Chesapeake Bay Program Reevaluation Technical Workgroup Conference Call March 27, 2008 SUMMARY OF DECISIONS, ACTIONS AND ISSUES Welcome and Roll Call Rich Batiuk, EPA/CBPO, welcomed everyone to the conference call and initiated introductions. Rich laid out the set of decisions to be made during the conference call and brought to the Water Quality Steering Committee at their April 22nd and 23rd meeting. ¦ Decisions to be made during the conference call: o Agreement on proposed plan by the Wastewater Treatment Workgroup on how to conduct the one-time collection of data for non-significant facilities; o Agreement on recommendations to go to the Water Quality Steering Committee on how to allocate to significant and non-significant facilities; o Agreement on the responses to the list of specific questions the Wastewater Treatment Workgroup has asked; o Consensus for the hydrologic period to use and supporting rationale to take to the Water Quality Steering Committee; o Agreement on a recommendation to the Water Quality Steering Committee on how to deal with extreme events within selected hydrologic period; and o Approval of agenda for the April 10th Reevaluation Technical Workgroup meeting. Allocation to Sources: Wastewater The Nutrient Subcommittee's Wastewater Treatment Workgroup is recommending a one- time data collection for information on non-significant facilities for creating an input decks for the Phase 5.1 Chesapeake Bay watershed model calibration. The Workgroup is recommending the initial focus be pleased on collecting data on the non-significant municipal facilities and then efforts would turn to addressing the industrial facilities. Discussion of Draft Proposal for Estimating Loads from Non-Significant Wastewater Treatment Facilities in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed ¦ Russ Perkinson, VA DCR, asked if the non-significant facilities are required to monitor for concentration data. The recommended default concentrations look like numbers seen for secondary treatment plants and may be too optimistic. o Ning Zhou responded that, with some exceptions, the states are not requiring monitoring by the non-significant facilities. When data is available for a facility, that data will be used to calculate loads. When there is no monitored effluent concentration data available, the Wastewater Treatment Workgroup would use default concentration data for municipal facilities of 18 mg/1 total nitrogen and 3 mg/L total phosphorus, o Alan Pollock, VA DEQ, stated that VA currently uses default values of 18.7 mg/1 for nitrogen and 2.5 mg/1 for phosphorus. ------- o Alan Pollock clarified that the default concentration values being proposed by the Wastewater Treatment Workgroup are for municipal facilities only, o Rich Batiuk added that the non-significant industrial facilities also have minimal effluent concentration data and these facilities are covered under many different standard industrial codes (SIC). Default values for specific SIC categories of industrial facilities will be developed based on the available data and values published in the literature. ¦ Dinorah Dalmasy, MDE, stated that MDE has data for non-significant municipal facilities going back a few years that should be used instead of the default values. ¦ The focus of the one-time data collection for non-significant facilities will be on nitrogen and phosphorus, not sediment, although a default value for TSS can be applied at the same time. ¦ Dave Montali, WV DEP, believed that the default values of 18 mg/1 for nitrogen and 3 mg/1 for phosphorus seemed low for these small facilities which often don't even have full-time facility oversight. The numbers should better represent the expected loads since we will be making allocations based on the one time data collection. ¦ Ed Reilly, NY DEC, commented that we would rarely see any Bay water quality impact of these non-significant facilities and, thus, we should not spend a lot of time on them. ¦ Alan Pollock agreed that we need to come up with a system that is the simplest way to accomplish the objectives—include the flows and loads from non-significant facilities within the Bay Phase 5.1 watershed model calibration in support of development of waste load allocations within the Bay TMDL. ¦ Dave Montali added that it is important to recognize the clear difference between model calibration and establishing waste load allocations in terms of uses of the data. ACTION: Ning Zhou will raise the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup's request for applying default values for estimating sediment (total suspended solids) loads from non- significant facilities. ACTION: Ning Zhou will send Dinorah Dalmasy the list of Maryland's reported 166 non-significant facilities currently contained in the Chesapeake Bay Program's Point Source Database. ACTION: Ning Zhou will raise the concern voiced by several Reevaluation Technical Workgroup members about the issue of the low non-significant municipal facilities default concentration values with the Wastewater Treatment Workgroup. The Wastewater Treatment Workgroup will to ensure the final set of default concentration values reflect actual operating conditions for these small facilities. The Wastewater Treatment Workgroup will compare their recommended default concentration values with the monitored effluent data that are available. Wastewater Treatment Workgroup Question for Reevaluation Technical Workgroup Discussion 1) What is the Bay TMDL requirement for including wastewater facilities within the WLA in term of the design flow capacity? Is there a flow cut-off value? 