1 1 2 3 4 STAKEHOLDERS EVALUATION GROUP 5 6 MEETING 7 OF 8 FEBRUARY 15, 2005 9 10 11 12 MIGHTY EIGHTH AIR FORCE HERITAGE MUSEUM 13 14 POOLER, GEORGIA 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 1 2 3 4 I N D E X 5 6 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS ----- 3 7 SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATION 8 By Joe Hoke ----------------------- 10 9 By Chuck Watson ------------------- 27 10 11 COMMITTEE REPORTS --------------------- 75 12 13 14 CERTIFICATE --------------------------- 119 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 2 (THE REPORTER: I am appearing today on 3 behalf of my employer, Tom Crites & associates. 4 My office was requested by Georgia Ports 5 Authority to provide a court reporter today at 6 1:00 p.m. at this address. 7 Pursuant to the laws of Georgia, as well 8 as at the instructions of my employer, I wish 9 to disclose that, other than accepting to serve 10 as your reporter, we have not entered into any 11 other contractual agreement with any party 12 involved in this case.) 13 MR. DYSART: Okay. Let's call the meeting 14 to order of the Stakeholders Evaluation Group. 15 Nice to see such a good crowd here, and I'm 16 glad that I could make it. The plane decided 17 it wanted to fly around in the fog, and so I 18 spent a while in Jacksonville -- hit the 19 ground about 10 minutes to 1:00. 20 I'm delighted to be part of this august 21 body. You should all have a copy of the draft 22 agenda as was posted. And the first thing we 23 normally do, I see a lot of familiar faces. I 24 see some -- I won't say strange faces, not 25 strange, David, but familiar and not so 4 1 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 2 familiar. I'm not going to call anybody 3 strange. It would be kind of hard to be 4 divided up strange and unstrange. 5 But anyway, one of the things we do is to 6 make sure you got a name card. I couldn't find 7 mine. We want to introduce ourselves, indicate 8 what your name is, your affiliation, any kind 9 of affiliation you wish to indicate. Speak 10 clearly so our official reporter can log this 11 in. Okay. Bob, why don't you start us off? 12 MR. SCANLON: She wanted to start over 13 there. She's pointing over there. 14 MR. DYSART: Okay. Alan. 15 MR. GARRETT: My name is Alan Garrett, 16 with the Corps of Engineers, Navigation Project 17 Management. 18 As of this morning, I'll be the project 19 manager on the project, so some changes are 20 occurring in the district, and I'll have some 21 business cards. I'll be glad to talk to 22 anybody who would like to talk about that. 23 THE COURT: Okay. 24 MR. BIRDWELL: My name is Billy Birdwell. 25 I'm the Chief of Public Affairs for the Corps 5 1 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 2 of Engineers, Savannah District -- my first 3 meeting. 4 THE COURT: Welcome. 5 MS. HODGE: My name is Jeanne Hodge. I'm 6 also with the Corps of Engineers Public Affairs 7 Office and a member of the project delivery 8 team for the proposed of harbor deepening. 9 MR. WRIGHT: Tom Wright, local citizen. 10 MR. BEASON: Fred Beason, Bottom Line Echo 11 Surveys. 12 MR. GRIFFIN: David Griffin, Department of 13 Transportation. 14 MR. PRUSA: Tom Prusa, Refuge Manager, 15 Savannah Coastal Refuge. 16 MS. ASKINS: Lyne Askins, Assistant Refuge 17 Manager, Savannah Coastal Refuge. 18 MR. FLOCK: Allan Flock, Refuge Manager, 19 Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. 20 MR. BERSON: Will Berson, The Georgia 21 Conservancy. 22 MR. ROBINETTE: John Robinette, The 23 Savannah Coastal Refuge. 24 MR. EUDALY: Ed Eudaly, Fish and Wildlife 25 Service. 6 1 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 2 MR. KEEGAN: Larry Keegan, Project Manager 3 for GPA. 4 MR. SCHALLER: David Schaller with Georgia 5 Ports Authority. 6 MR. REES: Morgan Rees, consultant for 7 GPA. 8 MS. VAUGHN. Cathy Vaughn, GPA. 9 MS. JENNINGS: Judy Jennings, Georgia 10 Sierra. 11 MS. BEARD: Teri Beard. 12 MR. KYLER: David Kyler, Center for a 13 Sustainable Coast. 14 MR. DYSART: Teri, what is your 15 affiliation today? 16 MS. BEARD: I don't have an affiliation. 17 I'm here to do the right thing. 18 MR. DYSART: That is a noble calling. I'm 19 Ben Dysart, the SEG Facilitator. 20 MR. SCANLON: I'm Bob Scanlon -- 21 MR. DYSART: Go ahead. 22 MR. SCANLON: Bob Scanlon, City of 23 Savannah and also representing the Savannah 24 Harbor Committee. 25 MR. BROWNELL: Prescott Brownell with the 7 1 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 2 U. S. Department of Commerce, National Marine 3 Fisheries Service. We're here for the South 4 Atlantic Office in Charleston. 5 MS. DAVY: Kay Davy. I work with Press. 6 MR. SCHUBERTH: Chris Schuberth, Chatham 7 Environmental Forum. 8 MR. BEACH: Rick Beach with Weston 9 Solutions. 10 MR. FLEMING: Joel Fleming, Georgia DNR, 11 Fisheries Management. 12 MR. GADDIS: Gabe Gaddis, Georgia DNR 13 Fisheries Management Section. 14 MR. STAFFORD: John Stafford, Ogeechee 15 Audubon. 16 MR. THOMAS: Paul Thomas, EMD Chemical. 17 MS. LANDER: Mary Lander, The Savannah 18 Morning News. 19 MS. MOORER: Hope Moorer, Georgia Ports 20 Authority. 21 MS. RUTHERFORD: Freda Rutherford, Tybee 22 Island Beach Task Force. 23 MR. OFF: Lou Off, Tybee Island. 24 MR. HOKE: Joe Hoke, Corps of Engineers. 25 MR. WATSON: Chuck Watson, Kinetic 8 1 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 2 Analysis Corporation. 3 MR. DYSART: Anybody else we missed going 4 around? 5 MR. BAILEY: Bill Bailey, Corps of 6 Engineers. 7 MR. DYSART: Okay. Miss anyone else? 8 Okay. Thank you, and we will -- as additional 9 people come in, we will have them introduced on 10 the record also. 11 You have before you the proposed draft 12 agenda for this meeting, and you've had an 13 opportunity to look at it. Is there anything 14 you would like to add, anything you would like 15 to change, or anything that needs to be done 16 before we entertain accepting it, before 17 conducting the meeting today?. 18 Seeing no hands or otherwise, we will 19 consider it to be accepted. And some kind of 20 custom, we've got generally when somebody wants 21 to speak, they put their little name tent up. 22 If I'm alert and David helps me remember, 23 I note that. If I don't note it, he hits me in 24 the ribs. Anyway, we will consider this agenda 25 to be governing the meeting today. 9 1 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 2 You should have been able to examine a 3 copy of the November 2004 transcript of the 4 meeting. It Should have been posted. Are 5 there any corrections or additions? 6 And our custom here is if there's anything 7 that needs to be corrected online, we do it on 8 this record, as opposed to going back and 9 changing things. So if there's anything that 10 needed to be clarified, from the last meeting 11 back in November, let us know about it. 12 Seeing no indications of any corrections 13 or changes, we will consider the November 2004 14 transcript to be accepted by the body. That 15 sounds kind of official, but this body, anybody 16 who comes in and considers themselves to be an 17 interested party is a member of the body and 18 has standing. 19 Anyway, whoever shows up gets to do the 20 official business of the body. By custom going 21 back a while, we try to have the scientific 22 briefings early on in the meeting, in case we 23 have people who have traveled some distance, 24 who need to make a presentation, stand for 25 questions, and then it be convenient for them 10 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 to leave. 3 So the first item here is the update of 4 the modelling and refinement status discussion, 5 Joe Hoke from the Savannah District. And this 6 was requested by the ad hoc interim agenda 7 committee. 8 And we welcome the Corps to make this 9 presentation. We've very interested to see how 10 the modelling effort is going. Would you 11 prefer, if there are questions, that people 12 raise them as go along, or would you prefer 13 that they be held, or does it make any 14 difference? 15 MR. HOKE: Doesn't matter. We can raise 16 them as go along. It probably is easier when 17 the slide is up there for questioning. 18 MR. DYSART: Okay. If anybody has any 19 questions, try to make it nice and focused and 20 clear to the presenter. We'll raise it at the 21 time you have it. 22 MR. HOKE: I may not notice the card, so 23 you might have to holler at me. 24 MR. DYSART: I'll let you know. 25 MR. HOKE: Okay. So I'm here to talk 11 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 about the EFDC and WASP model, an update on 3 those. And that's the hydrodynamic modelling 4 and the water quality model. 5 I was going to just review the contract 6 TetraTech has with the Corps and GPA, review 7 the schedule of the work tasks, and talk about 8 a few things in the ongoing work, updates to 9 the model enhancements, some preliminary output 10 from some of the production runs, and a 11 simulation with the 1854 depth. 12 So the TetraTech's tasks are to modify and 13 recalibrate the EFDC model, which is the 14 hydrodynamic model, reevaluate the WASP 15 calibration, and as I said, that's the water 16 quality model. 17 Also included in their work is an 18 uncertainty analysis, which is subcontracted to 19 Kinetic Analysis. Chuck Watson here is going 20 to follow me with his presentation. They're 21 going to provide the Savannah District with 22 some training in the models, produce some 23 reports, and prepare model application files. 24 So here's the schedule. Where we stand 25 right now is we have a draft report, an interim 12 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 draft report. We have a meeting tomorrow with 3 the federal and state agencies for questions 4 and answers on that report. And we hope to 5 have agency comments, and have that report 6 finished -- it's scheduled for March 9th. Not 7 really confident that we're going to meet that 8 date, but that's the target. 9 So the original model on the EFDC, they 10 started out with the EPA's version, which they 11 developed for the TMDL purposes. And since 12 then, they refined the grid resolution, updated 13 bathymetry, and improved interactions with the 14 marshes. 15 And so this is what we call the enhanced 16 version of the model. And the cells are now 17 931 horizontal cells, still 6 vertical cells. 18 If you were here back in November, I think you 19 probably would have seen most of this before 20 when I was here, but this just summarizes some 21 of the changes that they have made. 22 And this is a picture of the model. I've 23 also got some handouts here. I've got 30 of 24 them. It will come close to going around, but 25 probably not quite. Some of you from the same 13 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 agency maybe could share. 3 But this is the enhanced grid with the 4 color coding of the depth, so the very darkest 5 blue is the deepest section. You can see on 6 there coming up the channel, and the shallowest 7 area is the lightest blue kind of fading to a 8 light blue green. And we used the bathymetry 9 data sources. 10 We got some Corps of Engineers surveys. 11 We had a survey that was done by USGS on the 12 Back River, Middle River, Little Back River. 13 We had another Corps survey, previous Corps 14 survey, and some NOAA mapping for the offshore 15 area in the South Channel. And this is just a 16 color coded -- color coded depiction of what I 17 was just talking about. 18 It shows the areas that came from the 19 different surveys. And this is the updated 20 area that was surveyed by the USGS. You can 21 see that covers the Little Back River over on 22 the right, the Middle River down the center, 23 and the upper portion of the Front River. 24 And the other improvement was to the marsh 25 interactions. They have used some Q zones, 14 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 which were developed by ATM. They did field 3 observations out there, and have 10 different 4 zones developed that are defining the marsh by 5 area depth and channels that drain the marsh 6 area. 7 You can also see on there the plot. What 8 they were showing there is that the red is what 9 has been simulated by the EFDC model. The blue 10 is measured data points from 1999. And they're 11 hitting those pretty accurately. 12 These are the USGS stations that are used 13 for the calibration effort. Those are 14 long-term records. You can see three over on 15 the right that are on the Back River in the 16 vicinity of the wildlife refuge. 17 The very upper most one on there, that's 18 at I-95. The lowest downstream one on the far 19 lower right is Ft. Pulaski. In between there 20 is Houlihan Bridge, and also Downtown Savannah. 21 Now, these are detailed data stations from 22 the 1997 and 1999 data collections by ATM, so 23 this is the detail data that is used for the 24 calibration effort is at the points shown on 25 this map. 15 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 So I just have a couple slides here with 3 some draft calibration results, and this one is 4 at a point called FR06, which is just upriver 5 of the Talmadge Bridge on the Front River. And 6 this is the results from the EFDC hydrodynamic 7 model. 8 So the green points, which are plotted 9 over top of the blue, the green points are the 10 measure data from the 1999, from the summer of 11 1999, and the blue is the model simulation. 12 The model is outside the window of data, 13 so that's why the green does not go all the way 14 across the page. The next item on here is 15 velocity, also at the same location just 16 upstream of the Talmadge Bridge. 17 You can probably see on there the green 18 points extend a little bit below the blue, 19 which is simulated on the bottom of the scale, 20 but on the top end they're very close. 21 And here we've moved on to salinity -- I'll get 22 up here and point this out. 23 The black line up here, this would be the 24 model results for the bottom salinity, and 25 we're comparing those to the blue which are the 16 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 measure data points on the bottom salinity. 3 And down here, this is the surface layer 4 salinity in the green, and that compares to the 5 red, which is the collected data points. 