Notes:
1)See powerpoint presentations noted on Council's
website at www.
http://acwi.gov/monitoring/ppt/
2)List of attendees on last page of this document.
3)Attachments available by request.
WELCOME
Gail Mallard opened the meeting with round the room introductions and special welcome to new members.
WELCOME AND OVERVIEW FROM TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY.
Bridgette Ellis, Vice President, Manager, TVA, Stewardship Resource. TVA is the largest public power company in the U.S. Their goal is to provide water quality, flood control, drinking water information. Water quality is very important, and TVA is trying to work locally as it involves water quality improvement. Some initiatives are environmental management system, Regional Resource Stewardship Council (RRSC). There are 25 members on the RRSC representing stakeholders in the Tennessee Valley; Reservoir Operations Study. (PP Presentation on Website)
TVA ACTIVITIES
Water Quality Improvement Process.Don Anderson, TVA, discussed water quality improvement process. Water quality is a key element for prosperity in the Tennessee Valley. TVA assesses watershed health--streams and reservoirs conditions. Water quality monitoring results are used to select where to work; identify issues to address; set goals, and evaluate results. Selecting where TVA works is one of the biggest challenges. There are more opportunities for improvement than can be handled. TVA efforts with partners can actually improve a condition or prevent a decline in a condition. TVA trys to work for specific results. It is driven by TVA Reservoir and Stream Health measurements and State assessment results. Goals are to build local coalitions; develop an ability to act on water quality issues in targeted areas. The ability to act requires technical knowledge, political community cooperations; alignment with water quality goals; these four attributes are the basis for coalition building. Most of the programs are delivered through the watershed teams. We see ourselves working on fewer, larger efforts; more emphasis on structured sequence ensuring proper foundation has been prepared; more emphasis on action plan development; increased interest in nutrient impacts particularly at reservoirs. There is increased interest in impacts from growth and sprawl. (PP Presentation on Website)
Online Water Quality Information.
Don Dycus gave a brief description of efforts to make water-quality information public. The publication on TVA online information (TVA River Neighbors, May 2002) was distributed to the group. (Attachment 1)
GAO STUDY OF INTEGRATION OF WATER QUALITY DATA ACROSS
FEDERAL AGENCIES.
Barbara Patterson gave an overview of the request from the Congressional Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to the General Accounting Office (GAO). GAO does studies at the request of Congress primarily. Typically they look at government programs and studies. This study was requested by John Duncan, Chairman, Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment. Monitoring programs are happening; how can we better collaborate to get the data to the users. The questions from Congress are:
1) What are the key entities that collect water resources and water quality data and what types of data are they collecting, how is it stored, and how can it be accessed? 2) To what extent are these data collection efforts coordinated in a manner to minimize duplication of effort and information gaps? 3) What steps can be taken to improve coordination in the data collection efforts of these and other groups? 4) What steps must be taken to permit integration of data from separate collection efforts to allow its use for any watershed management effort?
Distributed paper on GAO Review of the Coordination of Data Collection Efforts to Facilitate Watershed Management. (Attachment 2)
Barbara Patterson indicated that the GAO team currently plans to speak to Federal entities that collect water quality and water quantity data; conduct site visits to watershed groups; interview State water quality organizations that collect water quality data as well as volunteer monitoring, academia, and river basin commissions. Barbara indicated that she was very glad to attend this meeting and learn about the Council's greatest water quality concerns. The GAO Report will probably come out next year--January 2004. Al Korndoerfer indicated that an ongoing problem is getting data from private concerns that will not share the data. Historically working to get that resolved-much data is collected--but no results from getting that data to the New Jersey State Environmental Protection Agency. Jay Sauber questioned why GAO is approaching the Federal Agencies rather than going to the local level. Jim Cox said he is still not convinced in finding a level of overlay that we can standardize collection of data. Barbara stated that Congress has asked a certain question and GAO must answer that. She also reported that she would take these comments back to GAO as well as include them in the report back to Congress.
