Chesapeake Bay Program
Reevaluation Technical Workgroup Meeting

April 10, 2008

SUMMARY OF DECISIONS, ACTIONS AND ISSUES

Welcome and Review of the Agenda and Decisions Requested

Rich Batiuk, EPA/CBPO, welcomed everyone to the meeting and initiated introductions.
Jennifer Sincock, EPA Region 3 Water Protection Division's TMDL Program, is
replacing Sue McDowell as the chair of the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup.

Ensuring the Bay TMDL Supports/Strengthens the Jurisdictions' Implementation
Efforts

Rich Batiuk led a discussion with the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup members to
discuss how we can use the TMDL to help implementation efforts and not counteract
current programs and activities. At the beginning of the discussion, it was agreed that all
ideas, recommendations, issues and concerns raised would be recorded without
attribution to an individual state or agency to encourage a free exchange of ideas.

Member Comments on Potential Bay TMDL Benefits/Concerns

¦	One state is looking at developing some new programs to address nutrient standards,
particularly for phosphorus in headwater streams. It is an area where the TMDL
could help or hurt depending on how it plays out and the timing of the state initiative.

¦	There is concern that a TMDL could cause conflicts with differing state standards and
permits.

¦	The nutrient loading reductions being driven to meet the states' Bay water quality
standards could be less stringent than state standards for the free flowing streams and
rivers in the watershed.

¦	The Bay TMDL may prescribe a set of requirements for traditional point sources that
is a lot cleaner than what might come from nutrient criteria for NPDES permits.

¦	Factor in these considerations into the waste load allocation (WLA) process.

¦	The partners need to clearly communicate that these allocations are for far field water
quality impairments and recognize that the states' nutrient criteria will drive near field
reductions.

¦	Existing local TMDLs addressing nutrients can more stringent than the reductions
called for in the jurisdictions' Tributary Strategies but are directed towards addressing
localized problems. All of these parts—localized TMDLs, Tributary Strategies, Bay
TMDLs, etc.—must fit together.

¦	There is an opportunity to share lessons learned with the Mississippi River/Gulf of
Mexico partnership which includes a few states that have nutrient criteria.

¦	The partners need to figure out how to incorporate existing state regulations,
including trading programs, into the Bay TMDL.


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¦	Tracking every facility is not practical so we have to be prudent to capture WLAs in a
discernable way. We need to make sure we do not get lost in the details of the large
number of sources.

¦	We need to figure out how to address lower Virginia tidal tributaries that are not as
affected by 'up-Bay' nutrient sources and, in turn, have little effect on up-Bay tidal
waterbodies due to the Bay's circulation patterns.

¦	We need to consider tracking changes in data and circumstances very carefully; it is
not a static process.

¦	We need to determine the best way to account for continued development and MS4
issues within the Bay TMDL.

¦	Aggregating individual sources could be a solution, but we must figure out how to
meet the reasonable assurance requirement to demonstrate that the TMDL can
actually be implemented.

¦	States whose waters are not impaired by excessive nitrogen—termed 'the nitrogen
disconnect'—will have a difficult time selling required nitrogen reductions to the
local sources due to the lack of a local water quality benefit.

¦	Further, it will be a challenge to communicate locally why localities must make water
quality improvements beyond what is needed for their local tributary. Technical
support from EPA and the partners is critical, particularly to local governments, to
bridge the connection between their local actions and the Chesapeake Bay.

¦	It is important to connect, support, and justify the permits through the Bay TMDL.

¦	We must maintain equity between jurisdictions and between sources.

¦	It is necessary to keep the legal challenges out of the state court for the Bay TMDL.

¦	Legal requirements should addressed be first and foremost, and then we can work
towards equity.

¦	We must encourage creative and flexible approaches that are still legally defensible in
developing and implementing the Bay TMDL.

¦	An unambiguous TMDL with a clearly defined loading number for regulated point
sources would be the greatest opportunity, and most expedient way, to accelerate
nutrient reductions.

Resolution of the Scope of the Bay TMDL

Rich Batiuk reviewed previous decisions that were made by the Reevaluation Technical
Workgroup in regard to the scope of the Bay TMDL. The Workgroup decided to
recommend to the Water Quality Steering Committee that all states would complete their
2008 303(d) list work, EPA will then use the states' 2008 303(d) lists to identify those
impaired waters to be addressed by the Bay TMDL. Further, the Workgroup decided to
recommend that the full suite of CBP models should be used to develop pollutant load
allocations for only those segments/designated uses/criteria associated with nutrients and
sediments necessary to meet aquatic life uses. The Workgroup is now being asked to
agree on the geographic extent of the Bay TMDL and the resultant allocations.