6 So they're very close on the peaks -- on 7 the bottom salinity they're very close on the 8 peaks. They don't have quite the range with 9 the tide as what the collected data shows, but 10 the peaks are matching very well. 11 MR. DYSART: Ed, you have a question? 12 MR. EUDALY: Joe, could you go back? 13 What's the scale? I can't read the salinity 14 levels. 15 MR. HOKE: The scale on the left? 16 MR. EUDALY: Yeah. 17 MR. HOKE: It's zero -- 18 MR. WATSON: Zero to 30 parts per 19 thousand. 20 MR. HOKE: Zero, 10, 20 and 30. This is 21 July, August, September, October, November of 22 1999. 23 MR. EUDALY: Would you mind going back to 24 the last two also; I want to know what the 25 scale was on those also? 17 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 MR. HOKE: Sure. This is zero, 100 3 centimeters per second, minus 100. And it's 4 not showing on here, but the time scale is the 5 same -- go back one more, Chuck. 6 MR. WATSON: Water surface elevation. 7 MR. HOKE: Okay. 012 and minus one, and 8 that's August through October of 1999. 9 MR. EUDALY: Thanks. 10 MR. HOKE: Okay. Now, they performed a 11 simulation, trying to use bathymetry from an 12 old 1854 map, that had a number data points on 13 it for channel depth. 14 So they -- this was done using the TMDL 15 model, so this is not using the enhanced grid, 16 but this is using the original TMDL grid, which 17 is a coarser grid. And they modified the 18 depths, so this was done -- this was done more 19 kind of like an inverse deepening. 20 In other words, they took the current 21 model and shallowed the navigation channel to 22 what they read off the 1854 map, which was 23 approximately, I believe, ranged from 12 to 16 24 feet, somewhere in that vicinity. So I just 25 wanted to point out that this -- it's not 18 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 intended to simulate the exact 1854 conditions. 3 We don't have accounted for the reservoirs 4 upstream that are regulating the flow now, 5 rather the flows are regulated flows, so we 6 weren't attempting to simulate unregulated flow 7 in 1854. And also, we just the existing 8 alignment of the river, and the existing cuts 9 are all still in the model, and the existing 10 boundary conditions. So, this is only the 11 depth. 12 MR. SCHUBERTH: Let me ask you a question. 13 MR. HOKE: Yes. 14 MR. SCHUBERTH: Go back. On that 1854 run 15 was constructed by shallowing the navigation 16 channel, which means you restored the channel 17 to the configuration it was to be 1854, based 18 on bathymetric maps. 19 MR. HOKE: Right. Not the configuration, 20 but just took the existing 42 foot depth 21 channel -- 22 MR. SCHUBERTH: Right, raised it up. 23 MR. HOKE: -- raised it up to roughly 15 24 feet or thereabouts. Everything else is the 25 same. This just shows the availability of the 19 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 data points that were derived from the mapping. 3 It looks like a lot on that map, but it's 4 actually fairly sparse. And this shows the 5 TMDL grid. So you can see the cells on there 6 are a bit larger than the ones in your handout 7 which is the enhanced grid. 8 This shows the bottom and surface 9 salinity. I Wanted to point out that there's a 10 lot of mixing going on, very little 11 stratification. 12 You can see the blue is the bottom layer 13 of the water. The red is the surface layer, 14 but all of them are right at one part per 15 thousand or less, and that's Ft. Jackson. 16 And this is a color-coded indication of 17 the salinity, and there indicated the maximum 18 salinity intrusion with this depth was -- where 19 the arrow's pointing there -- is approximately 20 the vicinity of Ft. Jackson. 21 And this is just comparing the 1999 depth 22 versus the 1854 depth, and this is at the 23 downstream boundary. So it's just showing 24 they're both started equivalently with about 34 25 PPT on the salinity. 20 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 You probably can't see that on here, but 3 the scale is zero, 10, 20, 30, 40 up the left 4 side. And this is moving upstream, this is 5 Ft. Pulaski. Once again, the red is the 1854 6 depth, and the blue is the existing. The 7 maximum or fairly similar still there at the 8 top, but you can see the daily variation is 9 considerably greater with 1854. 10 This is a bit further upstream. This is 11 near Fields Cut. And you can see a bit more 12 differentiation. The scale runs zero through 13 40 on the left, so the maximum salinity with 14 the 1854 depth is about 20. 15 And here we are at Ft. Jackson, and the 16 1854 depth, you might be able to see little 17 squiggly along the bottom is between zero and 18 one, and the scale on the right goes from zero 19 to 28 PPT on this drawing. 20 I missed handing out a couple more pages. 21 let me go ahead send these around. The first 22 one is the water level calibration, and the 23 second one is a graph of salinity comparing 24 1854 and 1999. 25 So the conclusions are that the bathymetry 21 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 has significant impact on salinity intrusion, 3 and pretty much as you would expect. The 1854 4 depth simulation shows the salt wedge was not 5 projected to occur upstream at Ft. Jackson. 6 And presently, with the existing model, 7 the salt wedge, as we all know, does occur 8 upstream of the Houlihan Bridge. I just wanted 9 to point out again, this simulation does not 10 account for a change in flow of the upstream 11 reservoirs, whereas back in 1854 the peak flows 12 probably would have been about three to four 13 times to what's experienced now on a normal 14 basis, whereas the average and minimum flows 15 would be much smaller -- probably about a 16 third. 17 MR. DYSART: Couple questions, Judy then 18 John. 19 MS. JENNINGS: Joe, can this get posted on 20 the website, your presentation? 21 MR. HOKE: Yes -- on your website? 22 MS. JENNINGS: The SEG website. 23 MR. HOKE: Yeah, we can do that. 24 MS. JENNINGS: Okay. Some of it is going 25 over the top of my head. 22 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 MR. HOKE: Chuck said he can post it this 3 afternoon. 4 MR. DYSART: John Robinette. 5 MR. ROBINETTE: The 1854 simulation was 6 done at what flow did you say? 7 MR. HOKE: Summer of 1999 flows. It was 8 during the drought, so it would have been July, 9 August, September of '99, the same flows we had 10 in '99. 11 So the only comparison is on the depth. 12 There's no other changes -- no other changes 13 were made to simulate the 1854, other than the 14 depth. 15 MR. DYSART: Teri, question. 16 MS. BEARD: Yes. Joe, what is -- maybe 17 I'm missing something. What exactly does this 18 tell us with the soundness of the model itself? 19 MR. HOKE: The 1854 comparison, that's 20 just kind of a demonstration. That's not 21 really showing anything about the model itself. 22 That was kind of a demonstration. Someone 23 had asked for that. I'm not sure, do you 24 remember? 25 MR. WATSON: I thought EPA had asked. 23 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 MR. HOKE: Maybe EPA, I'm not sure -- it's 3 just kind of -- 4 MR. SCANLON: Joe, that was at the request 5 of EPA, really in responding to the TMDL issue 6 rather than the deepening. 7 It's really trying to look at the impact 8 of the former or past harbor deepenings on the 9 water quality. That was more the reason that 10 that was asked for. 11 MS. BEARD: Okay. 12 MR. DYSART: Any other questions? Ed 13 Eudaly. 14 MR. EUDALY: Just a comment about it. I 15 think it does demonstrate, at least kind of on 16 a gross level, the sensitive of the model to 17 changes in depth. At least it's capturing a 18 large difference in salinity based on depth. 19 So I think that's part of the reason for that 20 demonstration. 21 MR. DYSART: Will. 22 MR. BERSON: 1854 -- any idea why that was 23 -- is that the first instance of dredging? 24 MR. HOKE: It was an old map we happened 25 to find in the archives. It had depth 24 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 soundings on it. 3 MR. BAILEY: It was, basically, the 4 earliest map we had. 5 MR. DYSART: Bill. 6 MR. BAILEY: Teri, the location of the one 7 EPT at Ft. Jackson, that does kind of align 8 with the dark culture resource person, and from 9 their understanding of where rice was grown, 10 but it does pretty much match. 11 MS. BEARD: Okay. Thank you, Bill. 12 MR. DYSART: Okay. Continue, sir. 13 MR. HOKE: Well, that was the end. 14 MR. DYSART: Okay. 15 MR. HOKE: I guess the only thing I wanted 16 to add was that the calibration effort is 17 ongoing. I showed you a few brief snippets of 18 the calibration side. I Couldn't get too far 19 into it because the effort is still ongoing and 20 the review process is continuing. 21 MR. DYSART: Okay. Other questions for 22 Joe including Teri. 23 MS. BEARD: Quick question. I know this 24 is going on, the calibration, but is there any 25 sort of preliminary sense of how well the model 25 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 is doing for what it is being asked to do? 3 MR. HOKE: That's probably in Chuck's 4 department. I'd hold that off till the next 5 presentation. 6 MR. FLEMING: I just had a question about 7 the first few graphs that you had up there 8 where you had the two colors overlapping. You 9 had one for water level, velocity, and 10 salinity. 11 MR. HOKE: Yes. 12 MR. FLEMING: Is that a location 13 associated with those or is that average 14 across all -- 15 MR. WATSON: FR6. 16 MR. HOKE: FR6 which is near the Talmadge 17 Bridge. I think we can go back to the map that 18 has those points on it. There it is -- FR6, 19 right there. Here's the Talmadge Bridge, so 20 it's just upstream of that. 21 MR. FLEMING: Okay. 22 MR. DYSART: Ed. 23 MR. EUDALY: Joe, on the Q zones you 24 mentioned, I guess, the marsh storage. Could 25 you elaborate a little bit on how that was 26 1 PRESENTATION - JOE HOKE 2 handled? I'm not entirely clear on that. 3 MR. HOKE: Actually, I can't. They were 4 developed by ATM, and I'll have to do some more 5 research into that exactly as to -- are you 6 familiar with it at all, Bill? 7 MR. BAILEY: I think they started from 8 looking at the aerial photos and seeing where 9 the creeks came up into the marsh. And then, 10 basically, drew kind of a watershed for each of 11 those feeder creeks to get an area -- kind of 12 divided up the tidal marsh that way. 13 MR. SCANLON: There's a good description 14 as to how they were done in the draft TMDL, the 15 August last year draft TMDL for DO for the 16 Savannah Harbor has a very good section on the 17 Q and how it was developed. 18 MR. WATSON: They have redone it a little 19 bit, in that they're using a trapezoidal shape, 20 for the marsh areas to try to get a little bit 21 better flows at either extreme -- extreme low 22 water and extreme high water. 23 So in effect, rather than it being like a 24 storage cube, like a big rectangle swimming 25 pool. What they're using, in effect, is a 27 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 trapezoid, so the sides are sloped, so that the 3 volume changes non-linearly as you move 4 linearly up and down. 5 MR. DYSART: Any further questions for 6 Joe. Thank you very much, Joe. The next 7 presentation, we would ask Chuck Watson, 8 Kinetic Analysis Corporation, working with 9 TetraTech, to brief us on that. Chuck, welcome 10 back. 11 MR. WATSON: Thank you. I just come in 12 and lob a few molotov cocktails into the 13 discussion, and then wander off for a couple 14 years. That's sort of the modus operandi here. 15 I'm contracted by TetraTech, at the request of 16 the Corps, to take a look at the uncertainty 17 of the model, which gets to the question Teri 18 raised, how good is the model at doing the 19 kinds of predictions we need it to do, in order 20 to make policy decisions. 21 I guess this is obligatory map, but this 22 is the TMDL, actually in the station. 23 Basically again, I'm looking at a couple of 24 different things. The first is, do we have 25 enough data to really be able to not only 28 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 calibrate these models, but also verify them? 3 That raises a good point for those of you 4 not familiar with models. There's a very big 5 difference between calibration, verification, 6 and what we call validation. 7 Those are really three separate steps. 8 Ideally, you want to have three completely 9 independent databases to do that with. 10 Calibration is a process, when you start 11 with a lot of these computer models, there are 12 coefficients in them, things like friction, 13 things like non-linear interactions, because 14 we're talking about a natural system. 15 There are so complex that you can't just 16 sit down and measure these kind of things. A 17 good example is the Savannah River channel 18 meanders some. You'll notice we have to treat 19 these different sections as straight lines, 20 otherwise you would get an infinitely small 21 grid. 22 And of course, from a computational 23 standpoint, because we don't have computers big 24 enough to do that, so to make simplifying 25 assumptions. Well, the problem is, if you 29 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 think about it, this is almost a waterslide. 3 In water, you can shoot through there much 4 faster than it could in reality. So what we do 5 is assign friction coefficients. 6 Well, that's somewhat natural because 7 there is natural friction, but it is also 8 somewhat unnatural. We have to compensate for 9 the fact that we cannot completely, accurately 10 simulate the system. So that's one of these 11 coefficients that goes into the model. 12 Well, so that's the first phase. You take 13 data. You run your model. You tweak these 14 coefficients to get it to match your 15 calibration data. 16 Hopefully, you have enough data to get a 17 separate set of data we call verification data. 18 So what you do is you make your run with your 19 calibration data. You then make a run 20 independently with your verification data, and 21 see how well it matches up. 22 Usually, the first two times around, it's 23 not going to match up that well, so you go back 24 to square one. It is very much a back and 25 forth process. 30 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 One of the reasons why is you get more 3 advanced models, this takes longer, is of 4 course the amount of time it takes the computer 5 to run these simulations gets longer. So that 6 back and forth process is what's currently 7 going on with the enhanced grid. 8 The third step is called validation. 