STATE ACTIVITIES INCLUDING DISCUSSION OF ASWIPCA MONITORING SURVEY AND COMPLIANCE/AMBIENT MONITORING
Jay Sauber, North Carolina Environmental and Natural Resources,
Division of Water Quality, gave presentation (PP Presentation on
Website). Jay stated that identifying monitoring objectives
constantly change. Managing data is changing so rapidly that to keep
it consistent is very difficult. North Carolina has many wetlands and
one of the largest ambient water quality monitoring regions. The
North Carolina database has more than 5 million records and monitoring
is required in the state. However, they did not use the data; it was
not reliable. NPDES Monitoring coalitions-North Carolina was the
first state to establish NPDES. The Monitoring coalitions are very
similar to the Monitoring Framework. There are currently five
monitoring coalitions in the State of North Carolina. The goal is to
cover the entire state. The single biggest issue is how to manage
data and STORET and NWIS. It has been a challenge to get the
information into STORET. It will remain a challenge for some
time.
Paul Schmierbach, Environmental Program Manager in Tennessee, gave a presentation on water quality activities in the State of Tennessee. (See pp presentation.) Ambient monitoring is something Tennessee had responsibility for doing but not high on our list of priorities.
Fred Leslie, Alabama Department of Environmental Management, Aquatic Assessment Unit, gave presentation on surface water-quality monitoring in the State of Alabama. The Alabama monitoring strategy is for an integrated approach and focuses effort on rotational basin approach. The programs that feed into it are stream reservoir, fish tissue, coastal and NPDES compliance monitoring. (See pp presentation.)
UPDATES
EPA Update. Chuck Spooner gave update on EPA news. EPA has an action plan for emphasis on monitoring for work with other Federal agencies, ASWIPCA, and the Monitoring Council. This starts a 2- or 3-year period with increased interest in water quality monitoring. Peter Grevatt said he is very interested in what the States like or do not like about STORET. Peter is interested in how we can move forward in sharing data with USGS in NWIS and concerns of TVA. The $4M program is a States program. Peter indicated that he is interested in how EPA can do a better job in water quality monitoring.
Results from American Water Resources Association Water Policy Dialogue. Toni Johnson gave an overview and pp presentation on this topic. (See pp presentation)
ACWI Charter Renewal, Membership, and upcoming Meeting. Toni Johnson gave an update on the Advisory Committee on Water Quality Monitoring. This is a formal advisory committee under the advisory committee act. The Council is the largest subcommittee of the ACWI and the Committee to which the Council reports. Toni accessed the web and the ACWI website showing the subcommittees. Toni spoke of the membership of the ACWI. The authority for the Advisory Committee comes from the OMB Memorandum 92-10. Toni discussed the charter renewal and membership process. The new charter was signed by the Secretary of the Interior on Friday, May 9. The USGS and the Committee have the support of the DOI by the revised DOI manual chapter authorizing the Advisory Committee and structure for managing the committee. The next meeting of the ACWI will be on September 9 and 10, 2003, at the Days Hotel in Herndon, Virginia. Association of Metropolitan Water Administrators, the North American Lake Management Society, and the American Chemistry Council, are also members of the committee. The TVA will not be a full member of the advisory committee but will continue to work through the Council. We hope to bring back the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as well as Federal Emergency Management Agency. The ACWI website is at http://water.usgs.gov/wicp/acwi/.
WEF Sponsored Conferences,TMDL 2003 and Watershed 2004. Dan Radulescu gave an update on meetings of the Water Environment Federation. There will be three conference workshops on TMDL, and Watershed 2004 is in the planning stages. No detailed information is available at this time.
Joint meeting with Canadian Water Quality Coordinating Committee Charlie Peters distributed information about the Canadian Water Quality Coordinating Committee (Attachment 3) that lists possible topics for discussion. They would be interested in meeting with us at our August meeting or possibly at our winter meeting.
ACTION: Workgroups to consider further a joint meeting with the Canadian Water Quality Coordinating Committee to develop some focus as to what we might want to achieve through a joint session.
DISCUSSION OF COLLABORATION AND OUTREACH MEETING WITH OTHER
WORK GROUPS
Jim Laine and Charlie Peters discussed several C&O products:
Framework Graphic-- Discussed via conference call that banner as well as logo "header" will be a corporate look for products--standardized look for Fact Sheets and banner for letters, certificates, etc.
