Design principles for aquifer and aquitard-controlled salt management basins for River Murray salinity control schemes

in South Australia
Ed B Collingham1, Peter D Forward1, Robert J Newman3 1 South Australian Water Corporation, Thebarton South Australia 3 Catchment Management Consulting , Port Noarlunga, South Australia

Introduction Robust design philosophies are the foundation of the three salt management basins that service all of the saline groundwater interception and major irrigation drainage diversion schemes in South Australia. Together these prevent over 500 tonnes of salt per day from entering the River Murray. All three basins are responsibly-designed, robust, passive and failsafe engineered facilities. They were not selected simply because they were convenient depressions in the landscape. Exact terminology is vital for a proper understanding of how these basins work so the use of the term disposal basin is discouraged because these basins do not ultimately get rid of the salt put into them. The Fundamental Design Philosophy (FDP) discussed in this paper states that a basins impact on the river at any time in the future should never exceed an agreed acceptable percentage of the salt load that the basin allows to be kept out of the river during its operating life and introduces the concept that basins do have finite lives. The Supplementary Design Criteria suggest that the life of a basin should not be less than about 100 years, while the FDP will probably show that it cannot be much more. Discussion River Murray Salinity Control Schemes Salinity Control Schemes consist of two main facilities: one facility that keeps saline water out of the river, and another facility that manages the saline water that has been kept out of the river works that intercept saline groundwater flow before it gets to the river, and / or works that divert saline irrigation drainage water away from the river at present always be a salt management basin in the future it might be something else such as a pipeline to the sea

The facility that keeps saline water out of the river will be either:

The facility that manages the saline water will:

In the past it has been common to use the term disposal basin when referring to the sites to which saline water is pumped. This terminology is wrong all passive basins (i.e. those without active salt-harvesting) do not dispose of any of the salt put into them during their operating life. Ultimately it will all get to the river. In fact, most basins will also push some salt into the river in addition to the salt that was put into them. Despite the general nature of the words salt management, they do describe exactly what all basins aim to do. In fact, salt management it is the only thing that any passive basin can do because passive basins do not get rid of any salt. Fortunately, salt management also accurately describes what basins with active salt-harvesting do. Therefore, as a general name, salt management basin is not only technically accurate but it is also comprehensive, generally understood and non-emotive. The Design of Salt Management Basins in South Australia Salt management basins in South Australia do not physically dispose of any of the salt put into them their design is based on them storing the salt for delayed and controlled release back to the river. The community needs to decide, for each basin, whether the philosophy of
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storing salt for delayed and controlled release back to the river is acceptable and if so, what the specific acceptability criteria should be. Consequently the basin designer will need to use a design methodology that: Tracks the fate of every tonne of salt put into the basin for as long as it takes for all of that salt to get to the river (the brine pulse). Predicts the rate at which additional (native groundwater) salt will be displaced into the river (the displacement pulse). Incorporates a means of comparing these two salt load impacts on the river with the benefits gained by using the basin. Enables the performance of the basin to be monitored.

A design methodology satisfying these requirements consists of two basic components that have been given the titles The Fundamental Design Philosophy and The Supplementary Design Criteria. The Fundamental Design Philosophy (FDP) Having introduced the concept of salt management basins above, there are two types of basins in use: An aquifer controlled salt management basin refers to basins such as Stockyard Plain and Noora that rely on the properties of the aquifer between the basin and the river to control the basins salt load impacts on the river. In these, the salt is stored in the aquifer system beneath the basin before passing (in a predicted way) back to the river over several thousand years. An aquitard controlled salt management basin refers to basins such as Rufus River that rely on the properties of an underlying aquitard to control the basins salt load impacts on the river. In aquitard-controlled designs the salt is temporarily stored on the surface and in the aquitard. (Note that only an extremely effective aquitard will allow a basin to function as aquitard controlled).

For a salt management basin to be effective it will usually need to evaporate much of the water put into it over its design life (say between 60% and 95% depending on the type of basin). This implies that the remaining 5% to 40% will infiltrate into the regional aquifer system beneath the site. Infiltration in this range will occur whether the basin is of the type that relies on aquifer or aquitard control to restrict infiltration. Since the regional aquifer system is the one that hydraulically connects the basin site to the river, the infiltration from a basin will: displace an equal volume of native groundwater from the regional aquifer into the river. The salt in the displaced native groundwater entering the river is known as the displacement pulse. ultimately allow all of the salt that infiltrated from the basin to reach the river which will usually be all of the salt that was put into the basin during its operating life. The actual salt from the basin itself entering the river is known as the brine pulse.