9 That's where you decide, okay, the model is 10 done. I'm happy with it. You then test it 11 against a third, completely independent set of 12 data that you have never used in the 13 calibration or verification process. 14 That's somewhat what I'm doing is the 15 validation phase, testing once TetraTech says, 16 this is it. We're happy. This is the model 17 we're happy with. 18 I then take it and do further analysis 19 with it. I've completed that TMDL version of 20 the model. I started doing some preliminary 21 tests on the enhanced grid model, although they 22 have not quite declared that finished yet. 23 So that's the first thing I'm doing is 24 looking at the question, is there enough data 25 to do all three of these steps? 31 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 The second thing I'm looking at, as I just 3 mentioned, is evaluating the EFDC model, 4 strictly speaking, the TMDL configuration. 5 I've made recommendations to TetraTech and the 6 Corps for making modifications. 7 I'll discuss some of those recommendations 8 and the outcomes of it. I'm concentrating on 9 salinity. The reason is first off resources. 10 You kind of have to flame-out, and work out in 11 the time available. But salinity is a pretty 12 good test. 13 If you think about it, at the upstream at 14 Clyo there is freshwater coming down. At the 15 far extreme boundary is saltwater. The model 16 is having to bring these two types of bodies of 17 water together, mix them, and the way it does 18 that, of course, is transport. 19 You saw the graphs of the flow. That's 20 one measure of the model, but very small errors 21 in flow, if they don't cancel out, can cause 22 very big errors in mass transport. 23 So by looking at mass transport, and 24 salinity is a pretty good property for mass 25 transport, it gives us a pretty indication of 32 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 whether the model is doing the things we want 3 it to do. 4 Of course, when you start to talk about 5 derived quantities like dissolved oxygen, the 6 water quality issues, those are very much 7 dependent on accurate mass transport in the 8 model. 9 And methodology, I took -- I actually have 10 the source code that TetraTech is using. I 11 changed it a little bit. I'm a Linux bigot, 12 those of you familiar with computer operating 13 systems. The other is, I have the capability 14 of running multiple model runs at one time. 15 I have a cluster of computers. I can 16 actually do 64 EFDC simulations at one time. I 17 converted the code to actually run under Linux. 18 I got updates from TetraTech from their 19 site. I did seven sets of simulations. I 20 started in baseline TMDL. This is what we use 21 to do TMDL runs. That's what was used as 22 published for setting those levels. 23 I then went and did some -- I added a 24 meter and subtracted a meter from the 25 bathymetry, just to see what impact that would 33 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 have on the output results. I Reset the 3 friction, actually to a number of different 4 levels. One of the concerns I have, again, is 5 using friction for calibration the best way to 6 go, or is there maybe another way to approach 7 it. 8 Bathymetry I set to 92 to look at before 9 the last project, the 1994 dredging. I then 10 used a randomly perturbed bathymetry. At first 11 you might, well, what difference would 12 assigning X, basically taking the bathymetry 13 that TetraTech used in each grid cell and 14 randomly adding some fraction between zero and 15 one meter, doing the same, zero and minus one 16 meter, and then doing a run randomly 17 perturbing, at the end, doing another run. 18 You'll see why I did that in just a 19 minute. As far as the analysis package I used, 20 everything is done on open source software with 21 the R Statistics package. 22 I did use JMP access to do the cross check 23 of some of the numbers to make sure that's 24 specific for grouping. Well, data, do we have 25 enough data. More importantly, during the two 34 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 periods when we have a lot of data, is it 3 representative of the long-term flow of the 4 river? 5 The answer no. The data from '97 to 1999, 6 as we know, is not representative of the 7 long-term flow of the river. If you look, the 8 blue line is 1999's data. This is salinity and 9 the frequency of occurrence of that particular 10 salinity level at Houlihan Bridge. 11 The green line is for 1997. The red line 12 is from 1996 to 2003. So one thing you'll 13 immediately see is between point A is 5 parts 14 per thousand, the salinity levels at Houlihan 15 Bridge in '97 and 1999 were not representative 16 of the long-term flow of the river. 17 That's an interesting red flag. If the 18 model is working the way we want it to, that 19 should no impact. In other words, if the 20 calibration verification was done in such a way 21 the model can work over a wide range of 22 conditions, then that won't make any difference 23 when we look at our numbers. 24 In other words, the error here shouldn't 25 be any different from the error up here. Well, 35 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 as turns out, here's Houlihan Bridge. Guess 3 what -- when we look at the TMDL model, which 4 is the blue line of the TMDL, the green line 5 was before the last dredging project and the 6 red line was after. 7 Guess what -- from point A, the five parts 8 per thousand, the model's biased. What that 9 tells me is it is over-calibrated. In other 10 words, they did too much work in making it 11 exactly match '97 and '99 at the expense of 12 biasing the model. 13 And that's generally not a good thing. It 14 sometimes happens, but it turns out I think 15 there's a pretty good reason. I'll get to it 16 in a minute. But in effect at this station, 17 it's biased. Here's another factor, this is 18 the difference in salinity frequency that we 19 observed after the last harbor deepening. 20 We really would like our blue model line 21 to be closer to the red, the red observed data 22 after that project than the green line. 23 So in other words, if you are trying to 24 predict that big of a difference, you can't 25 have your model look more off than that from a 36 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 difference. Hopefully, that makes sense. 3 Well, another way of looking at it, if you 4 break it out by salinity level, what errors can 5 we expect. Here's an example of what these 6 lines are showing. The green line is the 7 median error. 8 What that's saying is five parts per 9 thousand, half of the time the TMDL 10 configuration was off by two parts per 11 thousand. 12 If you look at it from the 90% range, it 13 was off anywhere from five to minus five to 14 plus two, which in other words, if it predicted 15 five, the true value could be anywhere from two 16 parts per thousand to eight parts per thousand, 17 with a 90% confidence limit. 18 So, that's really not too good from a 19 predictive ability standpoint. If we look at 20 error by flow, one of the critical things here, 21 because we've got a little bit of knowledge 22 advantage her is that at its simplest, the 23 Savannah River system, it's a very complex 24 system. There is one simplifying factor. 25 The salinity at these different stations, 37 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 of course, is highly dependent on the flow of 3 freshwater. That is the primary variable. If 4 you get enough freshwater coming down the 5 river, it doesn't matter what the tides are 6 doing. It doesn't matter what anything else 7 is going on. All that saltwater gets flushed 8 out of the system. 9 If you notice our flow here, in this case 10 I'm just looking at 100 to 500 of cubic meters 11 per second -- much above that all the saltwater 12 is flushed out of the system. Again, 13 concentrating on Houlihan Bridge, the report 14 breaks all these graphs for each of the USGS 15 sites. There's about 100 pages of graphs. 16 If we look, again, what we would expect is 17 the errors get smaller as the flow increases 18 because the salinity levels are decreasing. 19 Again, if you start to look at the low 20 end, these error bands get pretty wide, so if 21 the flow of the river is say 250 cubic meters a 22 second, then our 90% confidence span is from 23 minus one per thousand all the way up to three 24 and a half parts per thousand, which is a large 25 percent of the observed salinity at that 38 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 location. 3 Daily maximum may be a little more fair to 4 model. You saw the graphs that Joe showed. 5 You've got oscillations in salinity because of 6 tides. The model could have a phase error, as 7 we call it. 8 Let's say that it predicted that peak 15 9 minutes too soon or 20 minutes too late. From 10 a policy standpoint, we probably don't care too 11 much about that, because what we're interested 12 in is maybe figuring out where those peaks are. 13 We wanted the frequency occurrence, but if 14 it is that high, if it's off by 15 or 20 15 minutes, it's not going to -- that doesn't 16 affect our decision-making. 17 Well, unfortunately again, what we find 18 is even if you look at daily maximum, error 19 bands are pretty wide, as much as 50% or more 20 of the observed value. In other words, if you 21 are trying to predict five parts per thousand, 22 these error bands plus minus three parts per 23 thousand, so you get anywhere from two to eight 24 parts per thousand as a computer estimate. 25 Again, this is important. It's biased 39 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 high at low to mid salinities, which are 3 exactly some of the areas we're interested in, 4 because that affects the downstream modelling, 5 in other words, the water quality calculations. 6 These are alternate scenarios. This where 7 the bathymetry raised the meter, dropped the 8 meter, the baseline. You see those kinds of 9 changes didn't change our errors bands much. 10 Watch what happens when I use the uniform 11 friction coefficient. Zip. All our error 12 bands compressed. What that tells me, again, 13 the model is over-calibrated. They used 14 friction to compensate for other errors in the 15 data sets, in bathymetry, in other assumptions 16 in the model. 17 They ended up putting too much emphasis 18 on self-friction changes and it ended up 19 screwing things up. It made the error bands 20 worse rather than making them better. 21 Other sites, again, I've got like 100 22 pages of these plots that show different types. 23 They pretty much all tell the same stories, at 24 low to mid flows the model's biased, all the 25 friction data, again, are very much geared -- 40 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 if you look at the uniform friction 3 characteristics, it decreases the error bands 4 significantly. So again, it all feeds back to 5 this over-calibration issue. 6 So my conclusions that were presented back 7 in January, I think the available data is 8 adequate. I've got some concerns I'll discuss 9 here in a minute, but I think overall there's a 10 lot of data on the Savannah River. 11 There's two big '97, '99 collection 12 periods. We've got data from the USGS stations 13 going back into the '80s reliably. So there's 14 a lot of good data. 15 I'm a little bit -- of course, as a 16 scientist you always want more data. You're 17 never going to get me standing up here saying, 18 I don't want anymore data. That's just not 19 going to happen, but somewhere there's that 20 gray area between, there's clearly not enough 21 data and having enough. 22 There's some aspects of the data, because 23 they were in similar low flow conditions, 24 that's a plus from a standpoint of those are 25 conditions we're interested in. It's a minus 41 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 from a model development standpoint, because we 3 cannot ensure the model reliably operates over 4 a wide range of conditions. 5 I think that TetraTech got into a little 6 bit of trouble on the TMDL model development. 7 The model demonstrates qualitative skill. What 8 I mean by that is, if you change the tides it's 9 doing the right things. If you change the 10 flows, it's doing the right things. It 11 responds to temperature correctly. 12 All the trends of the variables are in the 13 right direction. The problem is I cannot say 14 that it has qualitative skill. 15 In other words, if the model produces an 16 estimate of salinity at five parts per thousand 17 do I believe it? The answer is no. It's not 18 demonstrating for any specific prediction it 19 can make a recently good estimate of the 20 salinity. 21 If you make a bathymetry change, for 22 instance the 1854 simulation or the deepening 23 simulation, it's going to correctly show you 24 the direction the variables are going to go. 25 So if you deepen the harbor yes, you're 42 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 getting more salinity. The ranges, the 3 magnitudes are proportional, but you cannot say 4 yes, if you deepen the harbor two meters you're 5 going to get a 20% increase in salinity, 6 because the model cannot -- it's just not 7 capable of predicting the numbers to that level 8 of accuracy. 9 MR. HOKE: Line three there is confusing. 10 It should say quantitative. 11 MR. WATSON: You're right. That's 12 supposed to quantitative not qualitative. 13 Sorry about that. 14 MS. JENNINGS: Thanks. 15 MR. WATSON: That's interesting. How many 16 people have looked at this already and didn't 17 catch that. That's good. So again, the 18 variation -- the other point, the variations 19 in the model from observed are exceeding the 20 differences that we observed after the last 21 project. 22 So, in other words, we trying to predict 23 what's going to happen with the next project, 24 we might have a problem because it's -- we're 25 not able to -- the model is just not sensitive 43 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 enough to detect those kind of changes 3 accurately. 