Geographic scope options for the TMDL include:

¦ Option 1: All regulated point sources with direct dischargers into the tidally
influenced waters or to free-flowing waters within the Phase 5 Watershed Model

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segment directly draining into the impaired CBP segment. TMDL = WLA + LA +
MOS + Background (Boundary Conditions).

¦	Option 2: All regulated point sources discharging to those portions of the
Chesapeake Bay watershed which contribute to the water quality impairment f the
impaired CBP segment.

Discussion

¦	Bill Brown, PA DEP, noted that uncertainty in the Bay watershed model increases as
you move further up into the headwaters. The strength of the models must be taken
into account in deciding on the scope of the Bay TMDL and the resultant allocations.

o Lewis Linker clarified that all of Phase 5 segmentation and the underlying
input data are fully consistent through the six-state watershed, much more
uniform than the Phase 4.3 watershed model so we cannot say that uncertainty
increases further up into the watershed headwaters.

¦	Bill Brown clarified that the yellow section on the illustration of Option 1 would be
considered a gross load allocation. A load allocation can be given at the border
between two states and it would be up to the state to assign the allocations.

¦	There was agreement among workgroup members that the waste load allocations
(WLAs) and load allocations (LAs) are state decisions.

¦	Nauth Panday, MDE, pointed out that they just did a local TMDL where they
assigned Pennsylvania 90 percent of the load reduction at the state boundary line.
How Pennsylvania met that load reduction requirement was up to them.

¦	Pat Buckley, PA DEP, clarified that Pennsylvania is committed to reducing their
loads. Their facilities are being regulated consistently with the Tributary Strategy.
Specific WLAs and LAs are not necessary to effectively regulate sources.

¦	In the individual tributary basins, each jurisdiction would decide how to meet their
allocations accordingly.

¦	Chris Day stated if states are assigned a gross allocation and states assign the WLAs
and LAs, the federal government would ratify their actions to avoid the risk of states
being sued in state court given the interstate nature of the Bay TMDL.

¦	John Kennedy, VA DEQ, raised the concern that if there were an attempt to develop a
WLA and a LA for the James River basin, assigned to individual segments that drain
into tidal waters below the fall line, it may not allow owners to take advantage of the
existing nutrient credit exchange program. Virginia's state regulations allow
facilities' loads to apply in aggregate even though they have individual WLAs.

o NPDES permit limits wouldn't have to be exactly equal with the TMDL
allocations.

¦	Hassan Mirsajadi, DE DNREC, pointed out that bulk load allocations may not
address local water quality in the case of Delaware which includes both headwaters'
to Maryland as well as Bay tributary tidal waters.

o Pat Buckley countered that the Bay TMDL is not a local TMDL. There are
other local TMDLs to address local impairments.

Issues to Address

¦	Need to play through the issue of possible lawsuits being tried in state versus federal
court under an EPA-issued Bay TMDL.

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¦	Need to continue to work through issue of assignment of WLAs and LAs versus
strictly assigning boundary loads.

¦	Need to build the states' trading programs into Option 2 and work towards using the
Bay TMDL to further enhance the states' trading programs by bringing other sources
under caps and adding market value to their nutrient and sediment reductions.

¦	Need to continue to work how to best balance individual source allocations and
aggregate multiple source allocations.

Presentation to the Water Quality Steering Committee

¦	We will build off of the 2003 nutrient and sediment cap loads allocated by major
tributary basin by jurisdiction. Boundary load allocations will at least be made at the
major tributary basin/jurisdiction level consistent with the level of allocations within
the 2003 cap load allocations. The Steering Committee will need to take on the
policy responsibility to look at how to allocate further than that, balancing the legal
requirements and state flexibility.

¦	We need to tell the Steering Committee what more is needed and what else is
involved for each of the options.

¦	We will explain to the Steering Committee what is legally required and then present
options for going further.

¦	The Steering Committee will decide if and how to incrementally allocate beyond
major tributary basin by jurisdiction load allocations.

¦	Pennsylvania would like to make further allocations beyond the "at the state
boundary" load (if necessary) after the Bay TMDL as part of revisions to their
Tributary Strategy.

DECISION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup agreed to recommend to the
Water Quality Steering Committee Option A as the smallest geographic scope of the Bay
and resultant allocations that is legally defensible. (The Workgroup could not reach
consensus on a definition of scope of the Bay TMDL beyond Option A.) The Workgroup
agree to present their decision as a baseline from which the Water Quality Steering
Committee will decide if/how additional allocations will be made up into the watershed.
The presentation to the Water Quality Steering Committee will include an explanation of
what is legally required, the desire for state flexibility, and what the various options for
moving forward entail.