This argument leads to the conclusion that all salt management basins will lose some water to infiltration and therefore that they will all have salt load impacts on the river in the form of a displacement pulse and a brine pulse. (See Figure 1 for a definition of these terms.) Therefore the primary obligation of the basin designer (or anyone proposing to modify an existing basin) is to predict the magnitude, duration and location of the displacement pulse and the brine pulse and demonstrate that these impacts are acceptable. Acceptability, however, is a philosophical concept that begs the questions to who and compared to what and by how much. The River be the whole community, while the only sensible comparison that can be made is between:"

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The salt load impacts i.e. the magnitude, duration and location of the displacement pulse and brine pulse salt loads to the river caused by the basin and The salt load benefits i.e. the salt load kept out of the river by the interception and / or diversion works that the basin services

While the by how much is likely to be site specific and involve many factors for Stockyard Plain Basin, 20% after a lifetime of 100 years was adopted. Recent detailed design and performance reviews for each of the three basins confirm that they are performing as expected. In summary, the Fundamental Design Philosophy states that a salt management basin must, above all else, manage the saline water put into it in such a way that the peak salt loads to the river caused by its displacement pulse and brine pulse are both acceptably smaller than the salt benefits gained by the River Murray salinity control interception and / or diversion works that it services. Since the FDP governs (in the technical sense at least) whether or not a basin is acceptable, any basin site under consideration should be checked against it very early on certainly long before proceeding to any physical site investigation or detailed design work. Fortunately this can always be done there will always be enough existing hydrogeologic and topographic data available to enable the required model to be set up and run using best and worst case credible aquifer parameter values. If the site looks like it might be acceptable, the model can be re-run with better data later but the overall design approach has many built-in safeguards and does not depend on accurate data for a robust design. The Supplementary Design Criteria The application of the fundamental design philosophy is the primary check whether a proposed salt management basin is acceptable or not. If a proposed basin is not acceptable under this philosophy, then it is probably not worth pursuing further. If a proposed basin does pass this fundamental test, the designer should then run a reality check against a range of supplementary design criteria (listed 1-9below) before proceeding to physical site investigation and / or detailed engineering design. 1) It is better if the basin is at least 15 km from the river (to allow for aquifer defects or variations). 2) It is better if a basin has a long design life a minimum of 100 years is suggested. 3) It is better if the displacement and brine pulses enter the river as far downstream as possible. 4) Neither pulse should significantly reduce the net benefit of the scheme during its operating life. 5) It is better if a basin is passive i.e. not requiring active salt harvesting, pumping between staged ponds, recycling, etc. (if it were to be abandoned, its life impacts would be less than design) 6) It is better if ponds are naturally well-defined by the surface topography, with the ground rising sharply away from ponds (this minimises the area of land likely to be salinised). 7) Embankments should be as short as possible and located over soil profiles that enable them to be provided with cut-offs (this minimises the area of land likely to be salinised and cost of works). 8) The impacts of a basin on the river floodplain should be acceptable. 9) If designers find themselves trying to make a basin acceptable by worrying about things such as: attributing different properties (within a factor of less than two of each other) or different groundwater salinities (if they are within 5000 mg/L of each other) to

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different areas of the same aquifer, factoring in lag-times (the time taken for infiltration from the basin to seep down to the regional watertable) or water storage in the ponds, unsaturated zones or perched mounds,

Then they should immediately stop what they are doing and go back to the beginning they have lost the plot, because: enough can never be known about any of these things to try to use them to sail so close to the wind with a design, and if any of these things are needed to help a basin design work, then it is not a sufficiently robust design anyway.

Conclusions The application of The Fundamental Design Philosophy and The Supplementary Design Criteria to the design of salt management basins provides a fail-safe, robust, easily explainable and defendableapproach to the selection, operation and management of basins. Reference E.B. Collingham, Salt Management Basins for River Murray Salinity Control Schemes in SA - General Principles of Basin Design, Operation and Management, internal SA Water report, 2007

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