Figure 1. Location of ERF and other salt marshes in upper Cook Inlet

Physical Processes and Natural Attenuation Alternatives for Remediation of White Phosphorus Contamination, Eagle River Flats, Fort Richardson, Alaska

Figure 2. 1995 aerial photograph of ERF showing the dendritic drainage network

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Eagle River

Chickaloon TURN

KENAI PENINSULA

Figure 1. Location of ERF and other salt marshes in upper Cook Inlet.

The Eagle River cuts approximately through

resultant increase in runoff, and long-term trends

the middle of ERF, with the ponds and marshes

in annual discharge of the basin (e.g., Gurnell and

primarily draining through vegetated channels

Clark 1987, Lawson 1993). Because of this glacial

or drainageways and unvegetated tidal gullies

influence, maximum and peak discharges usually

that form a dendritic network (Fig. 2). Where gul-

occur during the primary melt season of July and

August. Sediment transport and sediment flux

lies and drainageways do not follow a dendritic

have diurnal, seasonal and annual variations

course, their location appears to be controlled by

caused primarily by glacial meltwater influx into

relict drainage networks abandoned during evo-

lution of ERF (Fig. 3). The northern fifth of ERF

the river basin (Lawson 1993). Similarly, massive

along the coast is drained through gullies that

quantities of silt- and clay-size particles are trans-

discharge directly into Knik Arm. The east, west

ported in suspension to Knik Arm by the large

and southern boundaries of ERF are defined by

rivers draining into Cook Inlet from glacierized

uplands composed of glacial deposits covered by

basins in the Alaska Range, Chugach Mountains

spruce and birch forests.

and Kenai Peninsula (e.g., Susitna, Knik and

As with other estuarine salt marshes in Cook

Matanuska river basins, Fig. 1). These materials

Inlet (e.g., Hanson 1951, Vince and Snow 1984,

remain suspended for an extended time and are

transported into the ERF salt marsh by tidal inun-

Rosenberg 1986), vegetation grows in bands or

dation (Lawson et al. 1996).

zones that approximately parallel the river and

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