that has similar dispersion characteristics to Renovate, and is commonly used for tracking water movement at proposed herbicide treatment sites. This proposal/information was provided by Allied Biological to the APA as a result of the APA' insistence that any use of an herbicide would require curtain containment and accurate water exchange rate data prior to the introduction of an herbicide. This data was provided in 2008.

The total cost of ~$88,000 for curtain material and leakage rate testing of 3 sites grossly exceeded the ELPOI budget for herbicide treatment.
A per foot cost of ~$26 (which was based on curtain height of 15 feet) was utilized and it was determined that even a scaled back treatment of only 1 location at ~$55,000 was beyond the scope of the project budget. A transect survey conducted in 2009 determined that a curtain depth of ~30 feet in that one scaled back location would have added ~$10 per linear foot to the cost of the curtains.
These curtain setup and leakage tests were required by the APA prior to the actual submission of a permit application for the use of an herbicide. The cost's reported here would be incurred in year 1 prior to a permit application being submitted and covered curtain purchase, installation, testing, removal, and over winter storage. The cost does not reflect the additional cost's in year 2 covering the re-installation and removal of the curtain utilized in a spring herbicide treatment the following year (pending a successful permit application), nor is the cost of herbicide and herbicide application covered in this cost.

Additional information related to curtain leakage testing can be found here:

Turbidity Curtains Page- Information related to materials, costs, deployments, and accessories that can be used for creating a lake within a lake.
2009-Spring Site Specific: Fox Island depth and GPS transect measurements page. A page of Surveys detailing data gathered for a proposal to curtain contain an herbicide application at this location.

Keystone Aniline Corporation Keyacid Rhodamine WT Liquid Dye
Technical Bulletin #89: General Product Specifications	MSDS Sheet

2008 Allied Biological's- (5mb)DRAFT Herbicide Containment (Curtain/Leakage Testing) Study Protocol
- Scope of Work Proposal
- 2008-6 Cost Estimates DRAFT
- 2008-6 Proposed Treatment Site DRAFT
1997 Study using Rhodamine Dye: in a field dissipation study to track the movement of Renovate in the Pend Oreille River, North Eastern Washington.

Turner Designs- AquaFlour (2.3mb): Fluorometer users manual. This manual is included because the APA needed to know how this extremely expensive and limited availability piece of test equipment functioned.