Charlie distributed a copy of the Council poster (Attachment 4) for review. This poster was used for a conference that Charlie attended; Charlie requested comments or reviews and then will do a final version. This poster can be used for all Council members to take to meetings, etc. when approved.
List of things your work group thinks would be a necessity for outreach--list of projects, issues. Each of the work groups are requested to name a liaison to meet with the C&O work group on issues of concern. C&O would like to know what your work group is concerned about. The liaisons might meet some other time than the work group sessions so that they will not miss their own work group meeting.
FRAMEWORK ISSUES/UPDATE
Gail Mallard discussed the request of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to hear presentations from the Council on the Framework. Those attending were Bob Hirsch, Tim Miller, Toni Johnson, and Gail Mallard, USGS; Chuck Sutfin and Chuck Spooner, EPA; Tom Christensen and Jeff Loser, USDA; They are interested in how data is collected and how it is used. They are looking at our Council website. Three examiners were present, Jason Freihage for USGS, and two other examiners for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). We expect to be continuing our discussions with OMB. Presentations were given from the Council, USDA, EPA, and USGS. These presentations are available on the Council's website and were given to Council members in their updates for this meeting. Gail gave a presentation on the framework. You can use this if you have occasion to give a briefing on the framework. People from OMB were very interested in the agencies represented on the Council. Reviews were done of each of the framework cogs. We attempted to explain what each of the cogs meant in shorthand. Discussed Projects to Implement the Framework-such as NEMI, WQDEs, lab accreditation, Methods Board. We also highlighted the fact that we have a national conference every two years to understand the tools that are being used. This was a good opportunity for the Council to be highlighted and get some recognition. EPA described how the water quality standards will be used; discussed the overall EPA monitoring objectives--build state monitoring programs to protect critical waters.
USDA/National Research Conservation Service (NRCS) related how we utilize the planning process (no matter what level) and how that relates to the various cogs on the framework. Constant give and take between the cogs is a dynamic activity. We used the West Virginia upper Potomac River basin as a case study for the framework.
The USGS is the largest Federal agency in monitoring and assessment. We talked about monitoring especially in large rivers. Tim discussed in general his presentation to OMB. Tim discussed the level of training that is covered among the technicians and scientists in USGS. We gave OMB a few examples of what comes out of monitoring and assessment--one on arsenic.
DISCUSSION OF ASWIPCA AND OTHER MONITORING SURVEYS
Chuck Spooner discussed the monitoring survey explaining some of the responses of the states. This survey was a response on how the states perceived their monitoring activities. Discussed also were monitoring strategies and methods, types of data collected; purposes and uses of data. There was some effort to look at the purposes of data. Methods of storing data show that paper played a major role in their data management; 14 claimed spreadsheets, and 19 used databases. Sources of funding showed 45% state, fees 10%, other 12%, and Federal grants 33% There were some fairly major states that did not answer survey--California, Texas, North Carolina, West Virginia, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin. ASWIPCA has been sending the results to their membership. (PP Presentation on Website.)
EPA/USGS AGREEMENT RE NWIS/STORET COMPATIBILITY-Followup
Al Korndoerfer gave an update on the NWIS/STORET compatibility discussions. The agreement calls for a sincere commitment from USGS and EPA working together to solve the database compatibility problem. The agencies have developed a work plan defining five phases to share data from the two database systems. The most significant issue of this work plan is that it has a year 2005 end date. EPA has funding for small pieces of the effort. Gail Mallard stated that Council was concerned about the difficulties in transferring data; did a resolution last year asking the two agencies, USGS and EPA, to make the transferring of data easier help? The Resolution was signed by Karl Muessig with unaminous agreement by the Council. Chuck Sutfin, EPA, and Bob Hirsch, USGS, both appeared at the following Council meeting; the Agreement was signed in January 2003. It is reasonable for the Council to know what is going on, but the two agencies have only had 8 months since the resolution to work on this agreement. Al specifically said the problem his state and the USGS have is that data from NWIS into STORET takes considerable time and effort from both NJ/DEP and the USGS/NJ District staff. The State met last April with all offices involved.. Bob King, Lee Manning and Margarete Heber met with NJ/DEP to see what was needed. Margarete volunteered the help of EPA STORET to work on the data transfer problem. NWIS and STORET models for storing monitoring data are very different and inherently incompatible. It takes 2+ person months annually translating the cooperative monitoring network data from NWIS into STORET compatible format. (Better than what they had but still labor intensive in transferring data.) USGS had a key person retire; no longer available to proofread the NWIS format into STORET. (The issues of incompatibility of NWIS and STORET are not going to be resolved soon since EPA STORET does not have funding for this project.) They have no plans to translate USGS parameter codes into the equivalent set of STORET data elements-it is up to NJ to do this. USGS is not hearing from their cooperating agencies that there is a need to store USGS data in STORET. Next steps are that STORET will work with NJ/DEP and USGS NJ to develop method for getting the STORET data entries. EPA STORET will provide technical assistance to NJ/DEP.
