Chesapeake Bay Program Reevaluation Technical Workgroup Conference Call June 19, 2008 SUMMARY OF DECISIONS, ACTIONS AND ISSUES Defining and Quantifying Seasonal Environmental Variations Lewis Linker asked the Reevaluation Technical Workgroup to review Attachment A which provides options for considering the seasonal and critical conditions for the Bay TMDL. ¦ Dave Montali, WV DEP, pointed out that the pollutant loading on an annual basis may be the driver to do seasonal-based criteria. o Lewis agreed and suggested that a few sentences could be added to make that point. ¦ Arthur Butt, VA DEQ, asked to see a table with critical conditions and seasonality for DO and clarity. ACTION: Lewis Linker will add a few sentences to Attachment A to point out that pollutant loading on an annual basis may the driver for seasonal-based criteria. ACTION: Lewis Linker will add a table to Attachment A of critical conditions and seasonality for DO and clarity. ACTION: Reevaluation Technical Workgroup members will send additional comments on Attachment A to Lewis Linker. Lewis will redistribute the revised document for review, and it will then be submitted for the TMDL report. Factoring in Existing Local/Regional TMDLs into Bay Model Management Nauth Panday, MDE, discussed Attachment B. Maryland's proposed approach to accounting for existing local TMDLs in the Bay TMDL. ¦ MD was under scheduling issues to complete TMDLs under an annual basis. ¦ 18-20 tidal nutrient TMDLs have been done in MD over the past few years. o Some of the TMDLs only ask for phosphorus reductions, and some ask for both nitrogen and phosphorus. No sediment TMDLs have been done for the tidal portion. ¦ Whenever an impoundment was listed for nutrients and sediments, it was done for phosphorus and sediments. ¦ For non-tidal areas, no TMDL has been done for nutrients. MD does not have the criteria to know how to do it for nutrients, but sediments have been done. o Information from the Bay Program has been used wherever possible for the non-tidal areas. o Lately, all sediment TMDLs for non-tidal areas were developed based on Phase 5 results. 1 ------- ¦ MD struggled with telling the public and stakeholders how the TMDLs would be consistent with the Tributary Strategies. For example, Tributary Strategies may call for twice as much nutrient reduction as the TMDLs. MD is handling this by telling people that the more stringent of the two standards apply. ¦ MD is proposing that the Bay Program do the TMDL for the Bay, as if no local TMDLs exist. Then in the face of multiple TMDLs, the more stringent TMDL should apply. Stringency would be measured by the percent reduction that is called for. Discussion ¦ Hassan Mirsajadi, DE DNREC, said that DE has developed a TMDL for the bodies of water impacting the Bay. All of them are calling for nitrogen and phosphorus percent reductions to differing degrees. DO criteria is used for local impairments. DE would like to see a scenario based on load reductions that DE is calling for that focus on percent reduction rather than pounds per day. o Nauth clarified that all DE TMDL basins drain into Maryland. DE's legal issue has been satisfied by meeting downstream water quality standards. ¦ Nauth Panday asked about having justification to adopt the Bay TMDL because the standards for the tidal Bay have completely changed. The new standards may force us to use the Bay TMDL. ¦ Bill Brown, PA DEP, said that it would be very difficult to incorporate local TMDLs into the Bay TMDL due to scale issues. PA's listing procedures are on small watersheds, such as in the 5-10 square mile range. PA doesn't know how they could incorporate local TMDLs on these small scales. o Lewis Linker clarified that the appropriate interface would be that the BMPs used for the local TMDLs would be reported and tracked by the Bay Program in the annual Progress scenarios, so the TMDL's BMPs would be counted toward the State's Tributary Strategy progress. o Kenn Pattison, PA DEP, added that the combined effort of meeting both the local and Bay TMDL would satisfy the necessary implementation. The worst water conditions would be addressed. ¦ Jeff Sweeney asked Delaware if all of the pollution control strategies are published. Hassan Mirsajadi responded that all of Delaware's pollution control strategies are published as state regulation. ¦ Jeff Sweeney asked Delaware what is the baseline used for percent reductions? Hassan Mirsajadi responded that the baseline varies according to the TMDLs. ¦ Nauth Panday reminded the group that we may be forced to adopt each and every TMDL for each segment as long as it meets the local water quality standards because the standards have changed. ¦ Charles Martin, VA DEQ, said that most nutrient TMDLs in VA are for total phosphorus. The TMDLs are generally more stringent than the Tributary Strategies. VA is comfortable with what has been discussed by the other states. ¦ Ed Reilly, NY DEC, does not have any small-scale TMDLs in the Bay watershed. NY is fairly comfortably with what MD outlined. ¦ Dave Montali agreed with the points that were made by the others. WV has no nutrient TMDLs but does have some sediment TMDLs based on benthic 2 ------- macroinvertebrates. Dave agrees with Maryland's approach to adhering to the more stringent TMDLs. ¦ The Workgroup members generally agreed with Maryland's approach for accounting for existing local TMDLs. ACTION: The Modeling Team will run a scenario based on percent load reductions called for in DE. This scenario will be queued up at an appropriate time, probably in 2009, when we have a clear direction of the level of effort all the CBP States will need to make in order to achieve the Chesapeake Water quality standards. ACTION: Tetra Tech will revise Maryland's proposal for accounting for existing local TMDLs in the Bay TMDL based on the comments of this meeting and will include the various ways that the CBP States deal with local/regional TMDLs in a write-up for the final report. The Tetra-Tech write-up will be redistributed for review and approval by the RTWR before a final review and approval by the Water Quality Steering Committee. Agreement on a Daily Loads Methodology Charles Martin, VA DEQ, presented Virginia's approach to meeting the daily load requirements