MDCB
Minutes, Fall 2007 Meeting
Portland, OR

Methods Board Meeting, Portland, OR, Oct. 23-24, 2007

Tuesday, Oct. 23

Members present (* denotes present at Oregon USGS Water Science Center, others joined via conference line for all or part of the day):

Private:
Eric Russell*, Aquatic Protection Agency/SurfRider Foundation

State & University:
Mike Henebry (phone), State of Illinois
Revital Katznelson*, UC-Berkeley Extension
Jerry Diamond*, TetraTech
Curtis Cude*, OR DEQ

Federal:
Steve Rentmeester (phone), NOAA NW Fisheries Science Center
Jackie Schei*, USGS-BRD
Steve Wendelken*, EPA co-chair
Eric Vowinkel*, USGS Co-chair
Faith Fitzpatrick*, USGS
Chuck Spooner*, EPA
Dwane Young, EPA (phone)
Jana Stewart, USGS (phone)
Mitch Harris, USGS (phone)
Pete Ruhl, USGS (phone)
Dan Sullivan*, USGS, Exec. Sec./NEMI Chair
Karen Blocksom (phone), EPA

Water Information Strategies

Curtis Cude was introduced by Chuck Spooner telling the group that Curtis' poster on the Pacific Northwest Data Exchange was voted the best poster at the 2nd monitoring conference and that subsequently Curtis was sought out for membership in the National Water Quality Monitoring Council.

WIS Workgroup Objectives

  • Provide guidance to ensure that program/network designs connect monitoring efforts to questions of management
  • Promote strategies related to the management, access, and exchange of water quality data
  • Communicate comparable methods of data integration, analysis, and interpretation

Possible areas of MDCB/WIS collaboration and interaction

Analysis and Interpretation

  • Comparable methods of data assessment and interpretation
  • Registered methods (NEMI?)
    • Especially important for biology

Management and Access

  • Recommendation of QA reports to include in database design

Development and Network Design

  • Develop a monitoring framework expert system to walk WQM program designers through the steps to design a monitoring program compliant with, e.g., 10 monitoring program elements (Peter Tennant)
    • EPA "Watershed Central"
    • Map existing tools

Comments

  • Methods Board defines framework for comparability
  • Where to start?
    • Chuck -- $$
    • Jerry -- most projects have no DQOs. Board has tried to get programs to look at DQOs
  • How do we move ahead?
    • Revital -- demo'd SWAMP Advisor
    • Based on 24 elements in EPA QAPP

Future Directions for the Board

Chuck Spooner, EPA co-chair of the National Water Quality Monitoring Council

The MDCB is an activist FACA, empowered to give advice to the federal government. The Board has always brought products to fill important voids in the water quality monitoring arena, usually doing the work itself, sometimes with funding from EPA, USGS, and others.

Accomplishments of the MDCB

  • Performance-based systems
  • NEMI
  • Biology
  • Lab accreditation
  • Nutrients
  • Water Quality Data Elements

Future Water Issues: Two recent publications

I. "A Strategy for Federal Science and Technology to Support Water Availability and Quality in the United States", a report from the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Water Availability and Quality (SWAQ).

Some highlights from the report:

Challenges to ensure adequate water supply for the Nation.

  • Measure and account for its water
  • Develop methods that will allow expansion of freshwater supplies while using existing supplies more efficiently
  • Develop and improve predictive water management tools

The U.S. should measure and account for its water

  • Know water resources and how they are changing
  • Know water use
  • Know the role of ecosystems in maintaining water availability and quality
  • Know the water infrastructure

The U.S. should develop and improve predictive water management tools

  • Develop tools to anticipate the outcomes of short-term decisions about water release, withdrawal, storage, and use
  • Develop tools to anticipate the outcomes of long-term planning and policy decisions

Some specific proposals

  • Implement a National Water Census
  • Develop a new generation of water monitoring techniques
  • Develop and expand technologies for enhancing reliable water supply
  • Develop innovative water-use technologies and tools to enhance their public acceptance
  • Develop collaborative tools and processes for water infrastructure solutions
  • Improve understanding of water-related ecosystem services and ecosystem needs for water
  • Improve predictive hydrologic models and their applications

II. A second report highlighted by Chuck was the Heinz Center report "Filling the Gaps -- Priority Data needs and key management challenges for national reporting on ecosystem condition"