Tim Miller noted a number of issues; data mapping: there are approximately 180-200 parameter codes used in the New Jersey effort; by contrast, NWIS has about 6000 parameter codes used, with about500-1000 commonly used codes. STORET is not static and NWIS just released NWIS 4.3. The difference between databases includes the data models and in addition, NWIS is not just for data storage and retrieval, but also for quality control of the data (data checking routines), accommodating continuous data input, and NWIS uses thousands of parameters. STORET was not created to do these additional things. Enhancement to "Windows to my environment" is expected to provide users with information on what type of site is available (well, lake, etc.) from the two databases; that should be forthcoming within a matter of months (6 months); the next three phases of the data sharing agreement are dependant upon available finances. Going beyond the first two phases includes providing information on the type of data available at each site (nutrients, pesticides, etc.), when samples were collected; and the fourth phase is a common view of the actual chemical, biological results. Fifth phase is a standard for collecting data no matter what the source would be, domestically or internationally, thus data sharing could extend to many additional databases beyond STORET and NWIS. The final three phases are the major challenge. EPA and USGS both have their own work plans that are being exchanged to see how these three phases can be completed. Completion looks like 2005 or 2006; it would probably take $1 million each from both EPA and USGS. USGS has the resources on their side, mostly in personnel salary. Robert Ward, Jay Sauber, and Al Korndoerfer indicated that the States would really appreciate having an understanding of the explanation between STORET and NWIS as Tim Miller had explained to the group. Tim agreed to provide a writeup for Council members. ACTION: Tim Miller's writeup of NWIS/STORET will be put on Council website; as well, we will email this paper to Council members.
STATUS OF AWRA "IMPACT" ARTICLES
Robert Ward discussed the articles for the IMPACT publication. We are just now getting drafts (not having internal approval) but still trying to make the AWRA deadline of July 1. The introduction explains the background; this may be shortened due to length; we will probably put background on website; the paper will present the monitoring framework graphic. The next paper is the three c's--that draft is in pretty good shape; we encourage you to read it and get your comments to Linda and Abby. Identifying Monitoring Objectives; Gail and Chuck have done a good job. There may be some duplication in the papers. The next paper deals with design. This paper represents a wonderful overview of strategies. The Methods Board paper is a very good description of their accomplishments but needs shortened. Data management paper by Karen Klima needs to be revised.
Gail Mallard indicated that the first paper should be about the Council but then the others should be on the concept of creating a monitoring framework. The one on data management should not be emphasizing STORET and NWIS but on the general concept. Jeff Schloss has a paper that might be of interest and help to the authors. Robert this be sent to Karen Klima.
CONFERENCE PLANNING COMMITTEE-TOUR OF TENNESSEE AQUARIUM
Conference Planning Committee met with Trish Berger of the Tennessee Aquarium regarding special event at the aquarium during the National Conference in 2004.
TOUR OF CHATTANOOGA CONVENTION CENTER
Council members met with Karen Tatro, Chattanooga Convention Center, and
Jennye Miller, Director of Convention Development for tour of the convention center.
PLANS FOR 2004 NATIONAL MONITORING CONFERENCE
Jenney Miller gave an overview of the Chattanooga area and the benefits of holding our National Conference in Chattanooga. Denise Sizemore will be the Convention Center Manager for the Council's National Conference. We should name one or two contacts who will work with Denise on conference activities.