Review/Approval of the Revised Margin of Safety Recommendation

Lewis Linker presented, "Bay TMDL Margin of Safety: Requests for Water Quality
Steering Committee Decisions." The Workgroup was asked to agree on a set of margin
of safety recommendations to be presented to the Water Quality Steering Committee on
April 22nd and 23rd.

¦	The Workgroup previously agreed to use a blend of different implicit assumptions for
the margin of safety (MOS) TMDL requirement. Implicit assumptions include:

o There are a number of implicit assumptions already built into the analysis
system that will be used for the Bay TMDL.

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o The TMDL Bay scenarios for wastewater treatment facilities have inherent

implicit conservative assumptions,
o The TMDL is built on a foundation of more than two decades of modeling and
assessment in the Bay, atypical for most TMDLs. The suite of CBP models
reduces the need for an overly large MOS for the TMDL.

Discussion

¦	Nauth Panday did not see how the suite of models ensured conservatism.

o Dave Montali, WV DEP, pointed out that the MOS may be less than for other
TMDLs because of the advanced nature of the suite of Bay models.

¦	Mike Haire, EPA HQ, added that he has not seen any other group apply as much
scrutiny in regard to determining an appropriate MOS as the Bay Program partnership
has.

¦	John Kennedy suggested that the recommendation be reworded to say that we are
recommending an implicit MOS with various conservative assumptions. A "blended"
TMDL implied to some workgroup members that it was a combination of an implicit
and explicit MOS.

DECISION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup agreed to recommend an implicit

margin of safety with various conservative assumptions to the Water Quality Steering

Committee.

Phase 5.0 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model Sensitivity Model Scenario Findings

Gary Shenk presented, "Watershed Model Phase 5.0 and Scoping Scenarios."

¦	Phase 5.0 is a temporary development version. There are still some important data
inputs still missing.

¦	Phase 5.1 will be developed over the next few months with the final calibration to be
completed in early July. The Phase 5.1 calibration will have some new capabilities
and information, including a 12 km CMAQ grid further improving the nitrogen
atmospheric deposition input data, thousands of small wastewater discharges added to
the input deck, improved validation methods recommended by the STAC independent
scientific peer review team, and BMPs with variable efficiencies, again,
recommended by the STAC review team.

¦	Phase 5.0 was approved by the Modeling Subcommittee for scenarios at the April 8
Modeling Quarterly Review.

¦	The Phase 5.0 calibrations and scenarios will be presented to the Water Quality
Steering Committee at their April 22-23 meeting.

¦	There are a few known issues with scenarios: Susquehanna total nitrogen loads are
very low, Eastern Shore sensitivities are off, the input data are not final, and there is
limited quality assurance.

¦	The Phase 5 model is consistent with Phase 4.3 in a relative sense but not in an
absolute sense when it comes to meeting static goals.

¦	The Water Quality Steering Committee will see Phase 5.0 scenarios, load by major
tributary basin by jurisdiction, and anything else the Workgroup thinks they should
see.

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Discussion

¦	John Kennedy mentioned that if the reduction target remains unchanged, we may be
closer to the goal than we thought. Until we see the link with the Water Quality
Model, we cannot draw too many conclusions.

o Mike Haire pointed out that even if the reduction targets are similar, the way
the loads are achieved may differ.

¦	The model can provide some degree of feedback about management action
relationships with responses in water quality.

¦	Kenn Pattison stated that we cannot say that the Tributary Strategies are not working
until we see the loads. The strategies will have roughly the same effect in the Bay
model.

¦	John Kennedy suggested we compare Phase 4.3 and Phase 5.0 Tributary Strategies
scenarios.

¦	Mike Haire suggested we first present the total loads and how much we thought we
needed to reduce them to meet standards, explaining the concepts. But we cannot tell
what is needed to meet standards without the Water Quality Model. From there, we
can examine one basin at a time.

¦	Gary Shenk clarified that we cannot yet say whether or not the Tributary Strategies
will still work, but likely they will work if we reallocate.

¦	Lewis Linker clarified that we have an analysis system that includes a loading model
and a decision model. We cannot look at either one of them in isolation and draw
conclusions.

¦	The calibration status of the Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Sediment Transport
Model will be reviewed by the Modeling Subcommittee at its April 28th and 29th
Modeling Quarterly Review. The Modeling Subcommittee expects to review next to
last calibration at that time, with the final calibration planned to be presented at the
July 1-2 Modeling Quarterly Review. Depending on the state of Bay Water Quality
and Sediment Transport Model calibration is at the end of the month, the Modeling
Team may be able to start scoping scenarios.

