IC Agenda Items IV & V Tracking Progress Towards Attainment: From Source to Resource Chesapeake Bay Program Implementation Committee Issue Paper August 7, 2003 Meeting Purpose: To seek Implementation Committee agreement to move forward with further planning, development and implementation of a system for tracking progress towards attainment. Background: The Chesapeake Bay Program partners have agreed to cap loads for nutrients and sediments allocated to the major tributary basins by jurisdictions. The tidal water states are in the process of adopting water quality standards which will form the basis for finalizing the allocations. Attainment of adopted Chesapeake Bay water quality standards can only be achieved if each state meets its individual allocations. Both downstream and upstream states must rely on their partners' efforts to meet the water quality standards. These allocations represent a new era of implementation for the Chesapeake Bay Program. Unlike the 1987 goal for reducing nutrients by 40 percent of controllable loads from a 1985 baseline, the new allocations are based upon achieving water quality conditions required by living resources. The new allocations will also be supported by a strong regulatory framework once the states have adopted the Bay criteria and refined tidal water designated uses as water quality standards. History of Tracking Progress Toward Past Goals The past 40 percent nutrient reduction goal was an exciting step forward in building consensus on voluntary goals. Accountability in the partnership largely relied upon each individual state's desire to live up to its pledge. The impact of one state not reaching its goal did not reflect upon or adversely impact partner states. Progress towards the 40 percent reduction was regularly tracked from a bay-wide perspective with annual snapshots available at the Executive Council meeting, based on strictly watershed model runs. Requests for the status of progress also resulted in articles in the Bay Journal, presentations at committees, or written reports. However, monitoring trends assessment reports and annual runs of the watershed model provided the only sources of regular progress information to the partners. Accountability for Attainment The Chesapeake Bay Program now needs to examine how it will assure accountability towards reaching the new allocated load caps and the adopted water quality standards. In this discussion, accountability aims at assuring partners that each state is taking the necessary actions to meet its allocations by: • confirming that all the individual pieces of the states' tributary strategies add up to the reductions needed to meet allocations; • collecting and analysis an array of data which enables the program to diagnose progress towards attainment of the allocations; and • communicating our progress towards the goals to the Program partners, our tributary teams, our local government partners, involved stakeholders and the general public. ------- IC Agenda Items IV & V Confirming that the Pieces Add Up - Expectations for Tributary Strategies (Agenda Item IV) In the past, states submitted final tributary strategies to the Chesapeake Bay Program with no formal review or acceptance process. With the new allocations, the Water Quality Steering Committee and the Principals Staff Committee agreed that at a minimum, tributary strategies would be loaded into the watershed model to confirm that proposed reductions meet allocations. At this point, the Implementation Committee (IC) needs to define expectations for the tributary strategies, to consider what ground rules will be used to confirm that reductions specified in the strategies meet allocations, and to determine the IC's role in the confirmation process. Decision Requested: What is the expectation of the partners regarding the role of the IC in confirming tributary strategies? • Option 1: The IC will evaluate the proposed tributary strategies using the watershed model to confirm that reductions meet allocations. If allocations are not met, send comments to the states for states' decisions and actions. The states may or may not revise their tributary strategies. • Option 2: The IC, on behalf of the CBP, will accept tributary strategies that meet allocations using the watershed model to confirm that reductions meet allocations. If allocations are not met, partners agree that the tributary strategies will be revised. • Option 3: The IC has no role. The CBPO will use the watershed model to confirm that reductions in tributary strategies meet allocations. The CBPO will provide comments to the states. If allocations are not met, partners agree that the tributary strategies will be revised. Decision Requested: Upon what criteria will the IC evaluate and/or accept tributary strategies? • Option 1: Achieving the state basin allocations for total nitrogen, phosphorus, and suspended solids. The states agreed upon allocations by basin. These allocations were based upon attainment of water quality criteria. The assumption in this option is that if the state meets its agreed upon allocation, we will reach agreed upon attainment levels. • Option 2: Achieving attainment of the water quality criteria (^dissolved oxygen, clarity, and chlorophyl a) at similar levels as the agreed upon allocations would achieve. This option might offers an opportunity for exploration of nitrogen equivalents. This also allows trade-offs between nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that achieve attainment of water quality criteria at the same level as the agreed upon allocations would achieve. Decision Requested: What is the ultimate aim of the tributary strategies? ------- IC Agenda