4 So my key recommendations, for the 5 enhanced grid calibration, I made a number of 6 recommendations with respect to how TetraTech 7 does their calibration. Specifically, trying 8 to swap off -- I think they needed to make sure 9 the bottom of the bathymetry was more accurate, 10 and reflected real differences. 11 There are pits and valleys in the river. 12 If you go out, there are places where it's at 13 project depth, maybe 42 feet, and right next to 14 it is 50 feet or 60 feet, so a very undulating 15 bottom. 16 So what -- my recommendation was, and the 17 way they treated it was a waterslide, and then 18 put friction in to change it. My 19 recommendation is that's probably introducing 20 non-linear errors in the model -- a fancy way 21 of saying it. Again, that goes back to the 22 bottom roughness. 23 MR. DYSART: Judy, do you have a question? 24 MS. JENNINGS: I'm sorry. Teri and I -- 25 no, I'm sorry. We were confused over the typo, 44 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 but we got it now. 3 MR. WATSON: Do I need to go back to the 4 typo slide? 5 MS. JENNINGS: No. 6 MR. WATSON: Just to make sure I say that 7 correctly, the model is demonstrating 8 qualitative skill. It is not demonstrating 9 quantitative skill. 10 The trends are right. The numbers can't 11 be -- I wouldn't put my money on any particular 12 number being accurate within 5% or 20%. 13 So I made some additional suggestions to 14 TetraTech. I did get the draft enhanced grid 15 files last week, and started doing some initial 16 crunching on. 17 As soon as I get their final files, it 18 will take me about seven to 10 days to generate 19 the same kind of analysis and report. I'm also 20 creating some additional metrics. 21 What we really want to know, I think Teri 22 did a nice job of capturing it, how good is 23 good enough for the modelling? I found one way 24 of addressing that. 25 If we look at flow, again at Houlihan, 45 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 this is a plot, for any given flow rate, the 3 observed salinity. So you can see there's a 4 huge range down here. 5 The green line is the median. In other 6 words, half of our numbers are above that, half 7 are below. 8 Well, what we can do then is figure out, 9 if we take this plot, the median flow or the 10 median salinity in any given flow, and then 11 look at our percentile above and below that, 12 we're going to find there's a natural range of 13 variation. 14 In other words, we're taking flow off the 15 table of our analysis. We're saying that for a 16 given flow, here's what the salinity should be 17 and should oscillate around that value. I feel 18 pretty confident being able to say that because 19 we've got thousands of observations here. 20 Statistically, there's enough to do that 21 pretty reasonably. Well, if we do that, what 22 we find, this red and green line that you see 23 here, that's our natural band of variation. 24 In other words, 50% of the numbers will 25 oscillate around our observed salinity value by 46 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 that band. Well, our model should be able to 3 reproduce that. 4 This shows, for the fish and wildlife dot, 5 that the high end, the 75 percentile for the 6 TMDL model, that purple line is the 25th 7 percentile. So clearly, the TMDL model is not 8 meeting that standard. Again, the main reason 9 is because of that bias that was introduced 10 during the calibration period. 11 This is looking at our relative scale from 12 some of the other stations. I-95 is a tough 13 one. If you look at the graphs, they kind of 14 pop in and out, because the salinity wedge 15 doesn't get up that far really. 16 So, to a certain extent, it's not fair to 17 put too much emphasis on these numbers. I 18 crunched them out, but you're talking about 19 such trivially small salinity levels up here, 20 that's really more for academic purposes. 21 These are clearly not academic biases, 22 when you look other stations, Houlihan, fish 23 and wildlife. So again, this reinforces that 24 earlier conclusion. The nice thing it does for 25 us, we should see the enhanced grid drop down 47 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 into this band. 3 If it doesn't, that has some important 4 implications from a policy standpoint, because 5 it means we're still not able to get the 6 numbers to the point where we can make decently 7 reliable predictions. 8 Again, the calibration process, I felt 9 that TetraTech was using was introducing noise 10 into the modelling. They were trying to get as 11 good a fit to the '97 and '99 data as possible. 12 They did a good job of that particular 13 task. That's what everybody was looking at. 14 But, unfortunately, sometimes when do that you 15 run the risk of introducing noise, especially 16 outside that range of experience of the model. 17 So what it is I did, I recommended that 18 they go back and revisit how they're handling 19 bathymetry and calibration. I have to say 20 TetraTech was very responsive to this. In 21 fact, in the enhanced grid model, they are 22 using uniform bottom friction which is 23 wonderful from my standpoint. 24 That's an absolutely vital improvement, 25 because you can't -- you really have a hard 48 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 time justifying radical changes in bottom 3 friction across the Savannah River. To that 4 extent, you have bends and all. That is a 5 fairly uniform environment. The tighter grid 6 should give you a better fit anyhow. 7 I'm really, really happy they're doing 8 this, to put it bluntly, because that's -- 9 they're actually -- I talked to Steve Davie 10 yesterday. He said that they're getting better 11 fits without doing these kind of corrections at 12 this stage of the process than they were 13 getting with the TMDL grids. 14 I'm glad to see that. On the calibration 15 and verification side, salinity's probably 16 okay. Some of these other values like DO, 17 gosh, it should would be nice to have some more 18 data. A Scientist is always going to say that. 19 If there were some way to collect a little 20 more data, particularly to spot check the 21 model. Ideally, what I would like to see is 22 run the model in real time, and then make some 23 predictions. Go out and check in areas where 24 the model is saying when you look, it doesn't 25 make a lot of sense. Then measure it and see 49 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 what's really out there. 3 Sometimes the model does a better job than 4 you think it did at predicting some of these 5 outliers. That's not really a formal 6 recommendation. It's just something if there 7 were an opportunity to go out and collect some 8 additional data, that would be a really good 9 thing to do. 10 MR. DYSART: Teri and Judy have a couple 11 questions. 12 MS. BEARD: Quick question, Chuck. I must 13 have missed something. The sensitivity 14 analysis, that was on the TMDL model without 15 the enhanced grid thing? 16 MR. WATSON: That's correct. 17 MS. BEARD: So Once the enhanced grids are 18 done, you'll do all this again? 19 MR. WATSON: Exactly. I have the enhanced 20 grid, the preliminary enhanced grid, but they 21 don't have all the data -- the long-term 22 databases set. They have tweaking on it. So I 23 didn't think it was fair to show you stuff on 24 something they haven't finished doing yet. 25 MR. DYSART: Judy, did you have an 50 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 additional question? 3 MR. WATSON: I've got one little quick 4 thing, and we can throw it open. If you go to 5 this website, there's a copy of this 6 presentation, and I'll put Joe's up too, and 7 that's what I have. 8 MR. DYSART: Will Berson has a question. 9 MR. BERSON: It's more of a sanity check 10 to see if I understood what you just told me. 11 It sounds as if the initial modelling effort, 12 using the analogy of a waterslide, means the 13 bottom is depicted as a flat surface maybe with 14 a gradient. 15 MR. WATSON: That's correct. 16 MR. BERSON: You're looking for it to have 17 some potholes in it? 18 MR. WATSON: Exactly. 19 MR. BERSON: Does that mean it will, once 20 it's run, then we will have a sense of what's 21 happening in the potholes? 22 MR. WATSON: No. This configuration does 23 not do sediment transport on the bottom, so 24 you're using a static bottom depiction. What 25 you are trying to do, you shoot for average 51 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 condition. 3 As I mentioned earlier, I did a randomly 4 perturbed bottom. And it turns out, if you do 5 that random perturbation, the exact location of 6 each and every bump and hole doesn't hurt you 7 that much, because they're moving around 8 anyway. 9 If you are looking at long-term data, if 10 it were a fixed bottom with those kind of 11 bumps, then yeah, over time you would notice 12 trends at a given station, because they are 13 moving around. 14 Of course, our friends at the Corps are 15 going out there and rearranging the bottom, 16 which is a nice thing from a shipping 17 standpoint. The dredging is making changes 18 too. 19 It's dynamic. The thing is, it's dynamic 20 in the sense of where the holes and bumps are 21 moving. 22 So you need to have them in the model. It 23 doesn't -- but it appears to not be critically 24 important you have every bump in the right 25 place. 52 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 MR. BERSON: Thank you. 3 MR. DYSART: Judy. 4 MS. JENNINGS: This isn't model because 5 it's not the only thing we're doing. Chuck, I 6 understand what you mean about you always love 7 to have more data, but I'm curious; did 8 anybody, during the releases that were done 9 from the upstream dams last spring, and I think 10 there are more planned from the upstream dams 11 this spring, I'm just wondering, is there any 12 effort to collect any data? 13 For instance, I don't know enough about 14 flow to know if it makes any difference. 15 Somebody with the Corps may help me. There was 16 a spring flush, when the water flows from the 17 dam, and another one planned for this spring. 18 Is it valuable, in any way, to have data 19 collection during that period? For instance, 20 it would be kind of interesting to know if the 21 model would predict -- 22 MR. WATSON: If it is a high flow rate, 23 everything goes to zero anyway. So, I'm less 24 interested in at the high end than during 25 spring tide. Like coming up in March, we're 53 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 going to have a spring tide. Like when you 3 have high stresses on the system, and it's 4 causing a lot of water to move back and forth, 5 in effect that would be a neat time to do data 6 collection, but you have to ask them. 7 MR. BAILEY: I think there are USGS gauges 8 that are out there, are continuous. So those 9 gauges recorded that event. I think there 10 wasn't a lot of other monitoring, but we have 11 that information from those gauges. 12 I think TetraTech is using those USGS 13 gauges in some phase, not in their calibration, 14 but I think -- 15 MR. WATSON: Right. Validation side the 16 problem is they are in the upper part of the 17 river. They are not down towards the shipping 18 channel. But it is, again, having that 19 long-term data, they have actually extended the 20 model runs now through the end -- I think 21 they're going to do runs through the end of 22 2004. 23 So instead of the seven year, we'll have 24 an eight year. I've already been doing that 25 with the TMDL side. 54 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 MS. JENNINGS: I guess my thinking here, I 3 understand data -- more data is always good, 4 but sort of from a policy point of view in the 5 sense, I think I've said to a bunch of people, 6 I'm a little concerned mixing TMDL apples with 7 harbor deepening oranges. 8 I have some concern about that, but 9 another part of the policy, water -- policy on 10 water mix is what comes downstream, or what 11 doesn't come downstream. 12 So, you know, when we start thinking about 13 TMDLs, and the impact on harbor deepening, the 14 depth of harbor impact on anything we put in 15 the river, to me part of that policy is what 16 comes downriver too. 17 MR. WATSON: It's a managed river. 18 MS. JENNINGS: Right. It's a managed 19 river. 20 MR. WATSON: It's a human managed system. 21 So, obviously what you do with the flow rates 22 coming down from the dams is critical. 23 MS. JENNINGS: It's not part of is this a 24 good model or not, but when policy is made, in 25 terms of these broad, public interest issues, I 55 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 think that's at least important as how the 3 depth of the harbor impacts points versus 4 discharges. 5 MR. WATSON: If you get and keep the flow 6 rates high enough, none of the rest of this 7 matters. It's all fresh water. 8 MS. JENNINGS: Right. 9 MR. DYSART: Chris and Will. 10 MR. SCHUBERTH: I'm going to follow up a 11 little. Judy touched on this. This is 12 strictly an academic question. Forgive me for 13 going into academic arena. 14 From day one when modelling first became a 15 task four years ago, five years ago, and the 16 effort began, to this day February 15th '05, 17 we've been on a learning curve. A lot has been 18 learned where anybody, Chuck or anybody, where 19 would you say we are on this learning curve? 20 Would you say that this modelling effort 21 has brought us to a point where you could say 22 we're about 50% up that curve, and still have 23 another 50% to go to get really a better 24 understanding? 25 I agree with you 100%, there's never 56 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 enough data. You say how much data are you 3 going to need before you can finally say red is 4 red. 5 Does everybody feel comfortable that we're 6 on the right track? Is everybody comfortable 7 that what we're learning is critical to the 8 understanding for the model to do what it's 9 meant to do, which was the first point you 10 made, or do we still have a ways to go, in 11 terms of technology that's associated with all 12 of this? Anybody can answer these questions. 13 MR. WATSON: I think I can say a little 14 bit about that. Again, I very carefully 15 preserve my independence on this. In fact, my 16 contract -- you know TetraTech is writing 17 checks. I basically have a clause in there, I 18 can say anything I want and they can't do 19 anything about it. They have to pay me, if 20 anybody is concerned about my independence on 21 that. 22 I think TetraTech's doing a pretty good 23 job with the enhanced grid. They have been 24 very receptive to suggestions. It has required 25 a little bit of change of philosophy on their 57 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 part on the use of bottom friction. 