2 ------- ¦ Rich Batiuk recommended the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup ask the Wastewater Treatment Workgroup not to put in an artificial flow cut-off for gathering the data on the non-significant facilities. ¦ Don Montali pointed out that if a point source discharges out, it needs a waste load allocation within a TMDL, otherwise it is zero. ¦ Monir Chowdhury stated that for the Potomac PCB TMDL, a flow cut-off value was used. DECISION: Given the TMDL requirements, the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup decided not to set an artificial cut-off for the one-time collection of data on non- significant facilities. ACTION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup will discuss the remaining questions from the Wastewater Treatment Workgroup in Attachment A over the course of future conference calls and meetings as the remaining questions did not have a direct bearing on the one-time data collection. Discussion on Allocations to Wastewater Treatment Facilities There are two sets of decisions to be made to determine the recommendations that the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup will make to the Water Quality Steering Committee: 1) how to allocate to significant facilities and 2) how to allocate to non-significant facilities. Allocations to Significant Facilities ¦ The options for proceeding with allocations to significant facilities include: o Option A: Assign individual waste load allocations (WLA) to each significant facility o Option B: Assign aggregate WLAs to groups of significant facilities within each of the major tributary basins by jurisdiction ¦ Bill Brown, PA DEP, pointed out that Attachment B's statement that "the seven Bay watershed jurisdictions agreed that a load allocation for each source is preferable" does not accurately reflect Pennsylvania's stated position on this issue. ¦ Tom Thornton, MDE, said that MD is in favor of Option B, assigning aggregate WLAs, in order to allow for trading and bubble permits. o Lee Currey, MDE, added that Maryland's major concern is having flexibility to assess compliance based on groups of individual facilities. ¦ Alan Pollock stated that Virginia expects the Bay TMDL to allow for trading, not undermining their existing nutrient credit exchange program, so assigning individual WLAs to facilities is fine with Virginia. ¦ Dave Montali said that WV expects to assign individual WLAs to significant facilities. ¦ Monir Chowdhury said that DC is in favor of individual WLAs to significant facilities. ¦ Ed Reilly asked what flexibility would be in place with Option A. ¦ Bob Koroncai, EPA Region 3, responded by stating that he does not know how EPA can support anything but individual WLAs to significant facilities because of high 3 ------- litigation risks with Option B. He states that the only credible option is Option A. EPA committed to working with the jurisdictions to further explore how the Bay TMDL should be written to accommodate the jurisdictions current and planned trading programs. ¦ Hassan Mirsajadi, DE DNREC, stated that Delaware is comfortable with assigning individual WLAs to significant facilities. ¦ Dave Montali stated that we need to recognize that there are different ways of getting down to allocations but we need to ensure that the local standards and the Bay standards are met. ¦ Bob Koroncai asked Pennsylvania to consider if we went with an Option A that accommodates trading and flexibility in allocations, would that address their concerns. o Bill Brown responded that Pennsylvania's work over the past few years has resulted in significant progress with their wastewater dischargers and unless they have a gross allocation at the state line, they will not be able to keep their word with their dischargers not to change the existing established facility specific allocations. With Phase 5 watershed model results unknown, they are not willing to commit to individual WLAs at this time. ¦ Bob Koroncai responded by stating it's up to the individual jurisdictions to determine if the current allocations to individual facilities will remain the same, increase, or decrease. ¦ Dave Montali added that all that is being asked is that the jurisdictions assign specific load allocations to their individual significant facilities, but the jurisdictions ultimately decide what those allocations are. ACTION: CBPO staff will revise Attachment C prior to distribution to the Water Quality Steering Committee to reflect that Pennsylvania is not in agreement with the language in the background section stating that load allocations should be allocated to each