Newark Bay Study - Passaic River Public Digital Library

Newark Bay is relatively wide in comparison to the Passaic River, the Hackensack River and
the Kills. Its shallow water depth has been substantially modified by the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers to ensure that the navigational channels are maintained in a condition that is suitable for
shipping transit in the vicinity of the harbor facilities of the Port Elizabeth and Port Newark
Channels. As a result of these channel modifications, the bathymetric features of the Bay are quite
complex and undergoing continual changes. A high-resolution model grid will be required to
accurately represent these bathymetric features and the related processes that control sediment
accumulation in the system (i.e., settling, resuspension, and dredging). Suskowski (1978) completed a
relatively detailed analysis of pre-1978 bathymetric data, including a relatively detailed analysis of
dredging records. More recent bathymetric data for the Bay proper have been obtained in
association with maintenance dredging operations. This information will need to be analyzed in
detail in association with ongoing model development efforts. Bathymetric survey data obtained
during the USACE Harbor Deepening Project from 1999 through 2004 will be used to characterize
model bathymetry for recent conditions.
Numerous data collection and hydrodynamic modeling studies have been conducted to gain
an improved understanding of the factors controlling fluid and mass transport in the Newark Bay
region, including the Hudson, Harlem and East Rivers; NY Harbor; Long Island Sound; Raritan
Bay; and the NY Bight. These studies have generally shown that hydrodynamic transport in Newark
Bay is influenced by its bathymetry and by a number of other external forces, including the rate of
freshwater inflow, the tides, and meteorological conditions, particularly winds. These many factors
interact in complex ways such that it is advantageous to make use of numerical models to (i)
facilitate interpretation of the data, (ii) integrate the effects of the important controlling processes,
and (iii) evaluate the net effect of these controlling processes on hydrodynamic transport in the
overall system.
Prior to developing a conceptual site model (CSM) for Newark Bay it is appropriate to first
review the results of previous efforts to investigate the factors that influence hydrodynamic
transport within the Newark Bay study area. To begin, Oey et al. (1985a, 1985b) developed a 3-D
model of the Hudson Raritan Estuary (including the Upper and Lower New York Harbor, Raritan
Bay, the Arthru Kill, Kill Van Kull, and Newark Bay). The model was validated using data for water
surface elevation, current speed and salinity. Oey et al. (1985c) also used a 2-D depth-integrated
model to characterize tidal currents in the system. Blumberg et al. (1999) also developed a calibrated
hydrodynamic model of the overall system. Simulations with this 3-D model showed that inflows
from the northern tributaries, combined with residual inflow from the Kill van Kull, flowed out of
Newark Bay via the Arthur Kill. The results also showed that, for the relatively high flow simulation
conditions considered, Newark Bay and the Arthur Kill were vertically well mixed, while the Kill van
Kull exhibited relatively weak stratification. This result differs from the characteristically stratified
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