Items IV & V • Option 1: Develop reduction activities that meet the allocations or achieve water quality criteria. • Option 2: Develop the maximum reduction activities which could be implemented by 2010. • Option 3: Develop reduction activities that meet the allocations or achieve water quality criteria with an implementation schedule. Decision Requested: How should tributary strategies address the issue of the cap? • Option 1: The tributary strategies must address maintenance of the cap. • Option 2: The tributary strategies do not need to address cap maintenance. This can be handled in another document at a later date. Collecting Data to Diagnose Progress - Tracking Progress (Agenda Item V) The Chesapeake Bay Program has a number of measures in place which help track progress towards the goals. The sequence of measures is: • Source measures and management practices; • Non-tidal monitoring; • Tidal water quality monitoring, assessment and diagnostics; and • Living resource health. This continuum of measures enables the Chesapeake Bay Program partners to track nutrient and sediment reductions from origin to impact. It offers an opportunity to assess progress which might otherwise be hidden by the time lag in realizing benefits from reducing at the source to recovery of tidal water quality and living resources. Currently, these measures are reported independently of each other or measured but not actively reported. Consequently, our picture of how reduction practices upstream ultimately influence Bay water quality is not as accurate or timely as it could be if we fully integrated and utilized the data. Proposal: The proposed tracking system will integrate environmental data and models from the ultimate sources to their fate in the Bay. Data describing the state of the watershed will be integrated with data describing the state of the Bay. Watershed and water quality models will be used to explain the causal relationships between the watershed and the Bay while data will be used to verify the predictions of the models. The integration will give a more complete picture than either modeling or monitoring alone. Description: 1. Each year, the CBP assembles BMP implementation data. These data typically include reductions in fertilizer and manure applications, structural management practices, point source discharges, etc. Independent data sources, such as fertilizer sales and animal counts can ------- IC Agenda Items IV & V then be used to verify some of these estimates. The BMP implementation data, in turn, help to explain changes in those independent data sources. 2. The BMP implementation is then fed into the watershed model, which predicts the change in loads due to these management actions. In-stream data can be used to verify the predictions of the model. Conversely, the watershed model explains the source of the changes in loads seen in the monitoring data. 3. The output of the watershed model drives the Bay model, which predicts Bay criteria (eventually standards) attainability changes due to changes in inputs loads. Monitoring data from the Bay and tidal tributaries can verify that these changes are indeed taking place. Lower trophic level living resource responses can then determine if these water quality standards are appropriately protecting habitat. The Bay water quality model can be used to explain the causes of attainment and the interaction between measured criteria parameters, such as dissolved oxygen, and living resource response. 4. Using information gained from the implementation of this process, the states can refine implementation of tributary strategies to best target nutrient allocation goals, standards attainment, and living resource response. All information in the system will be within a consistent, web-available framework to allow assessment by all parties at local community watershed to tidal river to basinwide scales. Benefits: • Provides tool to assist the states in developing tributary strategies • Consistent tool across jurisdictions to evaluate tributary strategies • Provides means to assess the performance of the planning models • Provides a framework for adaptive management Decision Requested: Approval to move forward on an integrated approach to tracking progress from source to resource. Decision Requested: If the IC approves above request, who will be charged with responsibility for developing the system? Options for assignment of responsibilities for implementation of the tracking system include: • Option 1: Separate Subcommittees - Charge the individual subcommittees likely to be involved-Nutrients, Monitoring and Assessment, Modeling, Living Resources, Land, Growth and Stewardship and Information Management-to work on their individual pieces and bring them back to the Implementation Committee for integration. • Option 2: Chesapeake Bay Program Office staff - Charge the Chesapeake Bay Program Office staff with responsibility for working with each of the above listed six subcommittees to integrate their various data and analysis products into a tracking system. ------- IC Agenda Items IV & V • Option 3: MASC - Charge the Monitoring and Assessment Subcommittee to take the lead in working in close coordination with the other subcommittees to integrate all the different data elements and analytical/diagnostic components into a tracking system. Communicating to the Public (Agenda Item for Future IC Meeting) Ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay Program is accountable to the public for progress towards the goals. The Communication and Education Subcommittee will provide recommendations for communicating the results of our actions at an upcoming IC meeting. ------- |