The highest prioirity data gaps

  • Extent and Location of Ecosystem Elements
    • Extent of key habitat elements
    • Landscape pattern/remote sensing analysis
    • At-risk communities
    • Non-native species
    • Riparian area condition
    • Chemical Composition of Various Ecosystem Elements
  • Contaminants related to human exposure
    • Nitrogen yield and loads
    • Carbon storage/soil organic matter
  • Human uses of ecosystems
    • Groundwater levels

Heinz report challenges

  • Expectations about the performance and products of the Nation's environmental monitoring infrastructure are changing, and new requirements are being imposed on existing systems
  • There is no overal mechanism to determine the most appropriate and highest priority investments in monitoring and reporting capacity
  • Important elements in the nation's ecological data collection and reporting system are operated by nonfederal agencies
    • In many cases, federal support is ad hoc, relatively small, and
    • not coordinated across agencies
  • Research and development programs are fundamentally different from operating monitoring programs, and it is important to ensure smooth transitions between the two

Possible future goals for the Board

  • Prepare and keep current an overview of water quality sensors
  • Promote NEMI
  • Expand NEMI
  • passive samplers (SPMDs)
  • prepare and keep current an overview of "emerging contaminants"
  • Prepare guidelines for a monitoring cost estimating guide

Promote and expand NEMI

  • NEMI is not in Wikipedia
  • Add new methods for sediment, fish tissue, pollutants of emerging concern
  • green methods
  • volunteer methods
  • "passive" samplers -- i.e., Semi-permeable membrane devices.

Outreach to state and regional monitoring councils

Physical Habitat Data Elements

WQX Overview/Update

The afternoon PHab workgroup began with a presentation from Dwane Young (EPA, via conference line/Webex) who gave an update/overview of the Water Quality Data Exchange (WQX). WQX is designed as a way for states, Tribes, feds, etc. to exchange and share data.

USGS BioData

Pete Ruhl (USGS, via conference line/Webex) gave an update on the new USGS biological database, and concentrated on areas where he thought there were common goals of the USGS group and the Board.

His group needs a definition of core elements, which the Board has as their primary goal.

Spatial Framework -- USGS BioData

Mitch Harris (USGS, via conference line/Webex) talked about the recently completed proposal he and Jana Stewart (USGS) put together to define a spatial framework for the BioData database.

Steve Rentmeester is doing similar work. He thinks "reach" is a geomorphic term.

Pete R. - good point - protocols have different ways to determine reach.

Chuck -- Steve Hale is working to translate the EPA National Coastal Assessment data into STORET format so that it can be archived.

Flexigrid

Revital K. gave a presentation on a system she has developed to define the spatial relationships of habitat components in a stream system and to connect each monitoring result with the component(s) it represents. Her "FlexiGrid" uses a flexible grid system comprised of interlinked components along a common backbone that begins a defined distance from a reference location ("permanent station"). Some of the data elements that describe this multi-dimensional sampling frame, including the variety of components and their internal hierarchy and/or sequences, can be incorporated into the physical habitat data element list that the WQDE/PHab Workgroup is currently building.

History of WQDE workgroup activities

Jerry Diamond gave a background talk about the history of the development of the WQDE lists.

Late-afternoon discussion

Jerry Diamond suggested the group look at available field forms and see how the data would fit into the data elements list that we have. That is the way the biology group came up with the population/community data elements and it worked fairly well.

The group proceeded to go through the data elements list attempting to fit a typical habitat measurement into existing elements.

After the data elements list has been reviewed and updated as the group sees fit, the following people will be contacted and asked to fit a method from their area of expertise into the revised data element spreadsheet.

  • Mike Henebry, Illinois -- QHEI (habitat complexity)
  • Jerry Diamond/Tetratech -- RBPs - percent riffle
  • Faith Fitzpatrick -- pebble count and core sample
  • Dan Sullivan -- discharge measurement and point velocity
  • Mike Miller -- instream cover
  • Jackie Shei/Jen Bayer -- large woody debris (ALT: David Bolgrien)
  • Karen Blocksom -- Great Rivers protocol
  • Revital Katznelson -- percent overhanging cover from volunteer protocol
  • Phil Kaufmann -- slope, bed stability index
  • Jana Stewart -- riparian plot
  • Dale Higgins (USFS) -- entrenchment ratio
  • LeAnne Astin -- choice

ACTION: It was decided to try to agree on a set of PHab elements so that they could be presented to the Council at its meeting in early December with the hope that upon the Council’s approval, the proposal could be presented to ACWI for approval at its meeting scheduled for February 20, 2008.

