List of Attendees Paul Stacey, Jean Brochi, Tom Gregory, Phil Calarusso, Toby Stover, Dan Arsenault, John Storer, Jeff Barnum, Rep. Peter Schmidt, Sharon Rogers, Alison Watts, Steve Couture, Matt Wood, Rich Langan, David Patrick, David Burdick, Tom Morgan, Ted Diers, Lyndsay Butler, Michelle Shattuck, Dean Peschel, Adrianne Harrison, Steve Jones, Laura Byergo, Doug Grout And PREP Staff: Rachel Rouillard, Kalle Matso, Abigail Lyon, Jill Farrell and Simone Barley-Greenfield About These Notes Readers will feel at times as though these notes are verbatim from the meeting. They should not be considered verbatim. Rather, we attempted to make the notes more conversational for readability. Please do not quote these notes as though it is a verbatim transcript. Sometimes, when PREP staff are not sure about name of the speaker, we will list the 1
person more generically as “Committee Member.” Rachel Rouillard (exec director, PREP): Welcome and thanks for being part of the process as we begin to work through data and prepare for the next State of Our Estuaries Report (SOOE), which will be released December, 2017. We’ve been on a small hiatus from the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and part of that is because we have a new coastal scientist and we’ve been thinking very thoughtfully about how to improve our process to get the necessary information we need for the next SOOE. We are aiming for a more inclusive and transparent process and focusing on the best available science for our next report. We will be going over the calendar (the structure for the next 8 months). Kalle Matso (coastal scientist, PREP): Anyone who comes in the room is part of the committee. There is no set membership. If we do vote today, everyone has a vote. We will most likely not vote today, but if we do, you all have a vote. If we do vote, we are using consensus based decision making. IF we have a recommendations we will write it up on the flip chart for everyone to see. Your voting options will be: Support Support with reservations Abstain Block “100% consensus” means everyone votes one of the top 3 options. If someone votes “block” we will do our best to understand and move through that vote. If we can’t reach 100% we will settle for 80% consensus. Groundrules: Seek improved understanding, not confirmation of your view. The goal of the TAC is to have a solid and common understanding of what the science indicates. What we do with that science is a whole other question and involves our personal values. Science cannot and will not tell us what to do. That’s important to remember . Making those value-based judgements is not what the TAC is for. We’re focused on 1
providing the science and being clear about what we know and what we don’t know. 1
Kalle Matso… Starting to talk about the indicators that were used in the 2013 SOOE. This graphic is based on the DPSIR model (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response), which is a widely accepted model for looking at estuarine ecosystems. Above, elements that have a border are indicators that we have already started tracking. The is just a draft and we can talk about adding or removing indicators. In green we have some new indicators, such as the social indicators and salt marsh mapping. Items listed in red are potential new indicators (river discharge, air/water temperature, light attenuation, CDOM); alternatively, we could use these parameters as information to help us understand other indicators, but they wouldn’t become new indicators that we report on per se. Note that, currently, we don’t have “benthic community and processes” on this graph. PREP is committed to making that happen for the next next SOOE, which will be released at the end of 2022. Comments from Committee Members 2
- Services are not only related to the pressures that you have listed there. Abundant fish, for example, is not driven by nutrient loading and toxic contaminants, exlclusively. There are other factors. - One of the things that is not on here is “resource extraction.” Ought to be on here. Resource extraction has driven impacts on resources we care about in the past and might be driving it again. 2
Kalle Matso... Reviewing the calendar set up for the TAC meetings. Indicators have a 1 or 2 listed next to them. A lot of the indicators that we track are not listed, and those are ones that are fairly uncontroversial. Today we are talking about nutrient loading, nutrient concentration, dissolved Oxygen, microalgae, sediment concentration. We will revisit them later in the year, as shown on the calendar. But keep in mind that this draft only. Step “1” is where we talk about what we’ve done in the past: are we happy with that approach? Should we make changes? At Step 2, we want to provide you with as much of the new data (from years 2012 through 2016), and we will offer you our draft recommendations for what to put in the “Data Report.” Remember that the TAC is really focused on the 200+ page Data Report—you can find the 2013 version at http://scholars.unh.edu/prep/265/ The TAC is NOT focused on discussing what goes into the SOOE; however, the SOOE does end up being comprised of content from the Data Report. 3
My predecessor, Phil Trowbridge, would use the Data Report to go through each indicator and cover: here’s why we care, here’s the data, and then summarize the results. Agreeing on broad messages to be included in that copy—without wordsmithing—will be part of the Step “2” discussions. In some cases, we may even need a Step “3.” As you see in the calendar, Meetings 6, 7, 8 will focus on relationships between indicators. The goal is to not have those conversations until we have a solid foundation of the data behind each individual indicator. Comments from Committee Members - Migratory fish? Will that not be discussed? Kalle: Want to see how this schedule fleshes out before we start adding indicators. This schedule is somewhat flexible. If we are making progress then we can start adding indicators. Note that all indicators will receive review from the TAC; however, in some cases that review might not be through a public meeting process, but rather through electronic means. - What’s EPSCOR? Kalle: EPSCoR is a science program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and is focused on states that don’t get a lot of NSF funding. A recently completed EPSCoR project at UNH focused on climate change and how climate change could drive a lot of the parameters that we are interested in. Would be helpful to bring them into the conversation time allowing. - There’s also been EPSCoR work on bacterial contamination and shellfish closures and beach closures. - To be clear, all of the indicators in the 2013 will be in the 2017? Kalle: Yes. That is our intent. 3
Michelle Shattuck, presenting on nitrogen loading. Michelle works with Bill McDowell at UNH to collect samples from the tributaries that enter the Great Bay Estuary. She uses this and other data to assess changes in in nitrogen loading over time. Michelle… Collecting samples from head of tide tributaries. Great to be an active part of the TAC...been on the TAC for a number of years, but the first year I’ve been helping compile the data. 4
Michelle… Not presenting new data today. Going over what was done in 2013 and deciding if we want to keep that formatting and plan for the next SOOE. The above graphic shows in red, the part of the Data Report that pertains to this presentation. 5
Michelle… There are four main four sources to the GBE: - WWTF (18) yellow dots; some discharge to freshwater rivers; other discharge directly into tidal rivers - Non point sources from watershed tributaries (Winnicut, lamprey, oyster, Cocheco, salmon falls, great works...) - Groundwater input directly to GBE - Atmospheric 6
Michelle… Calculating the discharge from WWTF involves the following equation: Average TN or DIN concentration (mass/volume) X Effluent flow (volume/time) = TN or DIN load (mass/time) Annual and monthly time step. Whatever your time period of interest is. 7
Michelle… WWTF N delivery factors: - 6 facilities discharge to tidal rives (100% delivery to estuary - 8 facilities discharge to freshwater rivers, delivering between 41.93 and 98.96% of their N to the estuary). The methods for assessing this “attenuation” are indicated via the citations. We should discuss with the TAC whether these are appropriate methods going forward. - 4 facilities discharge into the lower Piscataqua River (Particle Tracking Model (Ata Bilgili et al., 2005) delivering between 12.5 and 26.34% of the Nitrogen to the the estuary. 8
Michelle… This graph from the 2013 Data Report shows estimated total nitrogen and dissolved inorganic nitrogen loads from wastewater treatment facilities in 2008. The updated graph in the next report should reflect the efforts that Dover and Rochester have made to decrease nitrogen significantly. 9
Michelle… We have some options in terms of what data goes into our N load assessment for this Data Report; we can stick very closely to what was done last time—see above—or we can add new sources of data, and even other forms of N that weren’t included last time. 10
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