Time of travel of the Flint River, Utah Dam to highway M-13, Michigan, August 4-8, 1981

Tracing of rhodamine WT dye has provided time-of-travel data for waste-load allocation studies of a 42.8-mile reach of the Flint River at low flow. A discharge equaled or exceeded about 90 percent of the time was measured at Grand Traverse Street in Flint before dye injection. Dye was injected at two locations in Flint--at Utah Dam and at Grand Traverse Street, From Utah Dam to Grand Traverse Street, the mean velocity of flow was about 0.1 foot per second; time-of-travel was 35.3 hours. From Grand Traverse Street to Highway M-13, mean velocity was about 0.7 foot per second; time-of-travel was 78.8 hours. Time-of-travel for the reach between Utah Dam and Highway M-13 was thus 114 hours.