Wednesday, Oct. 24

Members present (* denotes present at Oregon USGS Water Science Center, others joined via conference line for all or part of the day):

Private:
Eric Russell*, Aquatic Protection Agency/SurfRider Foundation
Larry Keith (phone), Instant Reference Sources
Jen Young (phone), Green Chemistry Institute

State & University:
Revital Katznelson*, UC-Berkeley Extension
Jerry Diamond*, TetraTech
Mike Henebry (phone), State of Illinois
Linda Green (phone), Univ. of Rhode Island

Federal:
Jen Bayer*, USGS-BRD/Pacific Northwest Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP)
Jackie Schei*, USGS-BRD/Pacific Northwest Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP)
Steve Wendelken*, EPA co-chair
Eric Vowinkel*, USGS Co-chair
Faith Fitzpatrick*, USGS
Chuck Spooner*, EPA
Dan Sullivan*, USGS, Exec. Sec.
Karen Blocksom (phone), EPA

NEMI workgroup

Green Methods Proposal

Larry Keith and Jen Young (both on the phone) presented a green methods proposal to be sent to the Dreyfus Foundation. The proposal is to support the development of an expert system to facilitate teaching and using green analytical methodology. It builds on the greenness profiles in NEMI and Jen's idea of developing materials for educators to advance the application and use of green analytical methodology. I'd like the NEMI Workgroup to look at this and, hopefully, think that, if funded, it will provide a complimentary tool for helping the monitoring community (including educators) to use NEMI and the new greenness profiles to advance green analytical methodology.

Chuck suggested greenness should consider the cost of waste disposal.

Larry said the application he proposes to develop will be free to users.

Progress Report and Plans for FY08

Dan Sullivan then gave an update on NEMI progress and plans.

Big news is that the CRADA has finally cleared all the hurdles and all partners have signed on. Partners include:

  • YSI, Inc. (financial and technical assistance -- review of multi-probe sensor methods)
  • Tennesse Tech University (in-kind assistance -- research methods, university outreach)
  • Neptune, Inc. (technical assistance -- analytical and statistical methods)
  • Abraxis, LLC (technical assistance -- analytical kit methods)

NEMI v. 3.0 is due out this winter. Among its features:
  • Free text ("keyword") searching. All major text fields, analyte, and full method PDF files will be indexed and searchable. Results will be displayed in a manner similar to popular Internet search engines.
  • Method archive.
  • Easier updating and management of method entries.

New methods update

  • Over 150 methods currently in review in staging area. When uploaded to production there will be well over 1,000 methods in NEMI.

Methods to be entered during fiscal year 2008 include:

  • Biological data-collection protocols
  • Passive samplers
  • Suspended-sediment collection methods
  • Methods used by volunteer monitoring groups
  • Updates to current EPA methods
  • Additional EPA, USGS, SM, and ASTM methods for regulatory use
  • Archive methods (PDF files only)

NEMI-CBR

  • Getting close to release -- possibly late November if MOU and Interagency Security Agreement are signed in a timely manner
  • Need to update for SAM 3

Volunteer Monitoring

Eric Russell, SurfRider Foundation, Santa Cruz, and Aquatic Protection Agency

Objectives:

  • Provide and coordinate resources for volunteer monitoring organizations to assist in standardizing sampling and testing wiht the purpose to provide scientifically valid data that can be accepted as data in the scientific community without meeting the strict "certified" criteria.
  • Provide resources for volunteer monitoring groups and education projects to assist them with sampling and testing methods.

Strategy for moving forward:

  • Integrate into NEMI
    • Create a "volunteer method" subcategory
    • Insert methods, QA plans, and data sheets into NEMI and flag methods of interest to volunteers
    • Use the wheel
  • Water Quality Methods Web site
    • Files integrated into NEMI, but have own simple to remember URL
    • Support data on own site
    • Start with widely-used methods, expand over time
  • Outreach is critical
    • Contact known monitoring organizations
    • listservs
    • Web sites (partnerships, links, search engines)

Task List -- Phase 1

  • Modify current proposal -- get Board modifications and approval
  • Build the team who wants to participate
  • Allocate tasks among the team
  • Review available data and methods for integration into NEMI
 

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