for Workgroup review and feedback. The options can be found in Attachment C. ¦ VA had to convince the regulated community that they would do no harm and that annual loads will remain the basis of a TMDL allocation. o The environmental community was concerned that the requirements were not "daily." ¦ Most VA TMDLs are on small watersheds. ¦ VA only uses one method or the other in a TMDL. Either the load duration or the multiplier method is used, depending on the specific TMDL and modeling method used. o VA is not comfortable using the load duration method in tidal areas. o The multiplier method is very viable but it does have limitations. For example, in the free-flowing portion of the Bay TMDL, monitoring is not capturing the high-flow situation. As a result, the data driving the multiplier method are truncated at the high end. ¦ Options for the Bay TMDL include using a multiplier method or load duration curve for areas above the fall line. We could select a single equation, or single load duration curve. ¦ Based on early experience dealing with the regulated and environmental community, we would want to be consistent and apply the same methods for the load and wasteload allocations. o Point sources do get flow influences in their output and are in many cases driven by climatic conditions. Discussion ¦ Gary Shenk believes the multiplier method makes sense for point sources. For nonpoint sources, they have good estimates of load duration. 3 ------- ¦ Charles said that the daily loads calculated for the TMDLs are often higher than the operational variability that is put into permits. ¦ The concept of the load duration for the nonpoint, and multiplier for the point, does have a certain logic to it because the loads are driven off the watershed through the precipitation, but the dual standard is the concern with using both approaches. ¦ Arthur Butt said that the allocation will be driven by annual loads but we are satisfying the legal requirements with daily loads. The daily loads methodology should be kept simple and uniform across the watershed. ¦ Lee Currey, MDE, added that MD has applied the statistical, load duration, and multiplier methods. MD uses the standard coefficient of variation for processed water. In the Bay TMDL, we have stormwater load predictions. The statistical method is an approximation of stormwater but the Watershed Model is already doing that. o Lee Currey agreed with Arthur Butt's statement that daily load is just a legal requirement. ¦ Gary asked what the danger is if we don't get the daily loads right. o Bill Brown believes there's very little risk in being wrong because daily loads are not measurable except for point sources. o Lee Currey stated that if the daily load is wrong, then there could be problems with process water. No problems expected with stormwater or nonpoint sources if daily load is wrong. ¦ Dave Montali suggested that the annual load could be divided by 365 and called an average daily load to meet the TMDL requirements. We would still target efforts toward annual load limits. o Words in the TMDL could say that the WLA should be divided for monthly and daily permit limits. ¦ The Workgroup members agreed that the annual load is most important for the Bay and to keep the daily load methodology simple. ¦ Pennsylvania divides their daily load by 365 and hasn't encountered any problems yet. On the other hand, this would mean that the daily load limit would be breached half of the time. ¦ Kenn Pattison clarified that a TMDL sets a limit on the maximum daily load for each impaired segment. The allocation methodology is a separate process. The 365- average method is the simplest method. ¦ Maryland has tried using the 365-average method but it did not satisfy upper management. ¦ Bill Brown said that until the TMDL scope is decided, PA will not be able to agree on using the multiplier methodology for daily loads. ¦ The TMDL report could include a caveat that the daily load is an average and call for the permit writers to interpret the appropriate daily load limit. ¦ MD, VA, and NY propose the multiplier approach. WV, PA, and DE support the 365-average method. All states agree that the load duration method is not a viable option. ¦ Lewis Linker offered that the CBP States could choose whichever method is suitable for them because it's the annual loads that are important to the Bay's water quality and living resources, not the daily loads of nutrients and sediment. 4 ------- ACTION: Jennifer Sincock will ask EPA Headquarters for their opinion on allowing states to individually choose between using the multiplier or 365-average method for determining the daily load limits of the TMDL. ACTION: Tetra Tech will outline the two daily load methodology options as would be written in the TMDL report. The Workgroup will review the two options on the next conference call. Next Reevaluation Technical Workgroup Conference Call Thursday, July 3, 2008 10:00 to 11:30 AM Topic: Finalizing the Bay Criteria Attainment Assessment Procedures for Application to the Bay WQ/Sediment Transport Model Output - Dissolved Oxygen: Jeni Keisman, Gary Shenk Topic: Finalizing the Bay Criteria Attainment Assessment Procedures for Application to the Bay WO/Sediment Transport Model Output - Chlorophyll a: Jeni Keisman, Gary Shenk Participants Jennifer Sincock EPA Region 3 sincock.i ennifer(a),epa. gov Lewis Linker EPA/CBPO llinkerfo),chesapeakebav.net Jeff Sweeney UMD/CBPO i sweenevfo),chesapeakebav.net Gary Shenk EPA/CBPO gshenkfo),chesapeakebav.net Sara Parr CRC/CBPO sparr (a), chesapeakebav.net Dave Montali WV DEP dmontali(3),wvdep. org Tom Thornton MDE tthornton(a),mde. state.md.us Dinorah Dalmasy MDE ddalmasv(3),mde. state, md. us Nauth Panday MDE npandav(a),mde. state, md.us Robin Pellicano MDE rpellicano(a),mde. state, md.us Lee Currey MDE lcurrev(a),mde. state, md.us Kenn Pattison PA DEP kpattisonfo),state.pa.us Bill Brown PA DEP willbrownfo),state.pa.us Hassan Mirsajadi DEDNREC Has san. mir sai adi (a), state. de. us Charles Martin VADEQ chmartin(3),dea .Virginia, gov Arthur Butt VADEQ aibutt(3),deq .Virginia, gov Ed Reilly NY DEC exreillv(S),gw.dec.state.nv.us Clint Boschen Tetra Tech clint.boschenfo), tetratech-ffx.com Mike Haire EPA HQ haire.mi chaelfa),epa.gov 5 ------- |