Chuck Spooner gave presentation on issues for conference, sessions, groups to target as participants, workshops. It was suggested that justification for travel to conference be training as there may be continued travel restrictions for State members and others. There was a discussion of other groups meeting in connection with the conference, such as the Volunteer Monitoring group. Requests for Proposals (RFP) (Call for Papers) for issues and topics for following issues: national--monitoring across borders; data issues; comparability issues and assessments; water quantity and quality TMDLs biological/microbiological; national programs; nutrients, trace elements; emerging contaminants; minimum monitoring requirements; measures and indicators of success; fine art of evaluations; tribes; models; statistics. (PP Presentation on Website) Deborah Patton suggested that tribes would be interested in TMDL's, emerging contaminants, arsenic, training, including water quality training. Training would give the tribes justification for attending conference. They may not have travel restrictions but need good justifications for travel. It was suggested that a workshop be included on coordinating and networking with other major groups of similar interests such as the Canadian monitoring groups. Comments on issues for Call for Papers was requested from members. Peter Grevatt suggested that there should be an overarching theme for the conference such as collaboration to bring in other Federal and State agencies. Since it is going to be in Chattanooga and TVA is "host" what is their interest for sessions. This would bring in participation, and a lot that TVA could do to promote this conference. Toni suggested talking to the agencies about what training courses they have to incorporate into the conference. A suggested course for training was the USGS Water Quality concepts course. Also ACWI will request that members publish news of the conference in their newsletters. Themes suggested were "Monitoring our Waters: Enhancing our capabilities, capacities, and collaborations." Or "Understand, Protect, and Restore." Other workshops suggested were on new technologies and the expert system approach and issue of water quantity and water quality. Allocation negotiations are ongoing between Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. This would be a very germane topic for the Southeastern area and bring in more participants. Subcommittee on sedimentation-- a wide range of protocols and wide range of results is a valid one suggested Chris Knopp. EPA currently arranging for subcontractor support: Technical support to conference planning committee; secure meeting site; conference publicity; call for papers, registration; selection of abstracts and poster sessions; organization of and preparation for conference; conference implementation; and conference followup. We had 180 abstracts at last conference; we were able to use 120. Organization and preparation of conference costs would run about $147,000. We only have $100,000 at this time. The preferred way to do it is to ask others to contribute to that funding. If not, go back to EPA next year for additional funding. TVA Conference Management Center can work with Convention Center. TVA would be a great resource in this area. We are behind schedule in planning and doing activities of the conference. EPA is preparing an interagency contract with TVA. TVA will be local host; keeper of the funds; logistics for field trips and arrangements. The IAG is ready to be signed. Conference administration contract will be selected by Chuck Spooner and Herb Brass within the next week. Toni noted that sponsorship requests should be sent out with early conference announcement material because many large organizations (other than Federal) may very well be interested. Suggestions for field trips--Tennessee River Gorge; monitoring kinds of demonstrations. Volunteers are needed to work on activities for the Elizabeth Fellows Award.
MONITORING NEEDS OF AGRICULTURE
2002 Farm Bill
Tom Christensen, USDA, discussed the 2002 Farm Bill and issues related to water quality improvement. (see pp presentation.)
Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan
Chuck Spooner gave presentation on Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan.
Upper Mississippi Basin Protection Act, H.R. 961
Charlie Peters reported on Upper Mississippi Basin Protection Act (Kind Bill). (PP Presentation on Website.) Currently, the DOI and USGS have the lead role in implementing this Bill--sediment nutrient monitoring for the upper Mississippi. Look at all existing data and how best to proceed with implementing this network. Authorized at $6.25 million per year. One-third of work done through the USGS cooperative program and network analysis program. The House Committee on Resources passed it and referred to Senate and Natural Resources.
Agriculture (State). Jim Cox reported that a state conservation agency is concerned with land-use issues, but not with water quality issues. 1985 was the birth of appraisal of converting soil conversion to influence water quality improvement. Since that time there has been a redefinition, specification change, in NRCS that emphasized the need for water quality improvement. However, there has not been a tracking system to see how that has been implemented. There have been numerous field-based studies.