3 I'm happy to say that they responded to 4 that. Whether we are 90% or 10% down the road, 5 Chris, I don't think we can say that just yet. 6 When the enhanced grid numbers are crunched, 7 we're either going to be 90% down the road or 8 10% down the road. 9 MR. SCHUBERTH: That answers it. That's 10 all I want to hear. 11 MR. WATSON: What, basically, happens -- 12 my opinion -- that's another thing, I'm 13 speaking purely for myself, not any agencies, I 14 basically just contracted to look at the 15 uncertainty of the model. It's up to you guys 16 and the agencies to decide whether it's 17 adequate for their policy purposes. 18 There's going to be differences of 19 opinion. I want to make it clear, I'm speaking 20 as a scientist. So what's tolerable for me 21 as a scientist or intolerable for me as a 22 scientist is that thing, we don't understand 23 this river. That may not have an impact on the 24 policy side. 25 With that caveat, I think what's going to 58 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 have happen, when the enhanced grid is done, we 3 will have the charts and data that says, if we 4 make a prediction that X parts per thousand at 5 a given site, is it accurate plus or minus Y? 6 At that point, the agencies are going to 7 have to look at it and go, is that good enough 8 for making a policy decision or not. 9 And again, the criteria that I'm 10 recommending that we look at the natural 11 variability of the river, see how well the 12 model is doing on that. 13 From my perspective, if that 25 and 75% 14 competent lines within that natural 15 variability, the n I think we got a good model. 16 If it's not, nobody wants to hear this, if it's 17 not, then I think we have to back up and look 18 at the model. 19 I don't think there's anything inherently 20 wrong with the EFDC model. I've been through 21 the code. It looks pretty solid. I think it 22 can do this job. The enhanced grid, I'm very 23 optimistic that the enhanced grid is going to 24 do this. 25 The preliminary numbers, it looks like 59 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 uncertainties are going to be maybe as much as 3 a third to a quarter of what the uncertainties 4 were in the TMDL model. So that's great 5 progress. 6 I think in another three weeks we'll have 7 the answer to your question. At least, I'll 8 have an opinion as to the answer for your 9 question. Again, the agencies are going to 10 have to look at it say, is this amount of 11 uncertainty enough for us to make a decision or 12 not, and to a lesser extent, all of you. 13 MR. DYSART: Before I call on Bob, let me, 14 just for the record, would you state what EFDC 15 slash WASP stands for? Speak slowly so we can 16 get it on the record. 17 MR. WATSON: EFDC, Environmental Fluid 18 Dynamics Code, and WASP is -- 19 MR. HOKE: Water something. 20 MR. WATSON: Yeah, water something. 21 MR. DYSART: There's a door prize if 22 anybody figures it out. 23 MR. WATSON: You will find it before I do. 24 MR. DYSART: Bob, ask your question while 25 they're looking. 60 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 MR. SCANLON: I really want to get Chuck's 3 attention because it is directed at him 4 listening. 5 MR. WATSON: I'm listening -- Water 6 Quality Analysis Simulation Program -- what did 7 I win, silent Q. Did you get that? 8 MR. DYSART: She never misses. 9 MR. SCANLON: Your primary concern appears 10 to be that you felt it was over-calibrated, and 11 the focus on the over-calibration appeared to 12 be on the friction component, is that -- 13 MR. WATSON: Yes. 14 MR. SCANLON: Due to the fact the enhanced 15 grid is now eliminating that, do you feel more 16 confident, and will you say the jury is still 17 out; let's not get too concerned about where we 18 are right now, because we haven't seen the -- 19 MR. WATSON: Yeah. If -- if it persisted 20 with the friction coefficients as they were, 21 there would be no hope of getting this right, 22 in my view. I think they're well down road. I 23 think we have a good shot at getting this 24 right. 25 MR. SCANLON: I also would like to make a 61 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 comment, kind of follow-up to Judy's comment 3 about the difference between TMDLs and the 4 deepening model, saying one is apples and one 5 is oranges. 6 I would say they're both grapes. The 7 question becomes in some cases they may be 8 sour, in other cases they may be sweet. 9 But I think the good news on this whole 10 issue is that once a model is accepted, it will 11 be used for all purposes. The difference 12 between the two models is going to go away. 13 The only reason there is a distinction now 14 is because there was a requirement to have a 15 TMDL issued by August 30th of this year, so 16 they had to go with something. They went with 17 something they weren't really happy with. What 18 they will be happy with is what we finally wind 19 up through this process. 20 So they will -- the issue will go away. 21 there will not be distinctions between the two. 22 TMDLs will all be redone and reevaluated on the 23 same model that's finally accepted. 24 MR. DYSART: Will, did I call on Will? 25 Did you finish? 62 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 MR. BERSON: That was one of those rare 3 moments when my question was answered in the 4 course of Chuck's response to Chris. 5 MR. DYSART: Ed has his card up and then 6 David Kyler. 7 MR. EUDALY: One area, just an area of 8 clarification. If I understand it, Joe, your 9 presentation was based on the TMDL but with a 10 refined grid, is that correct? 11 MR. HOKE: The First part was with the 12 enhanced model, the first part of the slides I 13 showed. The second part when I was talking 14 about the 1854 depth, that was the TMDL grid. 15 MR. EUDALY: Okay. And then all your 16 results you presented were just from the TMDL 17 model. 18 MR. WATSON: Just the TMDL. 19 MR. EUDALY: One question, Chuck. You 20 talked about how the mass transport, looking 21 at salinity and all that. What are the 22 implications, since there are some problems 23 with TMDL handling all that, what are the 24 implications on the DO predictions from that 25 result? 63 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 MR. WATSON: DO is a derived quantity, 3 therefore, you would expect, and it's dependent 4 on salinity, you would expect there would be an 5 equally wide range in the DO predictions. A 6 little outside of my scope for this, but the 7 implications for the DO are not good. 8 MR. SCANLON: Ed, that's exactly the 9 reason I raised that issue. That's EPA concern 10 with it right now, and why they are pursuing, 11 make sure we do have a model that they're 12 confident with. 13 MR. DYSART: David. 14 MR. KYLER: I admit, I feel a little bit 15 like a chimpanzee trying to learn contract 16 bridge here, but I'm handicapped both by 17 memory, and comprehension of the technology, 18 and the expertise you have. 19 As I recall, the model that we have 20 rejected and are now trying to recover from by 21 the work you're doing was rejected, in part, on 22 the basis of inability to model simulate a 23 vertical mixing. I didn't hear the term 24 mentioned today, unless I missed it. Is that 25 a much later stage in this development of the 64 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 model? 3 MR. WATSON: No. Actually what Joe showed 4 were different vertical levels. Actually, that 5 is an indication of vertical mixing in the 6 model. Also, I've been looking at it from a 7 separate standpoint. It's a little bit of a 8 problem because our long-term stations are only 9 at the mid depth level, so we don't have -- 10 that's one of the aspects, actually, from a 11 data collection standpoint. 12 I'd like to see vertical profiles under 13 other conditions at different points in the 14 river. That's kind of the gray zone between 15 we've got to have it, and we can do without it. 16 Vertical mixing, it seems okay. I'm a 17 little concerned about, as you noticed in one 18 of the slides, the range wasn't quite as high 19 as you would like to see. Again, that's on the 20 enhanced grid. On the TMDL, that's 21 problematic. 22 The methodology is okay, but I think the 23 bottom friction was messing up the vertical 24 mixing. The bottom friction, for those of you 25 who don't remember your Nabier-Stokes 65 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 equations, N-A-B-I-E-R, S-T-O-K-E-S. That's 3 sort of the smart-alec way of saying fluid 4 mechanics questions. 5 So I guess the short answer to your 6 question is, in the TMDL model, vertical mixing 7 was problematic, in my opinion, because of 8 bottom friction, and bottom friction propagates 9 non-linear through the water column. I think 10 that the enhance grid has a much better shoot 11 at getting the vertical mixing right. 12 MR. DYSART: Joel Fleming has a question 13 for you. 14 MR. FLEMING: I've got a question. It's 15 fairly simplistic, I would think. It's 16 probably, obviously, the first question that we 17 looked at; what is the actual change going to 18 be? 19 We'd all like to know that answer. I 20 guess my question is, we know actual -- we can 21 at least model actual change that's happened, 22 apparently, since 1854. That was deepened X 23 amount of times, this happened. 24 When we get that number, we know how much 25 salinity changed at a certain site. We should, 66 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 by the same rationale be able to say 3 proportionally, we can expect somewhere a 4 change of 10 to 30 parts per thousand. If we 5 get a 30 parts per thousand change in salinity, 6 these minor -- relatively speaking minor error 7 rates won't matter. 8 Is that -- do we have any feel, at this 9 point, for what the actual changes will be and 10 what that potentially error rate percentage 11 might be? 12 MR. HOKE: Are you talking about some of 13 the different deepening alternatives? 14 MR. FLEMING: Right. If we deepen the 15 harbor by 10 feet, we can reasonably expect a 16 certain change. Now, obviously, we don't know 17 that number, but are these error rates even 18 going to matter if it changes by 30 -- 19 MR. WATSON: Right now -- right now the 20 error rates are far in excess of what we would 21 expect to see, as a result of deepening. I can 22 show you real quick. 23 Thanks for pitching the lights real quick. 24 This is Houlihan Bridge. The others are in the 25 report, if you want to look at it. 67 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 Again, this is the wrong slide. This 3 green line is the frequency of salinity, at 4 Houlihan Bridge, before the last project. The 5 red line is the frequency of occurrence of 6 salinity levels, at Houlihan Bridge, after the 7 last project. 8 You can see the difference, especially in 9 the important band here, mid to low frequency, 10 is about -- look at percentages. Here's it's 11 about .1. These are maps. It's a little hard 12 to tell. 13 You can see, basically, that's what the 14 difference was, whereas that is what the 15 model's error rate is. So the error rate is 16 probably four times higher than the what 17 observed difference in salinity was last time. 18 MR. FLEMING: Would you get that same 19 proportion, if you went downstream? Obviously, 20 the salinity went up. 21 MR. WATSON: At either end, upriver I-95 22 it's down to noise level anyway. If you are 23 down at the south end, further down the river, 24 the salinity gets so high you're at the high 25 end. 68 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 It's this middle band in the middle part 3 of the river where you're getting the wedge 4 moving back and forth. As I understand it, 5 especially Fish and Wildlife folks can probably 6 answer this, as I understand it, it's not just 7 the peaks but also frequency. 8 If you get a little peak every now and 9 then, it's a whole different standpoint than 10 if the average salinity is above a certain 11 level, or the frequency of salinity is above 12 a certain level, in terms of environmental 13 impact, is that a fair? So you know you've got 14 to get magnitudes right, you've got to get 15 frequencies right, is that fair? 16 MR. ROBINETTE: Yes. The peaks are 17 important, usually because that's usually 18 what's flooding out on the marsh, and has the 19 potential to change the plant community, if the 20 salinity is high. 21 MR. WATSON: That's where we're in 22 trouble. The model currently is 23 over-estimating the peaks and under-estimating 24 the lower end from the TMDL side. Anyway, did 25 that -- 69 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 MR. FLEMING: Yeah. We just don't know. 3 MR. WATSON: Bottom line line response, 4 yeah. 5 MR. FLEMING: Start at square one. 6 MR. WATSON: Real quick. Right where we 7 are now, model error is greater than the 8 probable difference, likely to result from the 9 deepening. 10 Obviously, what we want to do, we are on 11 track -- in fairness, we are on track, is get 12 the model error smaller than the difference 13 from the last project. 14 MR. DYSART: John, are you through with 15 your question? Bill. Go ahead. 16 MR. BAILEY: Chuck, your blue line there, 17 it's a higher frequency; what does the blue 18 represent? 19 MR. WATSON: The frequency of a current 20 as predicted by the TMDL model. 21 MR. BAILEY: With the '99 data set? 22 MR. WATSON: Overall, that was '97 to 23 2003. 24 MR. BAILEY: Okay. Okay. 25 MR. WATSON: It's over -- way over 70 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 predicting salinities at that low end -- 3 over-predicting at the peaks. Kind of gets 4 clipped off the edge of the chart. 5 MR. ROBINETTE: The difference between the 6 salinities, at Houlihan Bridge before the last 7 deepening and after the deepening, do you -- 8 have you looked at those differences, at the 9 same flows and the same tides? 10 MR. WATSON: Yeah. 11 MR. ROBINETTE: Because there you're 12 looking at the frequency. 13 MR. WATSON: You're right. 