Chesapeake Bay Program Reevaluation Technical Workgroup Meeting December 17, 2007 Draft SUMMARY OF DECISIONS, ACTIONS AND ISSUES Welcome, Introductions, and Opening Remarks Sue McDowell, EPA Region 3, welcomed everyone to the meeting and initiated introductions. The main focus of this meeting is to review the Chesapeake Bay Program models. The end of the meeting focuses on preparing for future discussions on Bay TMDLs scope and issues. Phase 5 Watershed Model Overview Lewis Linker, EPA/CBPO, presented "Overview of the Suite of CBP Airshed, Watershed, Estuarine, and Living Resources Models." His presentation is available at http://www.chesapeakebav.net/pubs/calendarAVOTWG 12-17- 07 Presentation 1 9246.pdf. ¦ The Airshed, Watershed, Estuarine, and Living Resource models are being improved to function at scales necessary to evaluate water quality, dissolved oxygen (DO), and chlorophyll standards. This will allow for management actions based on this science to achieve water quality. ¦ To proceed with management actions, we may reaffirm achievement of the DO and chlorophyll water quality standards the way we've done in the past. o The clarity water quality standard will be different than the DO water quality standard because of its nature as a narrow, shallow ribbon along the perimeter of the Bay. In addition, problems and therefore solutions are localized. ¦ Improvements to develop management actions to achieve clarity water quality standards with the new modeling and monitoring tools include shallow water monitoring, shallow water research on wave resuspension, shore erosion data, and filter feeder and menhaden studies. ¦ 2007 model scenarios will show 2020 allocation of state responsibilities and 2020 sector responsibility (electric generating units, mobile, and industry) on a 36 km grid. ¦ Under climate change scenarios, the model suggests that flow, nitrogen, and phosphorus loads will generally decrease. Total suspended sediments may increase. ¦ Climate change will have implications for Chesapeake Bay Program goals. Sensitivity analyses will be used to understand the vulnerability of CBP goals and water resource issues. ¦ Next steps in the climate change analysis will be to examine Bay water quality through the Chesapeake Bay Water Quality and Sediment Transport Model. ¦ The second peer review of Phase 5 of the Watershed Model by STAC will be January 2008. The Watershed Model will then be completed in February 2008 followed by the Water Quality Sediment Transport Model and the Living Resource and Higher Trophic Level Models in April 2008. Upon completion of these models, scenarios and analyses will be run from 2008 to 2011 in support of the reevaluation. ------- ¦ The models will be reviewed in more detail by the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup in the future. Gary Shenk, EPA/CBPO, presented "Phase 5 Watershed Model Overview." His presentation is available at http://www.chesapeakebav.net/pubs/calendarAVQTWG 12- 17-07 Presentation 2 9246.pdf. ¦ The Chesapeake Bay decision support system begins with data being inputted into the Land Change Model and the Airshed Model which feed the Watershed Model. The Watershed Model goes into the Bay Model and the results guide the Criteria Assessment Procedures. ¦ Hourly values for meteorological factors, such as precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, wind, and solar radiation are fed into the Watershed Model for calibration. Annual or monthly values are also added for anthropogenic factors, including land use acreage, BMPs, fertilizer, atmospheric deposition, and point source loads. Daily output is then compared to observations. o The Reevaluation Technical Workgroup will have to discuss how to approach non-significant facility issues. ¦ For scenarios, hourly values of the above meteorological inputs are paired with a snapshot of anthropogenic inputs. Hourly output is then summed over 10 years of hydrology to compare against other management scenarios. The output is "average annual flow-adjusted loads." ¦ The six BMPs with the most potential positive impact on the Bay are wastewater treatment plant upgrades, enhanced nutrient management, cover crops, traditional nutrient management, conservation tillage, and diet and feed adjustments. Phase 5 Development ¦ Major improvements from Phase 4.3 to Phase 5 include: o Finer segmentation, from 100 to 1000 river segments o Smaller output scale, with input and land use data at the county level o Flexible functionality, built for upgrades, allowing parallel computing operations, easy additions to land use types, and easy integration into outside databases o Higher resolution input data with better, extended, and finer data sets o Transferability, available on the web for download and being used by various agencies and studies o User-friendliness, with the Chesapeake Online Assessment Support Tool (COAST/Vortex) that runs user-created Watershed Model scenarios via the internet o Automated calibration, ensuring even treatment across jurisdictions, documentation, and enabling uncertainty analyses ¦ After the