source. DECISION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup report to the WQSC that the majority of the jurisdictions support assigning individual waste load allocations to each significant facility, while recognizing Maryland's concerns over having flexibility to bubble permitted loads from significant facilities. Pennsylvania continues to support one allocation at the state line by major river basin, but if only given the option of individual or aggregated wasteload allocations would support an aggregated wasteload. ACTION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup will explore how to write the Bay TMDL to allow for trading to occur and to maintain a degree of flexibility in assigning the allocations. POST CONFERENCE CALL NOTE: Following the conference call, colleagues at the Maryland Department of the Environment indicated based a follow up review that their permitting requirements would not conflict with Option A—individual allocations to each significant facility. 4 ------- Allocations to Non-Significant Facilities There were two options presented for assigning allocations to non-significant facilities: o Option A: Assign individual WLAs to each non-significant facility above a designated daily flow value and assign WLAs to groups of non-significant facilities at or below a designated daily flow value within each major tributary basin by jurisdiction, o Option B: Assign aggregate WLAs to groups of non-significant facilities within each major tributary basin by jurisdiction. ¦ Ed Reilly said that New York is strongly in favor of Option B. ¦ Maryland agrees with Option B. ¦ Alan Pollock stated that Virginia sees the advantages of Option A and believes it leaves some flexibility. ¦ Hassan Mirsajadi said Delaware believes Option A could be considered if the loads from these non-significant facilities are included in the Phase 5 watershed model calibration, otherwise Option B would be more appropriate. ¦ Dave Montali stated that West Virginia supports Option A because they have the data for all their non-significant facilities. ¦ Bill Brown stated that Pennsylvania supports Option B. ¦ Ning Zhou reported that there are over 2700 non-significant facilities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed according to the EPA ICIS database. ¦ Dave Montali and Bob Koroncai said that if we know where they are, we should put them in the Bay watershed model. ¦ Chris Day, EPA Region 3, pointed out that each point source should have an allocation so that no one can challenge their permit. ¦ Alan Pollock wants to talk to Bob Koroncai and Chris Day about how Virginia handles non-significant facilities under existing state laws and regulations. Currently, these facilities are covered by the general permit but have no limits or allocations to them until they expand. Once they expand they get assigned an allocation based on their July 2005 loading. Virginia would like the Bay TMDL to be crafted to support VA's approach. ¦ Bob Koroncai clarified that we are only dealing with about 10 percent of the loading but quadrupling the number of facilities engaged in allocations. There can be no debate on the idea that no matter what we choose for non-significant facilities in terms of the approach to the waste load allocations—individual or aggregate or a combination of both—we need some kind of permitting in place either by holding the line for existing loading or a plan for reducing the loading. DECISION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup will present the Workgroup's collective perspectives to the Water Quality Steering Committee on the issues of how to establish the waste load allocations for non-significant facilities. Hydrologic Period Gary Shenk led a discussion on the evaluation hydrologic period options to use for model simulation assessment of achievement states Chesapeake Bay water quality standard. A hydrologic period must be chosen to use as the basis for running management scenarios 5 ------- through the suite of Bay airshed-watershed-water quality-sediment transport-filter feeding models. ¦ The Chesapeake Bay Program partners may be some of the first group to have the problem of having too many years to choose from in selecting the hydrologic period for running the models. We have 21 years to choose from but it would not make sense to use the entire 21 year record because the scenario runs would take too much time to run. ¦ Two sets of decisions were requested: o 1: Selection of a particular 10-year hydrologic period; and o 2: Whether or not to remove extreme conditions from the selected 10-year hydrologic period. ¦ The need to address the TMDL critical condition requirement suggests we should include the worst conditions within the 10-year hydrologic period. ¦ The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup previously requested a representative hydrology just looking at flow. o Just looking at flow proved to be difficult, with over 50,000 statistics to sort through. ¦ Initial findings of Gary Shenk's updated evaluation of hydrologic periods suggested: o Using the most recent 30-year flow record versus