14 MR. ROBINETTE: It Looks like the salinity 15 is lower at one point after you -- 16 MR. WATSON: That's correct. That's 17 because all the frequencies that were down here 18 were in this band. You're right. 19 If you look at a given lower frequency, 20 say two parts per thousand, it occurred more 21 often before the last project. If you look at 22 eight or 10 parts per thousand, you never saw 23 10 parts per thousand before the last project, 24 but now you are seeing it. Is that -- 25 MR. ROBINETTE: Okay. 71 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 MR. WATSON: You're right. It's both. 3 The frequency, when you look at a mass graph, 4 obviously if you take away the mass high end, 5 it's going to flow into the lower frequencies 6 and vice versa. 7 MR. DYSART: Further questions, comments, 8 clarifications? Will Berson. 9 MR. BERSON: I just wanted to thank you. 10 That was really very helpful, and do you teach 11 bridge? 12 MR. WATSON: I have taught classes in 13 fluid mechanics. 14 MR. BERSON: I never learned those 15 equations to begin with. 16 MR. DYSART: I think these presentations 17 have been very helpful. We appreciate them. 18 The discussion has been obviously been 19 spirited, and folks have learned a great deal. 20 we appreciate you being with us today. We 21 appreciate the interim committee suggesting 22 that you be brought here. Chris. 23 MR. SCHUBERTH: Before we leave this, 24 what's our next step in this entire discussion 25 with the modelling? Are we going to continue 72 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 to have updates that are meaningful, and like 3 this was both a meaningful production -- I mean 4 I've learned more in the hour and a half that 5 I've been here in almost all the other 6 discussions. I have a sense I understand it. 7 I think Chuck made an effort to bring us 8 all pretty much on the page of this business of 9 modelling. Has this become a regular agenda 10 item, or do we have rattle the cage a little 11 bit to get another presentation? 12 I'm just asking a question. I mean, is -- 13 what's the protocol regarding this specific 14 topic? 15 MR. DYSART: I would presume one thing is 16 this would depend on the discussion at the 17 interim committee meetings, if there is a 18 recommendation there -- 19 MR. SCHUBERTH: So have we become the 20 point of the spear? The interim committee -- 21 is the interim committee the point of the 22 spear? 23 MR. DYSART: That seemed to be the will of 24 body some months ago, that group would decide 25 what was going to be put on the agenda. 73 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 MR. SCHUBERTH: You mean we have vested in 3 us this enormous power? 4 MR. DYSART: Anyone else who wants to put 5 anything on can also -- 6 MR. SCHUBERTH: Seriously, Teri, is that 7 sort of the -- 8 MS. BEARD: That's what I would assume. 9 MR. SCHUBERTH: All right. So it's in the 10 record so we understand. 11 MR. DYSART: Will Berson. 12 MR. BERSON: I thought I understood you to 13 say that many of these corrections you expect 14 to be incorporated relatively quickly, like in 15 the next. 16 MR. WATSON: Bathymetry and the friction 17 changes have already been incorporated. What 18 I'm waiting for the next phase of my 19 analysis, which is to do an uncertainty 20 analysis on the enhanced grid. 21 TetraTech is finishing doing some 22 tweaking, and they are finishing their input 23 files. One of the biggest burdens, in doing 24 this kind of modelling, is getting the boundary 25 conditions, because they changed their grid. 74 1 PRESENTATION - CHUCK WATSON 2 they're having to change all these long 3 period time boundaries. Currently, they only 4 have '97 and '99. In order to do my study, 5 I've got to have '97 to 2003. 6 They're still working on that. I think 7 Steve Davie said they expect to have that in 8 the next few days. So I'm not sure what's next 9 on the agenda. 10 MR. HOKE: Once they get to where they're 11 satisfied with the calibration, and you're 12 satisfied with the calibration, then we'll go 13 back, send all those revised draft reports out 14 to the agencies for review, and try to get 15 everybody in on it. From that point, we 16 proceed with the different deepening scenarios. 17 MR. WATSON: It's Supposed to be March. 18 MR. HOKE: Supposed to be March the 9th. 19 I'm skeptical, but -- 20 MR. DYSART: Teri gets the last question 21 or comment before we take a break. Teri. 22 MS. BEARD: The final report is due the 23 9th of March. Does that mean, Chuck, you'll 24 have your stuff done as well? 25 MR. WATSON: My stuff will be done seven 75 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 to 10 days after I get the final blessed 3 version of the enhanced grid model. That's all 4 I'm saying about that. 5 MS. BEARD: Okay. 6 MR. DYSART: Okay. Let's take a 10 minute 7 break. Thank you, gentlemen. 8 (Short Break) 9 MR. DYSART: Okay. Let's resume the 10 meeting. We have now finished the scientific 11 briefing section. And according to the agenda, 12 we didn't have any old business that got 13 carried over. 14 So let's go to committee reports or 15 updates to share what's happening within the 16 various standing committees. Chris, how about 17 the Aquifer Committee? While he is -- how 18 about Beach Erosion; anything happening in the 19 Beach Erosion, Lou or whomever? 20 MR. OFF: I just reported, according to 21 Bill Farmer, there is approximately three 22 reports that had been promised to be done, but 23 I've not heard anything back as to if, when, 24 why they're going to be done. 25 MR. DYSART: Chris, do you have anything 76 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 to share with us from the Aquifer Committee 3 area? 4 MR. SCHUBERTH: No, not really, no further 5 meetings have taken place. I have communicated 6 with Card, to see at what point -- Card Smith, 7 to see at what point we might be able to 8 reconvene the Aquifer Committee to continue 9 discussion of the modelling work and the 10 coring that's being done. Card said he'd get 11 back to me in due course. 12 MR. DYSART: Okay. Thank you. How about 13 Fred. 14 MR. BEASON: No data, no meeting, no 15 report. 16 MR. DYSART: Hey, that's a report. 17 Economics Working Group, Judy. 18 MS. JENNINGS: Yeah. I suppose I've been 19 negligent. I think I owed a phone call to 20 somebody, because at the interim SEG meeting 21 there wasn't anything new ready for us, but I 22 guess I can ask, is there anything new ready 23 for us? 24 For instance, the last thing I knew was 25 the world fleet, existing and projected, and I 77 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 haven't seen anything since so commodity 3 forecast, is that what we're waiting on now? 4 MR. BAILEY: I get them a little confused, 5 of which one is which. The short answer is 6 there's nothing to review. The one I think was 7 a commodities report was the one that was 8 furthest along. I think we haven't heard back 9 from our contractor on the questions we asked 10 him on the report. 11 MS. JENNINGS: Okay. That's where I think 12 we were about a month ago. So my report on 13 this is that I'll continue to talk Alan and 14 Bill and Morgan, and make sure we know when the 15 reports are available, so we can gather the 16 Economics Working Group together and share that 17 information with those would want to talk about 18 that. 19 I don't mean to make that as a declarative 20 statement. Is it a consensus of those who are 21 involved? I guess I need to hear from the 22 Corps and GPA. 23 MR. SCHALLER: Yes. 24 MR. DYSART: And the Corps. 25 MR. BAILEY: Yes. 78 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 MR. DYSART: Okay. 3 MS. JENNINGS: Thanks. 4 MR. DYSART: Anything else? Okay. 5 MS. JENNINGS: I took that as a yes. 6 MR. DYSART: That's what it sounded like. 7 Will, how about the Fisheries and Aquatic 8 Resources area? 9 MR. BERSON: As Fred Beason said, no 10 meeting, no data, no report; however based on 11 what I heard today, I expect that, as the model 12 results move forward, that should change. 13 I think Joel and I were just talking a 14 little bit. We may combine our efforts to have 15 a Fisheries and Striped Bass committee meeting 16 or merge the two. 17 MR. DYSART: Okay. Judy, question. 18 MS. JENNINGS: Just a clarification. I 19 want to make about the Economics Working Group 20 material. Of course I knew this, but it just 21 wasn't obvious to me, backing up just a minute. 22 I was asking about how we do projections 23 at different channel depths, and I was thinking 24 at each channel depth, we'll need the Savannah 25 fleet forecast to know what ships we're 79 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 preparing for. 3 Bill reminded me that's not true at all, 4 that we're preparing for the design vessel that 5 the ship simulation studies were run on. So 6 just in terms of thinking about Economics 7 Working Group, that was a mistake I was making. 8 If it's not clear, let's discuss it. 9 MR. REES: Yeah, I'm not sure that's 10 correct. 11 MS. JENNINGS: It was a revelation to me. 12 I just want to make sure, did I say it wrong or 13 what? 14 MR. BAILEY: For the impact side you don't 15 need to know the whole fleet. The impact side 16 -- the impact side will look at a channel 17 design to meet -- to pass the design vessel. 18 On the benefit side, you need to know the 19 fleet. 20 MS. JENNINGS: Yeah, but also on the 21 impact side too, because remember when we 22 talked about air quality impacts, we said that. 23 MR. BAILEY: Right, yes, on that one. 24 MS. JENNINGS: That's kind of an exception 25 to the rule. Morgan, are we on the same page? 80 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 MR. REES: I think so. Let me just make 3 sure that I understand. In analyzing the 4 impacts, there are some features of the fleet 5 that will be projected for each incremental 6 depth that may make a difference in the 7 analysis, such air emissions, but there will 8 be a different fleet projected for each channel 9 depth, and the economics will be based on that. 10 MS. JENNINGS: The economics will be based 11 on that? 12 MR. REES: Yes. 13 MS. JENNINGS: That part I think I was 14 clear on, but it just occurred to me today that 15 the Savannah fleet forecast at different 16 depths, would that change the input into the 17 H and S model for different depths; I think 18 what Bill and I agreed is it wouldn't. It 19 would go back to the design vessel. 20 MR. REES: Right. 21 MS. JENNINGS: Because that's what the 22 ship simulation was on. In terms of air impact 23 it would -- it would. Okay. 24 Conversation for Economic Working Group 25 meeting I guess, right. 81 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 MR. DYSART: Okay. Larry, do we have 3 anything relating to the Model Technical Review 4 Group? 5 MR. KEEGAN: No, Ben, we don't. That 6 group is inactive. 7 MR. DYSART: Okay. I will so note. 8 MR. SCHUBERTH: I can't recall, Larry, 9 Teri, didn't we discuss the MTRG, and for 10 future involvement of this is now kind of -- 11 does it make any sense to keep putting them in 12 this section six for report if they "don't 13 exist". 14 MR. KEEGAN: I believe we had some 15 discussion about it in one of the interim 16 meetings. I don't recall that we reached any 17 conclusion. 18 MS. BEARD: Yeah, I don't either. 19 MR. KEEGAN: If you want me to express an 20 opinion, I'd be happy to, but I'm not going to 21 volunteer. 22 MR. SCHUBERTH: Well maybe then let me 23 suggest at the next interim meeting we bring 24 this back up on the point of discussion. It 25 just doesn't -- they're an official group 82 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 recognized since day one. Should they continue 3 to be recognized five years from now, since 4 they're no longer active? 5 MR. DYSART: We will consider that as a 6 request for the interim -- why don't y'all 7 discuss that and bring us something back in the 8 form of a recommendation. Okay, Teri? Okay. 9 which gets us to Teri, Teri Beard, Interim 10 Agenda Ad Hoc Committee, anything you want to 11 say before you -- 12 MS. BEARD: Not really. The summary of 13 our meeting is posted. It's online, and the 14 recommendations from the committee were made to 15 Ben, the facilitator. And the next meeting 16 will be determined, at the end of this SEG 17 meeting, for whatever date the body chooses. 18 MR. DYSART: Okay. Anything from 19 Operating Guidelines. 20 MS. BEARD: No, not at this time. 21 MR. DYSART: How about Striped Bass 22 Committee? 23 MR. FLEMING: We have nothing to report at 24 this time. We haven't had any meetings. As 25 Will mentioned earlier, there has been some 83 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 discussion of combining Fisheries and Striped 3 Bass Committees together. 4 I wasn't here when those were formed or 5 separated to begin with, but it only makes 6 sense to have those as one entity. I don't 7 know what we need to do to combine those again. 8 MR. DYSART: I would suggest that you 9 perhaps and will and the interested committee 10 members might like to bring a recommendation 11 back to us. Okay. Thank you. Okay. 12 New business, we've had three items 13 requested to be put on the agenda. One was a 14 request for an authoritative commentary by 15 knowledgeable people concerning has the scope 16 of SHEP, Savannah Harbor Expansion Project 17 changed or been modified in any way? 18 So anyone knowledgeable on that subject, 19 they are invited to get a give a response. 20 MS. JENNINGS: Ben, there was a question I 21 had at the interim SEG meeting. Because of 22 time and other topics, I just wasn't sure I 23 heard an answer to it. Maybe the answer wasn't 24 ripe at the moment or whatever. But really, 25 I'm just trying to close a loop on a question I 84 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 had about a month ago. 3 MR. DYSART: Does anyone wish to speak to 4 that? Does anyone wish to speak to that? 5 MS. JENNINGS: Well, the answer's either 6 no or yes and here's how. 7 MR. BAILEY: The short answer is no. I 8 think the scope -- we're doing -- part of the 9 planning work is to look at a number of options 10 and try to identify the best one. 11 We are doing some work to try to screen -- 12 screen options, and basically that work is not 13 complete yet. We have -- essentially, we're 14 doing a -- it hasn't been approved by our 15 headquarters yet. We have given them something 16 for them to look at. We haven't gotten 17 something back yet that said yes, it's okay. 18 MS. JENNINGS: Then I guess I don't 19 understand the word options. Are you talking 20 about alternatives as in the EIS, or options -- 21 mitigation options. I don't understand 22 options. 