Boundary Reservoir, in the southern Prairie region of Canada, provides condenser cooling water used in steam electric power generation. The reservoir was formed by damming a typical Prairie stream of poor water quality. Since 1960, recorded data show that downstream water quality has been generally better than that of the inflowing stream (when flow occurred) and that there has been no continual trend to higher downstream concentrations of dissolved solids. Reservoir and downstream dissolved solids are primarily controlled by three natural processes: (1) the efficiency of the spring-runoff in replacing winter reservoir water with water of much lower dissolved solids content and derived largely from snowme (2) post-runoff loading of salts by the inflowing stream to the reservoir; and (3) sedimentation and precipitation of major cations. In the context of these natural reservoir processes, the continued effect of forced evaporation on reservoir and downstream water dissolved solids content has been negligible at the generating capacities in use up to 1977.
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