land calibration, the nitrogen and phosphorus loads match targets and plant uptake matches field data reasonable well. ¦ Generally, the calibration has been good but some changes are expected to be made in problem areas. ¦ STAC conducts an external, independent peer review of the model and its use for management. STAC's final review will be on January 23, 2008. ------- Results ¦ Phase 5 matches the pattern of inter-annual variability than Phase 4 but it does not match the absolute USGS load estimates as well as Phase 4. Phase 5 is calibrated at many more points than Phase 4. ¦ Nutrient loads are smaller in Phase 5 than 4. ¦ By state, New York's total nitrogen loads are significantly lower in Phase 5. Next Steps ¦ Modeling Subcommittee will review and approve the model in January. ¦ STAC will review the model in January, and the Modeling Team will respond in February. ¦ The model will then go to the Water Quality Steering Committee for review in the end of March. Discussion ¦ Land segmentation is on a county-level basis, simulated at one acre of land use. Watershed boundaries are accounted for. ¦ Mike Haire, EPA, commented that by teeing the model up for Bay Program management purposes, it will in turn be appropriate for a TMDL. ¦ Data are available for all of the 100 calibration sites on an ftp site. ¦ Delivery factors are calculated from the calibration. Sector loads remain fairly constant. ¦ The changed loads as a result of Phase 5 will be examined by the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup and the WQSC to determine whether or not the loading caps will be changed to meet the state water quality standards. o Decision rules will be developed to help to determine if and how we reallocate loading caps. o Ron Entringer, NY DEC, added that the last allocations did not meet water quality standards. ¦ Arthur Butt, VA DEQ, suggested that for those not present for the last allocation read through the process to become familiar with it. ¦ Allocations were made at the state level, and then states allocated down to their Tributary Strategy segments. ACTION: Sue McDowell will send out the information about how the last allocation was done. TMDL Scope and Resolution of Issue Chesapeake Bay TMDLs Timeline ¦ The refined major basin/jurisdiction allocations will be reviewed by the partners, including the Tributary Strategy Workgroup, the Water Quality Steering Committee, and the Principals' Staff Committee. ------- ¦ The draft Bay TMDLs report will be out for public review and then reviewed by the Water Quality Steering Committee and the Principals' Staff Committee in the first half of 2010. ACTION: Reevaluation Technical Workgroup members will review the timeline and provide feedback. ACTION: Within a month, Workgroup members will lay out in a similar format to the public participation section of the timeline what their state requires or what they plan on doing for the TMDLs. Resolution of Issues ¦ Since the last meeting, Sue McDowell and others developed a table of issues needing to be addressed, the timeframe, and decision-makers. ACTION: Workgroup members will review the TMDL Issues Table and provide feedback to Sue via e-mail on the issues covered and the appropriateness of the timeframe. TMDLs Scope ¦ Sue McDowell led a discussion on how to resolve the scope of the TMDLs. Attachment B, "Figures Illustrating the Bay TMDL Scope Options," graphically illustrates the scope of the options for assigning allocations. ¦ Regulatory and legal obligations must be met by the TMDL under the Consent Decree and MOUs, primarily addressing the Bay and its tidal waters. The 2008 303(d) lists are expected to contain the same segments as in 1998. ¦ The EPA Region 3 Water Protection Division wishes to consider including TMDLs that are upstream in the watershed and impact the Bay, to go above and beyond meeting legal obligations which are a tool but may be considered not going far enough to meet the overall objective of restoring the water quality of the Bay. ¦ If TMDLs were applied in upstream waters, gross allocations would be given by tributary to 9 basins and allocations to jurisdictions and tributaries. States would then sub-allocate up into their basins. ¦ Dave Montali, WV DEP, asked why the direct sources were separated from the indirect sources impacting the impaired segments of the Bay. o There is no regulatory TMDL requirement to assign WLAs and LAs to the areas draining directly to the impaired areas but they must be assigned legally under consent decrees. The rest of the watershed is up for debate in terms of whether or not they will be held directly accountable for load reductions, o TMDLs typically identify that at a state border, the water is meeting the downstream standard, as a boundary condition. ¦ Ideally, EPA Region 3 would like to see that all of this work is done through 2011. Another option would be to do what is absolutely necessary, option 1—Bay Tidal Waters TMDLs, and then come to an agreement that states would sub-allocate to the upstream waters that contribute to the impairment in a timely fashion. ------- ¦ Sue asked for members to agree to commit to moving forward toward the May 2011 consent decree schedules, with the watershedwide TMDLs as a goal. Subsequent decisions would be made keeping the larger goal of watershedwide TMDLs in mind. ¦ Mike Haire clarified that all listed waters have differing schedules but it could be more efficient and synergistic to develop the TMDLs simultaneously. ¦ Russ Perkinson, VA DCR, agreed that doing it all synergistically would make political sense. ¦ Nauth Panday, MDE, did not believe that it was practical to do the entire watershed in the given timeframe. o Maryland has 38 nontidal waters that must have a TMDL by 2011 (15 sediment TMDLs and 23 nutrient TMDLs). ¦ Arthur Butt suggested that we examine the pros and cons of doing the process simultaneously versus separately. ¦ Francoise Brasier, EPA, would like to see model runs and data that show what would be necessary to achieve potential WLAs and LAs up in the watershed. o Lewis Linker committed to getting the information to the group as soon as possible, aiming for results before spring. ¦ Step 1 involves putting the Tributary Strategies into the 2010 landscape with the new model. ¦ In April, we'll review what that new information does for our current water quality standards. ¦ Russ Perkinson asked what the legal ramifications would be if we cut the point source loads down to 0 and still could not meet the water quality standards. ¦ Arthur Butt reminded the group that our job is to look at the technical capabilities and feasibility of the Bay TMDLs. The political feasibility will be addressed by the Water Quality Steering Committee. ¦ The Modeling Team will be able to get a scoping sense in April with the complete model what is the degree of anoxia/hypoxia. In terms of the actual decision rules and defining attainment, it would likely not be until summer or fall 2008. ¦ There is ample time to do the WLAs and LAs as required, leaving time to reexamine whether or not it is feasible to take the process one step further up into the watershed. ¦ DECISION: The RTWG will move forward with assigning WLAs and LAs to the 78 impaired segments as required by the consent decree/MOU, with the goal of addressing the watershedwide TMDLs and checking in on that progress within 6 months to a year to determine the feasibility. The 'door' will be left open. E Allocation to Sources ¦ Sue teed up for a discussion on how to allocate to sources. Attachment D, "Revised Allocation to Sources Issue Paper," explains the issue. ¦ Jurisdictions agree that whatever is decided is consistent across the watershed. ------- ¦ The workgroup will need to address how to handle some issues in terms of allocation to sources include: o CSOs and non-significants (only one CSO, not a significant source) o MS4s ACTION: States will provide Sue with some information on tidal (and non-tidal, if possible) non-significants that could be included in the model, in order to make a decision on whether or not non-significants would be allocated to. ACTION: States will provide information to share at the next meeting on how they handle their MS4s. Review of Upcoming Agenda Topics ¦ Sue proposed that the Workgroup touch base via conference calls about once every 2 weeks, focusing on specific agenda items for each call. ¦ The next conference call will address how to handle allocations to non-significants and MS4s. ¦ Sue will try to provide information on the potential number of TMDLs. ¦ At a future meeting, the group will address baseline conditions for the TMDLs. ¦ In February, the group will discuss the model hydrological period. ¦ By March, the group will discuss the public participation process. DECISION: The Workgroup agreed to have conference calls every 2 weeks on Thursday mornings for one and a half hours maximum. ACTION: Sue will e-mail the Workgroup with potential dates for the next conference call. **Please save the dates: January 10 (10:00 am - 11:30 am) January 24 (10:00 am - 11:30 am) Participants Sue McDowell EPA Region 3 mcdowell. susanfo! epa. sov Lewis Linker EPA/CBPO llinkerfo),chesaoeakebav.net Rich Batiuk EPA/CBPO batiuk.richard(o>,epa. sov Sara Parr CRC/CBPO soarrffl), chesao eakeb av. net Francoise Brasier EPA HQ brasier.francoise(a>,epa.sov Bill Brown PA DEP willbrownfo),state.oa.us Arthur Butt VADEQ aibutt(o>,deq. virsinia. sov Pat Campbell WV DEP Dcam obel 1 ® wvdeo. or« Dinorah Dalmasy MDE ddalmasv(«),mde. state, md. us Mike Haire EPA HQ haire.michael(o>,eDa.sov Hassan Mirsajadi DEDNREC Hassan.mirsaiadiffl),state.de.us Dave Montali WV DEP dmontalifo! wvdeo. ore ------- Nauth Panday Russ Perkinson Tom Thornton Katharine Dowell Andrew Parker Gary Shenk On the Phone Chris Day Felix Locicero Ron Entringer Ed Reilly MDE VADCR MDE EPA HQ Tetra Tech EPA/CBPO npandav@mde. state, md.us russ.perkinson@dcr.virginia.gov tthornton@mde.state.md.us dowell ,katharine@epa. gov Andrew. parker@tetratech. com gshenk@chesapeakebav.net EPA Region 3 dav.christopher@epa.gov EPA Region 2 locicero.felix@epa.gov NY DEC raentrin@gw.dec.state.ny.us NY DEC exreilly@gw.dec.state.ny.us ------- |