23 MR. BAILEY: Options, basically starting 24 at the beginning of a project, if someone -- 25 sponsor says I want to increase -- I have a 85 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 problem with navigation. 3 You can say, develop a laundry list of 4 ways to improve the efficiency of navigation in 5 the harbor. Then you study those. You sort 6 through them and deepening would be one. 7 Another one may be doing something with 8 navigation aids, having -- changing navigation 9 aids so that they can come in faster. That 10 increases the efficiency and reduces the cost 11 of moving things through the harbor. 12 Looking at all those options is what we're 13 -- is part of what we've been doing. 14 MS. JENNINGS: Okay. Well, I guess 15 regardless of what the Corps decides about 16 which options are good, which options are bad, 17 is it within the purview of this body to know 18 what the options are being asked about? I 19 guess I'm a little out of my depth here. 20 MR. BAILEY: Well, a couple of years ago 21 at the meeting that you were at, when the Corps 22 folks came down, our division folks came down, 23 those things were talked about at that meeting 24 and decided what we should look at. 25 I think they were talked about then. I'm 86 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 not positive. There was a list. I'm not 3 completely sure. I know we talked about it to 4 some degree. We've just been working at that 5 and doing evaluations on those things. 6 We haven't reached the end, so in our mind 7 the scope hasn't changed yet. We haven't 8 gotten that analysis through headquarters yet. 9 When we do, then we'll share the results. We 10 intended to share the results with the SEG. 11 MS. JENNINGS: I guess it's not so much 12 when you tell me, but I'm trying to understand 13 what the conversation is. So I guess you're 14 saying expansion activities that are not 15 directly related to deepening. Okay. That's 16 what you mean by options? 17 MR. BAILEY: Uh-huh. 18 MS. JENNINGS: Okay. That might happen 19 concurrently with deepening? 20 MR. BAILEY: Yes, concurrently or instead 21 of. 22 MS. JENNINGS: I do understand that. 23 Thank you. 24 MR. DYSART: Okay. Any comments on any 25 other authoritative, knowledgeable comments on 87 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 that? Okay. The next one was commentary about 3 what is the status of the proposed port in 4 Jasper County, the impact on the EIS for this 5 project, and how the Corps will evaluate Jasper 6 as an alternative; any comment on that? Chris. 7 MR. SCHUBERTH: I don't have any comments 8 other than to say that all I know about this is 9 what I read in the paper. And people are 10 coming up to me and they say, you've been going 11 to these SEG meetings, something like that, for 12 the last six years, and you don't know a thing 13 about what's going on I've been reading about 14 in the newspaper. 15 I said well, that's my honest answer. So 16 is there anybody that can say something about 17 this? 18 MR. BIRDWELL: We can say that the Corps 19 of Engineers has, all along, maintained that 20 the easements we own in the disposal areas are 21 essential and vital to our continuation of this 22 federal project. 23 We own those easements for the disposal of 24 the dredge material, and that's what we use 25 them for. We consider the entire system as 88 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 one, all of it being vital. At this time, 3 that's our position. That's where we stand 4 because we own the easements. 5 Nothing else has changed on that, in the 6 time since that has occurred. Now, other 7 studies, I can't speak to because I don't know 8 -- I can't speak for Jasper County or for the 9 State of South Carolina. I can only tell you 10 what is. Right now what is is that we own 11 those easements for the use as a disposal area. 12 MR. DYSART: Okay. Chris. 13 MR. SCHUBERTH: So are you saying that all 14 this discussion, in the newspaper, about 10 15 years down the road or -- is not realistic? 16 MR. BIRDWELL: What I'm saying is we own 17 the easements to the property for the use as 18 the disposal area, and that's what we maintain 19 that we will continue to do with that, as long 20 as we own the easements, because that's 21 essential to our maintenance of this federal 22 project. 23 MR. SCHUBERTH: Let me ask, why is there 24 a different interpretation in the newspaper, 25 there will be a port there. 89 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 MR. BIRDWELL: I can't speak for the 3 newspaper. I haven't been a newspaperman for a 4 long time. 5 MR. SCHUBERTH: All right. I Just wanted 6 to get it into in the record. 7 MR. DYSART: Judy Jennings. 8 MS. JENNINGS: I guess a question I have 9 is what impact does it have on the harbor 10 deepening EIS and the evaluation of 11 alternatives. 12 Ever since Jasper -- I guess maybe forever 13 a question I've had is, how realistic does an 14 alternative have to be before it merits 15 consideration, formally in the EIS? I don't 16 know the answer to that. 17 Another question, I understand your 18 dedication to the easements, but I also realize 19 Congress could change that overnight, and what 20 impact does that have on the formulation of 21 alternatives in the EIS? 22 I guess -- I mean, I'm not asking the 23 questions to come back a year and a half from 24 now and say hey, this is the way it's supposed 25 to be, because this is what we said back in 90 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 February of 2005. 3 I'm just trying to understand the 4 preparation of the EIS and the evaluation of 5 alternatives is important. I don't know the 6 rules of engagement on it, I just don't, as in 7 how realistic does anything have to be before 8 it can be realistically -- and I believe 9 there's something going back to something from 10 a number of years ago. There was a letter 11 from SELC and an answer to about yes, we'll 12 evaluate Jasper. I'm not sure how that plays 13 anymore. 14 MR. DYSART: Bill Bailey. 15 MR. BAILEY: In the meeting back in 2002, 16 our headquarters people came down. At that 17 point, Jasper County was being talked about 18 back then. And they -- one of the things to 19 look at was alternative terminal locations. 20 There were questions then about that. So 21 it was looked at, one of those options 22 mentioned before was different terminal 23 locations. One of the ones we looked at was -- 24 well, actually we looked at a few on the South 25 Carolina side of the river. 91 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 We looked at that. The benefit analysis 3 is also going to do, basically, a sensitivity 4 analysis, a what if game. Figure up all your 5 benefits for one alternative -- well, what if 6 there's another, a new terminal somewhere else. 7 A certain amount of cargo goes there. 8 what is that -- what effect would that have on 9 your decision, on your other plan. So we had 10 agreed, a couple of years ago, to do that and 11 we intend to do that. 12 MS. JENNINGS: I understand sensitivity 13 analysis, but I guess I still am not quite sure 14 about the preparation of the writing down of 15 the EIS alternatives 16 THE REPORTER: I finally have something to 17 say. 18 MR. DYSART: Okay. 19 THE REPORTER: The last newspaper article 20 I read in the paper yesterday, South Carolina 21 is going to fight it out amongst themselves 22 first because of their Charleston port. 23 MS. JENNINGS: That's a very good point. 24 I guess that's what I'm asking, how much 25 uncertainty do you deal before you just say 92 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 we're not putting this down in the EIS, or when 3 you say -- 4 MR. DYSART: Hope, comment, question. 5 MS. MOORER: Judy, I didn't say earlier 6 because I missed this last discussion. I think 7 that Bill's explained, in terms of what goes in 8 the EIS, I think he explained that part of the 9 work of the EIS was alternative analysis, and 10 looking at, specifically, an alternative to 11 deepening all the way up to Garden City, would 12 it be a better alternative to look at Jasper 13 County. 14 We're waiting on all that to be finalized, 15 but we looked at that as part of the 16 alternative analysis. So that is part of the 17 work that will be included, within the EIS, 18 number one. From this project standpoint, is 19 that a better alternative, and it's an 20 extremely costly alternative, number one. 21 But that will be looked at as part of that 22 analysis. Then, from the economic standpoint, 23 we won't know, it seems like for a good while. 24 So the sensitivity to well, we go ahead 25 and do our economic analysis as if it weren't 93 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 there, but then treat it within the report, 3 with the sensitivity analysis. So okay, if it 4 is here and it takes away this much cargo, do 5 we still meet the requirements we need for this 6 project? Bill, am I saying the same thing? 7 MR. BAILEY: Correct. 8 MS. MOORER: That's just how I understand, 9 and all of that will be covered within that. 10 we don't know how far into this process before 11 it might be approved or might not approved, and 12 so until we, basically, get to the report, at 13 that point we'll know how much that has 14 progressed legally. 15 And until that time, this how we're 16 working, and how we've been approved also up 17 the line for headquarters and the Corps to 18 work. Okay, yeah, you're dealing with it, and 19 until you know better, and we may not know 20 anymore at the production of the report. 21 MR. DYSART: David Schaller. 22 MR. SCHALLER: Yeah, just to foot note 23 what Hope has said, there is criteria, I 24 believe it's in NEPA, about how you evaluate, 25 or analyze alternatives. I think they're 94 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 environmental. They're economic, what does it 3 cost to do those things. 4 And all that's going to happen, in terms 5 of the Jasper -- proposed Jasper port, as well 6 as I yield the floor to Morgan. I think NEPA 7 specifically addresses the issue of 8 uncertainties. 9 There appears to be uncertainty, with 10 respect to this question, needless to say. 11 MR. REES: If I can just pick up on what 12 David was referring to, when we had the meeting 13 with the headquarters' folks several years ago, 14 we had looked at all of the uncertainties 15 associated with a port in Jasper, as 16 distinguished from several alternative sites 17 that GPA may use on the other side of the 18 river. 19 We need to keep that distinction in mind. 20 There are some alternatives, that will be in 21 the report, that are not South Carolina or 22 Jasper County alternative sites. They are 23 alternative sites that the Corps would look at. 24 In addition, there is the Jasper County 25 proposal we all read about in the newspaper. 95 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 At the time we had the meeting we, staff, 3 concluded that there were too many 4 uncertainties about it, essentially no plans, 5 no costs, no anything that we knew other than 6 there was such a proposal. There was no way we 7 could deal with it, in a substantive way, in 8 the report. 9 That's why we recommended to headquarters, 10 as Bill said, we would address that Jasper port 11 proposal through a sensitivity analysis, rather 12 than through a direct analysis of direct 13 impacts, and so forth, because we have no idea 14 what the plans are for it. 15 As far as I know, that's still a valid 16 assessment of the issue. Nobody knows, outside 17 of a few people somewhere, I guess, what the 18 plan involves, what intermodal access 19 provisions it has, where the site is going to 20 be precisely, what the wetland impacts going to 21 be blah blah blah blah. 22 And NEPA provides for this expressly 23 through this sensitivity analysis. So that's 24 way we're approaching it. As Hope said, before 25 we get the report out, more is known about it, 96 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 then we have to look at what we do know about 3 it, but at this point in time nobody has come 4 forward with any information about any 5 substance about what's going to be involved in 6 that project. 7 So there's no way the Corps or GPA can 8 deal with it in the report, other than 9 according to the NEPA process of the 10 sensitivity analysis. 11 MR. SCHALLER: The facts, as they exist 12 today, are as described by Mr. Birdwell, and 13 Georgia DOT holds the deed to the property fee 14 simple deed. So those are the things that we 15 know today. 16 MR. REES: Bill, was that a fair 17 characterization of what we're doing? 18 MR. SCHALLER: Yes, we're not trying to 19 talk for the Corps. 20 MR. REES: Having been a Corps planner, 21 you just have to say these things outright, you 22 know. 23 MS. JENNINGS: Yes, and I appreciate it 24 all. The question comes from my lack of 25 in-depth knowledge on the NEPA rules on 97 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 sensitivity analysis. 3 MR. REES: Yeah, just let me go a half 4 step further without endangering anything. I 5 use the term sensitivity. It used to be called 6 worst case and then SEQ removed the term worst 7 case from the NEPA regulation. 8 It amounts to if there's some information 9 that would provide for a fuller evaluation, you 10 should get it unless, and it gives some 11 criteria -- unless it's not able to be known, 12 unless it is far more costly than it would be 13 justified by acquiring the information. Then 14 you don't have to get it. Then you treat it 15 through the sensitivity analysis. 16 MR. DYSART: Teri. 17 MS. BEARD: I have a question actually 18 relating to the last item. Sitting here just 19 thinking about this, Bill, you said that you 20 were waiting for communications from 21 headquarters as to screen the options. When do 22 you think you'll have that decision? 