the entire available record of flow data gives more consistent results, o Longer term averaging periods are generally better, o Any combination of 10-year hydrologic periods within the available 1985- 2006 flow record are representative and include 'good' years and 'bad' years, o The available choices for 10-year hydrologic periods are relatively fair among jurisdictions—they are not biased in terms of loadings towards any individual jurisdictions over time. ¦ Analyses show a 10-year averaging period (or longer) is the best length for a hydrologic period. ¦ The Chesapeake Bay water quality/sediment transport/filter feeder models are calibrated from 1993-2000 so it would make sense to choose a hydrologic period that include this calibration period to ensure better accuracy of the Bay model. POST CONFERENCE CALL NOTE: The Phase 5 watershed model has been calibrated over the entire 21 year data record so that the selection of any of the available eight 10-year hydrologic periods would coincide with the watershed model's calibration period. ¦ The selection of any of the individual 10-year hydrologic periods would not affect the effort being required by each state in terms of nutrient and sediment loads. ¦ Based on the analyses, the recommended hydrologic period is 1991 through 2000 because it overlaps the calibration of the Chesapeake Bay water quality/sediment transport/filter feeder models, it is representative of the past 30 year flow record, and it contains years of low attainment for the Chesapeake Bay dissolved oxygen, clarity, and chlorophyll criteria addressing the TMDL requirement for critical conditions. Discussion 6 ------- ¦ Alan Pollock commented that for most TMDLs the hydrologic period for selected for determining load allocations is typically hydrologic period that the calibration is based on. o Rich Batiuk replied that yes, TMDLs are typically done that way and that was part of the basis/rationale for the recommended 1991-2000 hydrologic period as well. DECISION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup members agreed to move forward with recommending the 1991-2000 hydrologic period to the Water Quality Steering Committee. Extreme Conditions Lewis Linker led the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup in a discussion on whether or not to remove extreme conditions from the recommended hydrologic period. ¦ Extreme weather events over the past few decades have not had significant effects on SAV or dissolved oxygen. ¦ Analyses by the CBPO Modeling Team found that extreme events can deliver high sediment loads, reducing clarity necessary for SAV, potentially causing harmful effects during the growing season. However, these large storm events have only occurred in the winter months and, thus, have not shown effects on Bay water quality. Discussion ¦ Alan Pollock asked for further documentation that these extreme events will not affect dissolved oxygen conditions. o Although more detailed dissolved oxygen analyses have not been conducted, the CBPO Modeling Team will work to confirm the initial findings reported above with further model simulations once the Bay water quality/sediment transport model is approved for management decision making. DECISION: The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup agreed to recommend to the Water Quality Steering Committee that extreme events be retained in the hydrologic period. Review of Draft April 10, 2008 Reevaluation Technical Workgroup Meeting Agenda The April 10l Reevaluation Technical Workgroup will focus on: ¦ Ensuring the Bay TMDL will support implementation ¦ Resolution of the scope of the Bay TMDL ¦ Review and approval of margin of safety recommendation to the Water Quality Steering Committee ¦ Phase 5 Watershed Model Sensitivity Model Scenario Findings ¦ Next steps for addressing future issues and approval of the 2008-2011 timeline ACTION: Reevaluation Technical Workgroup members will review the draft agenda and provide comments back to Rich Batiuk. 7 ------- Participants Rich Batiuk EPA/CBPO Lewis Linker EPA/CBPO Ning Zhou VT/CBPO Sara Parr CRC/CBPO Gary Shenk EPA/CBPO Tom Thornton MDE Dinorah Dalmasy MDE Lee Currey MDE Alan Pollock VADEQ Arthur Butt VADEQ Charles Martin VADEQ Chip Rice VADCR Russ Perkinson VADCR Moira Croghan VADCR Monir Chowdhury DDOE Chris Day EPA Region 3 Jennifer Sincock EPA Region 3 Bob Koroncai EPA Region 3 Kenn Pattison PA DEP Bill Brown PA DEP Pat Buckley PA DEP Hassan Mirsajadi DEDNREC Ed Reilly NY DEC Dave Montali WV DEP batiuk.richard@epa.gov llinker@chesapeakebav.net zhou. ning@epa. gov sparr@chesapeakebav.net shenk. gary@epa. gov tthornton@mde. state, md.us ddalmasv@mde. state, md. us lcurrev@mde.state.md.us aepollock@deq.virginia.gov aibutt@deq .Virginia, gov chmartin@deq. Virginia, gov chip.rice@dcr.virginia.gov russ.perkinson@dcr.virginia.gov moira.croghan@dcr.virginia.gov monir.chowdhury@dc.gov dav.christopher@epa.gov sincock.i ennifer@epa. gov koroncai. robert@epa. gov kpattison@state.pa.us willbrown@state.pa.us pbucklev@state.pa.us Hassan.mirsaiadi@state.de.us exreilly@gw.dec.state.ny.us dmontali@wvdep. org 8 ------- |