"HOW TO CREATE A STATE WATER QUALITY MONITORING COUNCIL"
There was discussion of element to help groups in creating a State Council. Robert Ward mentioned that Council members and former members have traveled to visit with groups and share their expertise in developing and implementing a State Council.
Alfred Korndoerfer suggested case studies with successes as well as failures in developing a monitoring Council.
Charlie has a partial draft of developing a State Council. Council members should give their suggestions to Charlie for further development during the C&O Work Group Meeting.
GRAPHIC FRAMEWORK
Linda Green showed some of the framework graphic samples with subtle changes and the final version.
UPCOMING MEETINGS
Gail Mallard discussed upcoming
meetings; the next scheduled meeting will be August 18-22, 2003,
either in Maryland or West Virginia so that other Federal employees
can also attend. Discussed following meetings for 2003 and
2004--thinking about holding a meeting in December 2003 and
possibly a meeting prior to the National Conference for finalization
of conference papers and other conference business. (See
http://water.usgs.gov/wicp/upcom.html for meeting schedule.) Deadline
for submission of abstracts is October. Curtis Cude indicated that
DEQ/OR, Portland, Oregon, was a possible site for the winter meeting
although the DEQ would not have enough meeting space. We would have
to find other meeting facilities such as hotel. There was a
discussion of holding meeting after the conference because it is very
difficult to squeeze in a meeting during the conference. It was
decided that it is very important to keep the momentum of the
conference in a followup meeting soon after the conference. July 19,
2004, is proposed unless there is a major meeting that would conflict
with attendance. Watershed 2004 is the week before in Michigan; it
was suggested that we could meet in Michigan. It would be a good
possible site to get some of the Canadians to attend. More detailed
discussion followed of EPA's action plan, evaluation of monitoring
plan; and discussion of compliance monitoring to ambient monitoring.
Other suggestions for meeting topics should be sent to Gail or Chuck.
Conference Planning Committee should decide if there should be a
meeting prior to the National Conference. (This would be a meeting
only for the Conference Planning Committee.)
WORK GROUPS AND ISSUES
The Plan for C&O Meeting is to
work on conference planning. Main topic for the WIS meeting will be
to get comments and views of IMPACT articles. Data Management was
scheduled but Karen Klima could not make meeting. WCI will be working
on watershed case studies; teleconference with EPA during their
national assessment work group so that our council might interact with
that group; Mary Ambrose will join group by teleconference for work on
Ground Water/Surface Water Interactions workshop for the conference.
Members will be able to interact with other work groups in the
afternoon.
Chuck said that a work group on data management was eliminated and now there is more activity on that subject. We might want to reestablish that work group. Charlie said the reason for eliminating that group was that we couldn't handle it as key members for that subject had left the Council. WIS has involved Ken Lanfear and Karen Klima. Curtis Cude is also key to that subject. We are reluctant to initiate another group unless there is good participation and leadership. Curtis Cude suggested changing the name from data management because of how this has evolved. We need to get Karen, Curtis, and Ken to look at what that topic includes and get the participation needed to make the work group effective.
WORK GROUP REPORTS
METHODS BOARD
Charlie Peters gave update for the Methods Board including:
WATER INFORMATION STRATEGIES
Curtis Cude gave report for the WIS work group. Reviewed ideas for the work group for Gail and Chuck's paper on the Council. Generated some ideas for topics for conference and future work items for work group. Curtis discussed data exchange program he is involved with. Reviewed list developed at last meeting for suggested topics for upcoming conference. Discussed items and refined the list and discovered additional hot topics among the State; this list was passed on to Chuck Spooner. Any further comments on the IMPACT papers, please pass directly to the authors.
COLLABORATION AND OUTREACH
Jim Laine gave report for C&O Work Group. Reviewed and edited the Fact Sheet for C&O Work Group. Discussed possibility of getting additional copies of IMPACT issue. Determine how soon these issues go up on the AWRA website. This would be a good point to look into and would affect how many copies we might purchase.