Discussion on Recommended Sequence of Management-oriented Scenarios

What scenarios do Workgroup members want to see run and presented to the Workgroup

in the coming months?

¦	We need to first decide on the year that will form the basis for the changes to the
allocation.

¦	We should start with nailing down the overall cap load we need to meet the states'
Bay water quality standards and work back into the allocations.

¦	We need to confirm what is going to be the driving criteria/pollutants—nutrients or
sediments—and where.

¦	We may like to know what it will take to meet each impaired segment because we
may get to one more quickly than others.

¦	We need to run the set of allocation scenarios for the selected baseline year, including
all-forested watershed and no-action scenarios.

¦	We need to run a Tributary Strategy scenario.

¦	We need to run the Watershed Model through a series ranging scenarios.

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o Include an "everyone, everywhere, everything" scenario as part of that set of
ranging scenarios.

¦	Caution was expressed against running management scenarios that do not contain
existing state regulations, such as the regulated WLA cap for permitted facilities.

¦	Run a scenario to reflecting the percentage reduction from what was in the 2003
allocation.

¦	Run a 2030 scenario.

¦	Run a set of scenarios laying out high levels of selected nonpoint source practices.

Review of Proposed Workgroup Schedule for Addressing the Next Round of
Technical Issues

Rich Batiuk and Jennifer Sincock led the group in reviewing the proposed set of issues
for the Workgroup to address in the near future. The Workgroup was asked if the right
set of issues were listed in Attachment D, if the issues were in the proper sequence, which
issues are interconnected, and when will these issues could/should resolved by the
Workgroup for review by the Water Quality Steering Committee.

¦	Selection of a methodology for determining daily loads was added to the list of
technical issues.

o For daily loads, there are fairly simplistic calculations that can be done to
come up with the daily allowable load, so this issue should not require a lot of
attention.

¦	Attachment D, which listed the technical issues for resolution by the Workgroup, was
updated during the meeting to fill in connected issues and additional information
needed for each technical issue.

ACTION: Rich Batiuk and Jennifer Sincock will further refine the Attachment D matrix
based on the Workgroup's feedback and distribute the revised version to Workgroup
members. The revised matrix will be presented to the Water Quality Steering Committee
at their April 22nd and 23rd.

Workgroup Approval of the Proposed 2008-2011 Schedule

Discussion

¦	Pennsylvania does not support revision of the Tributary Strategies prior to the
publication of the Bay TMDL.

¦	Pennsylvania asked that a decision point on whether a UAA was required be added to
the schedule.

DECISION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup agreed to recommend the
proposed 2008-2011 Bay TMDL schedule to the Water Quality Steering Committee at
their April 22nd and 23rd.

Participants

Rich Batiuk	EPA/CBPO	batiuk.richard@epa.gov

Jennifer Sincock EPA Region 3	sincock.i ennifer@epa. gov

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Sara Parr

CRC/CBPO

Russ Perkinson

VADCR

Hassan Mirsajadi

DEDNREC

Dinorah Dalmasy

MDE

Nauth Panday

MDE

Tom Thornton

MDE

Bill Brown

PA DEP

Kenn Pattison

PA DEP

Pat Buckley

PA DEP

Francoise Brasier

EPA HQ

Mike Haire

EPA HQ

Charles Martin

VADEQ

Dave Montali

WV DEP

Arthur Butt

VADEQ

Lewis Linker

EPA/CBPO

Gary Shenk

EPA/CBPO

Andrew Parker

Tetra Tech

Clint Boschen

Tetra Tech

John Kennedy

VADEQ

On the Phone:



Ed Reilly

NY DEC

Chris Day

EPA Region

sparr@chesapeakebav.net

russ.perkinson@dcr.virginia.gov

hassan.mirsaiadi@state.de.us

ddalmasv@mde. state, md. us

npandav@mde.state.md.us

tthornton@mde. state.md.us

willbrown@state.pa.us

kpattison@state.pa.us

pbucklev@state.pa.us

brasier.francoise@epa.gov

haire.michael@epa.gov

chmartin@deq .Virginia, gov

dmontali@wvdep. org

aibutt@deq .Virginia, gov

llinker@chesapeakebav.net

gshenk@chesapeakebav.net

Andrew. parker@tetratech. com

clint.boschen@tetratech.com

imkennedv@deq.virginia.gov

exreilly@gw.dec.state.ny.us
christopher.dav@epa.gov

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