Members

USC Scientific Support Group – Overview

 

Objective

Support the SDAG by providing sound scientific advice on assessing needs and options for achieving nonpoint source load reductions, substantiating management measures and evaluating the effectiveness and costs of the measures that may be implemented to reduce nutrient and sediment loads.

Charge to the group by NYS DEC to support their Tributary Strategy efforts

  1. Review the CBP watershed model to identify how it portrays conditions in New York that affect the generation of nutrient and sediment loads, and recommend how more accurate baseline information would alter the load estimates.
  2. Work with the OSG to recommend practical procedures for gathering more accurate local information for input to the CBP watershed model and to guide local actions.
  3. Review updates to the CBP watershed model and recommend refinements that would more accurately reflect load generation and transport in New York .
  4. Evaluate the management practices recognized in the CBP watershed model and provide guidance on applicability to New York conditions, and ancillary local benefits beyond nutrient and sediment reduction.
  5. Review previous and ongoing water quality monitoring, and advise on how monitoring should be enhanced to better define sources of nutrients and sediments, and estimate loads.
  6. Develop a strategy for defining return on investment starting with information on how local site conditions affect the costs attributed to practices by the CBP.
  7. Recommend procedures for targeting where specific practices would be most cost-effective given a suite of local site conditions.
  8. Provide technical support to the NYSDEC in gaining CBP acceptance for additional, innovative practices that are well suited to conditions in the watershed.

 

Timeline suggested by NYS DEC:

  • Provide review of final tributary draft by end of June 2006
  • Develop public meeting times/agenda for Summer 2006
  • Review and comment on draft Tributary Strategy within 60 days of DEC release (October 2006).

     

USC Approach :

1. There are three major “clusters” of scientific support of the Tributary Strategy:

  • modeling to provide support for understanding nutrient and sediment fluxes through the basin and tracking implementation
  • monitoring to determine WQ levels and track implementation efforts,
  • BMP reviews to determine the best mix of implementation efforts that meet NY State and County objectives (cost effectiveness, multiple benefits, local and state needs)

2. These three clusters are being developed through three concurrent Tracks:

Track 1 accomplishes CBP requirements for development of a Tributary Strategy; USC is the primary lead.

  • Collect data (extensive and intensive) to serve all planning needs
  • Review CBP Watershed Model and CBP Watershed data to increase the reliability of model and data deck for NY
  • Develop tributary strategy scenarios (with NYS DEC) using CBP protocols
    • Agricultural BMP brainstorming–
      • Develop a complete list of BMPs that might be used by NY farmers, including new BMPs not included in CBP Watershed Model, consider:
        1. efficiency
        2. cost
        3. longevity
        4. operational or management difficulty
      • Can we account for nutrient reductions from Precision Feeding for NY, including an analysis of manure to provide a different N and P percent in manure rather than those used by CBP Watershed Model?
    • Stormwater reductions – what stormwater operations will result I reduction credits?
    • Point Source reduction potential – NYS DEC will lead the work in developing a reduction strategy for STPs and other SPDES permit holders
    • Other nutrient/sediment sinks that may help strategy development (e.g., forest/wetland)

 

Track 2 will provide direct long-term support of Tributary Strategy efforts; USC supports these efforts and may be involved, but other partners will likely be the lead.

  • Support of other modeling efforts beyond CBP Watershed Model to maximize efficacy of Tributary Strategy development
  • Support monitoring efforts and developing an efficient monitoring effort to track long term trends in NY
  • Develop new nutrient and sediment reduction practices to add to the Strategy portfolio
  • Study of BMP efficiencies (both in a reduction sense and in an operational sense) to help streamline the Tributary Strategy

 

Track 3 provides long-term information development over more generalized topics; USC provides support as appropriate, but by and large other partners are the lead.

  • Support research facilities, universities and others to help provide specific and overall information: SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station, BU Center for Integrated Watershed Studies, The North American Nitrogen Center at Cornell, Proposed Susquehanna River Hydrological Observatory.
  • Request information and support initiatives on such topics as:
    • Forests and atmospheric deposition, including such question as “what stage of forest growth and what type of forest is N sequestration the highest?
    • What I s the nutrient sink potential of land uses such as wetlands or forests? Could certain land used types be exploited?
    • With forest being the largest single land use, are forestry operations adequately understood?
    • Are rainfall differences in the basin adequately taken into account in relation to nutrient and sediment runoff?
    • Are road systems adequately being addressed considering there are more miles of road ditches in the basin than stream miles?
  • Pilot intensive modeling/data analysis in subwatersheds, starting with an HSPF analysis of the Catatonk by the NYS Water Resources Institute.