CONFERENCE PLANNING COMMITTEE
Jim Laine reported on
meeting of CPC. Priority is getting Call for Papers published and in
the mail. Chuck Spooner said that another priority is to get email
distribution lists consolidated and checked for duplication. Timing
for Call for Papers is the end of this month or first of June. EPA
Contractor will be in place within two weeks for conference
administration. Get "Save the Date for Conference" out as soon as
possible before the Call for Papers. Send to each of Council members
to send to their email lists. Get this into the IMPACT editors
because they include a list of "Call for Papers" in the IMPACT issue.
Conference title is National Monitoring Conference 2004: Building
and Sustaining Successful Monitoring Programs; conference tracks
(5); conference chairs, Chuck Spooner, Don Dycus, and Peter Tennant.
Anyone who would like to participate on the subcommittees, please let
the subcommittee chair know. Jon von Soestbergen suggested Tracy
Mehan, EPA, as a keynote speaker. Appropriate political people might
be considered as speakers, Rep. Kind; Senator Bill Frisk, Tennessee.
Is there someway that we can get a keynote speaker that would stay and
be involved until the ending session. Fred Leslie mentioned that his
supervisors would want to know if the high-level keynote speakers are
really going to come, how long they are going to stay; this would be
their consideration in attending the conference themselves. Gail
suggested that Chuck Spooner invite Tracy Mehan to come to the next
Council meeting as it will be close to Washington. Robert Ward
suggested some speakers, to discuss relationship of EPA office in
relation to Water; talk about design of economic indicators and our
efforts as to a national water quality index. Indicate on conference
registration form where registrant heard about the conference.
ACTION: Jim Laine will email Judy CPC spreadsheet to distribute to
Council members.
WATERSHED COMPONENTS INTERACTIONS
Karl Muessig reported
for WCI Work Group. Spent time on national conference and will have a
Ground Water/Surface Water Interactions Workshop. Mary Ambrose, who
is leading the GW/SW Interactions Workshop wants to show videos of
monitoring activities, methods, or programs at conference. Karl
distributed outline of the GW/SW interactions workshop. (Attachment 5)
Focus at conference to expand initiative to Mexican boundary from John
Klein and also outreach to Great Lakes, International Joint
Commission. Great Lakes System would be of interest during the
conference. Jeff Loser is the liaison to the C&O Work Group.
ACTION: David Denig-Chakroff and Jeff Loser will prepare a Fact Sheet
on the WCI Work Group. ACTION: There are five or six watersheds to
illustrate and post on Council website. Jeff Schloss to provide
information on New England nitrogen. Jon van Soestbengen to provide
wetlands issue case study; Karl Muessig to complete Tampa Bay and New
Jersey Pinelands fresh saltwater case studies. Conference with Doreen
Vetter on EPA National Wetlands Monitoring and Assessment work
Group. ACTION: Karl Muessig will organize and invite people to
participate on the panel to discuss recognized wetlands and
issues. Another issue would be ground water sources effect on
wetlands, measurement of ground-water impacts on wetlands. Continued
work on the short course on GW/SW interactions; each topic about 1
hour with 6-7 speakers. We will provide CD in addition to
manual.
RECAP/UPDATE ON ACTIONS FOR ACWI
|
| Judith B. Griffin Executive Secretary, NWQMC |
Attendees:
Chuck Spooner
Gail Mallard
David Denig-Chakroff
Toni Johnson
Don Dycusf
Jim Cox
Peter Tennant
Chris Knopp
Jeff Loser
Fred Leslie
Jon van Soestbergen
Jeff Schloss
Alfred Korndoerfer
Charlie Peters
Robert Ward
Curtis Cude
Jim Laine
Paul Currier
Linda Green
Karl Muessig
Deborah Patton
Dan Radalescu
Judy Griffin
Guests:
Tim Miller, USGS
Barbara Patterson, GAO
Don Anderson, TVA
Peter Grevatt, EPA
Rebecca Hayden, TVA
Jerry Liner, TVA
Sue Robertson, TVA
Bridgette Ellis, TVA
John Klein, USGS
Tom Christensen, USDA
Tyler Baker, TVA
Forrest Rich McPherson, TVA
Jay Sauber, NC Env. & Nat. Resources
Paul Schmierbach, TN Env. Program
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological
Survey
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