23 I know that's like, you know tossing the 24 dice on the table, rubbing the crystal ball. 25 in my mind, it's an item I didn't even know 98 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 anything about. I want to make sure I can 3 follow up on it. When do you think that might 4 come down the pipeline? 5 MR. BAILEY: We have been having monthly 6 interim meetings. I would hope we would have 7 something else, some new information by then. 8 I would hope it would be approved by then. 9 MS. BEARD: Maybe by the March meeting? 10 MR. BAILEY: Yes. 11 MR. DYSART: Judy, did that get enough 12 discussion to satisfy you for now? 13 MS. JENNINGS: Yes. I appreciate it. I 14 just think it's something that will continue to 15 come up. I don't think we'll say anything more 16 about for now. 17 MR. DYSART: Okay. The next agenda item, 18 the ad hoc interim committee requested that the 19 topic of communication be put on the agenda. 20 It is there. Could you clarify what aspects of 21 communication you would like to have spoken to? 22 MS. JENNINGS: Teri's going to stick me 23 with me this one. 24 MS. BEARD: I was going to open the floor 25 and Larry, and Chris, anyone else at this 99 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 meeting, feel free to jump in. It was my 3 understanding there was some concern over 4 communication, in the sense of access to 5 information within the Corps, is that correct, 6 when it comes to NGOs or people not necessarily 7 within the Corps process? 8 I think we concluded that there is limited 9 ability, on an NGO's or the SEG's part, to 10 assert themselves, but there's still 11 significant concern over that. Do you want to 12 clarify, that's sort of -- 13 MS. JENNINGS: Yes. My problem very 14 specifically was when we working on a 15 model, and I realize that while there might be 16 a good deal of scientific and technical 17 similarity, in the model development with TMDLs 18 and harbor deepening, there are very divergent 19 political interests and other things that play. 20 I was disappointed that SEG wasn't at 21 least notified of the late October meeting, 22 when there was like a three day primer on 23 here's the model, and here's how we do it. 24 I think there were people, who have 25 interacted in this body for almost six years 100 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 now, that did not fall into the category of 3 Corps or interagency, but -- but the meeting 4 had broader application, and was applied -- 5 applied more broadly than interagency. I would 6 just like to an ask, in the future when 7 opportunities like that available, that at 8 least notification with -- to the broader SEG 9 membership happen. 10 MR. DYSART: Any other members -- 11 MS. JENNINGS: Am I not being plain? I 12 just think it was a valuable opportunity that 13 was lost to some people, but people who do have 14 an interest in the development of the EFDC 15 model and its application to TMDLs and the 16 enhanced EFDC model and its application to 17 harbor deepening. 18 I think it was a missed opportunity, and 19 maybe lack of communication, which is why it 20 gets listed as communication. 21 MR. DYSART: Chris. 22 MR. SCHUBERTH: I think the point that 23 Judy is making can be summed up in a single 24 word, and I've mentioned this over the years. 25 It periodically sort of raises its head and 101 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 it goes back down again, and comes back up 3 again, and that's the word marginalization. 4 I sometimes personally feel I can speak 5 eloquently on a subject and say something of 6 significance, but because I don't represent a 7 federal agency, I don't represent a state 8 agency, I don't represent anything other than 9 the academic world that, okay, we'll listen but 10 we'll go off and do our own thing. 11 I have to say in defense, we have come a 12 long way in the six years that we've talked, 13 kazillion words have been recorded for the 14 record. 15 I think communication, has indeed truly 16 been opened, and personal friendships have 17 grown out of opposing viewpoints on different 18 topics. We've gone beyond that. 19 It's come out very clearly in the Aquifer 20 Committee, for example. And whether this is 21 simply looking at a strawman, don't want to 22 lose the communication aspect that I think has 23 grown up in this body. 24 If Judy feels that there was a particular 25 meeting, that was held at a particular time, 102 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 and certain key people came because they were 3 the knowledgeable scientists, they were the 4 knowledgeable technicians, they were the 5 computer jocks, they were the knowledgeable 6 modelling people; it would have been nice, if 7 that's the case as she's describing, if 8 somebody else, who is not one of these people, 9 who is just there and says what's being said. 10 The meeting today with Joe's presentation 11 and Chuck's presentation was, I must say the 12 best presentation in the five years that ATM 13 had been doing all of that work for all those 14 years. 15 They said work is in progress. Next 16 meeting work is in progress. Next meeting, 17 work is in progress. No communication, and 18 then you find out that well, I think we hatched 19 the white elephant. So that's why 20 communication, I think, is very important. 21 I think that's why it was placed here. 22 And how it's to be resolved may not be anything 23 that's pointed and direct. It just may be that 24 meetings are being called, a loop goes out that 25 includes representatives from here, or the 103 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 chair of this committee or that committee, to 3 have the opportunity to say no, I don't want to 4 go to the meeting. 5 MR. DYSART: Hope. 6 MR. SCHUBERTH: That's like a wet blanket. 7 MS. MOORER: David, don't get mad at me, 8 but I want to take a little bit of exception to 9 that, the reports ATM did generate on the model 10 were out there. They were posted and those 11 meetings were open to the MTRG members and 12 other members from SEG. 13 And while Chuck -- I think Chuck has great 14 skill in bringing down the knowledge, and the 15 communication, to a level that's much more 16 understandable, and so that's something we can 17 appreciate from Chuck. I'm glad that the Corps 18 has also decided to be involved in 19 communicating about the progress of it. 20 I think that we have tried to present as 21 much information as we had, that was out there, 22 to this body when requested, and in general at 23 each of these meetings. I'm sorry, I just 24 wanted to interject that. 25 MR. DYSART: Chris. 104 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 MR. SCHUBERTH: Hope, you're absolutely 3 right. I apologize for saying it the way I 4 said it. The difference is that while it's out 5 there on the Internet, lord have mercy. I 6 opened up that site, I tried to read and 7 understand what site is saying to me, I just 8 couldn't do it. 9 It's not -- the information is in the 10 public domain, that's very true, but it 11 requires -- I think that's why some of us 12 teach. 13 It requires interpretation of the 14 textbook, so to speak. This interpretation 15 requires meetings. That's the point I was 16 making. You're absolutely right. 17 Once before David had commented when I 18 said something a couple of years ago. It is 19 out there in the public domain, and I remember 20 I got my hand slapped. That's absolutely true. 21 so I do back off from having said it that way. 22 MR. DYSART: Other comments concerning 23 communication, access, interpretation, and 24 converting stuff into things that are useful 25 for this body? Judy. 105 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 MS. JENNINGS: Well, I'll tell you where I 3 left it, the late October meeting I do think 4 I'm assuming the Corps was the sponsor, since 5 TetraTech made the presentation. TetraTech is 6 the contractor to the Corps. 7 I think that was a missed opportunity. So 8 it may not even be a topic for this body to 9 decide, since the SEG has, you know, attached 10 to GPA, and the meeting was held by the Corps. 11 So my action was to write a letter to the 12 district engineer and ask that he please 13 consider his invitation list in the future. 14 That's what I did about it. I may or may not 15 get a -- 16 MR. DYSART: Communication? 17 MS. JENNINGS: Uh-huh. 18 MR. DYSART: Press. 19 MR. BROWNELL: Just one statement for the 20 benefit of those who are non-state or federal 21 agency representative, if any one of the group 22 ever wants to know anything about the fishery 23 resources, particularly the marine fishery 24 resources in Savannah, don't hesitate to call 25 us anytime. 106 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 MS. JENNINGS: I felt, I have to say this, 3 my issue here has nothing to do with broad 4 communication in general. It is very specific 5 to TMDLs and harbor deepening, and the 6 agencies that are involved in each one. 7 And maybe the Corps felt they were caught 8 in the middle. I don't know. I don't get a 9 reply. I want to be clear, I'm not complaining 10 about communication with agencies in general, 11 or with GPA, or with the Corps. 12 It's in this particular situation when 13 we're talking about setting TMDLs, or maybe 14 they weren't because I wasn't there to hear the 15 conversation and doing work on harbor 16 deepening. So this was very specific, not 17 general. 18 MR. DYSART: Any other specific, general 19 communication comments? Bob Scanlon. 20 MR. SCANLON: Just to state on the record 21 that you cannot separate TMDLs from harbor 22 deepening. 23 They are one and the thing. They're both 24 dealing with water quality. They have an 25 impact on water quality, and they cannot be 107 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 separated. 3 MS. JENNINGS: I could not agree more. 4 You were at the meeting and I wasn't notified 5 of it, so I could not agree with you more. I 6 think, in the long run, TMDLs and harbor 7 deepening would have been better off if this 8 body had been, at least, invited. 9 We know from past experiences you're not 10 inundated with attendance from such 11 invitations. 12 MR. DYSART: Further comments? Okay. 13 Communication has been communicated with the 14 body here. What about the next topic, 15 mitigation discussion, including discussion on 16 MacTech contract to look at dissolved oxygen, 17 requested also by the Interim Ad Hoc Committee. 18 MR. BAILEY: Okay. I can talk about that. 19 This is -- I'm not sure when -- a while ago. I 20 had come and presented some options to this 21 group for mitigation. 22 We talked about it. It had been kind of 23 an open item on the agenda for a number of 24 meetings and then kind of dropped, because 25 nobody had any more to add to it. 108 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 At that point, it was just kind of a list, 3 laundry list of potential mitigation options. 4 When we talked about it before, it was 5 different -- different resources of which water 6 quality and dissolved oxygen was one of those. 7 We issued a contract to MacTech to start 8 working on that for dissolved oxygen. The 9 actual scope of work is posted up on the SEG 10 website, been there for a couple of weeks 11 anyway. 12 It's basically an effort to screen through 13 those potential options, look at them, and to 14 identify which ones were -- which ones are 15 engineeringly feasible in this harbor, and work 16 up costs for those to identify the best -- best 17 way of improving dissolved oxygen. 18 It is titled Identification and Screening 19 Level Evaluation of Measures to Improve 20 Dissolved Oxygen in the Savannah River Estuary. 21 I'll read a couple -- first couple of 22 sentences from one section, the objective of 23 this study is to identify and conduct a 24 screening-level evaluation with potential 25 measures that could improve dissolved oxygen 109 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 in the Savannah River Estuary. 3 This analysis will include the engineering 4 feasibility and cost effectiveness of potential 5 improvement measures, as well identification of 6 implementation problems. The effort -- this 7 effort will be directed toward both the portion 8 of the harbor and the tidal year that were 9 identified in EPA's draft TMDL, dissolved 10 oxygen, as having recurring low levels of 11 dissolved oxygen. 12 So we hired someone to sort through all 13 those options, and to identify what other ones 14 they may know of that we didn't know of, then 15 to assess their feasibility and tell us which 16 ones they think are the most cost effective way 17 to improve dissolved oxygen levels. 18 We expect to have a -- the first report 19 back late in March. Then we have to look at it 20 internally, give them a chance to make whatever 21 corrections, so the end of April or May 22 probably we'll have a final report. 23 We don't know the level of impacts yet. 24 We know what the effects of a project level of 25 effects may be on dissolved oxygen, so we gave 110 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 them several targets. If you want to improve 3 dissolved oxygen by a certain amount, improving 4 bottom dissolved oxygen by .2 milligrams per 5 liter, then what's way to do that .2, .4, .6, 6 .8, tell us what the best way was. 7 So we're having that work done. We'll 8 have results in a couple of months. And 9 questions? 10 MR. DYSART: Any questions, comments? 11 Seeing none, it would appear that we have 12 gotten down to agenda item eight, next meeting 13 date. 14 What's the general feeling about how much 15 stuff is coming in, what would be a desirable 16 interval between now and the next meeting? 17 MR. SCHALLER: How about April 5th? 18 MR. DYSART: April 5th. 19 MS. BEARD: For clarification, are we 20 talking about the interim SEG or SEG meeting? 21 MR. SCHALLER: I'm talking about the SEG 22 meeting. 23 MR. DYSART: SEG, if it does not meet this 24 coming month, then there would be an interim 25 period for y'all to meet. We're talking about 111 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 what is the level of activity, what would seem 3 to be an appropriate interval for the next SEG 4 meeting. David, I believe, mentioned April 5 5th. Hope. 6 MS. MOORER: I think considering that the 7 modelling effort is not due till March 9th, 8 that is more than likely April 5th would be 9 a better target for the next meeting, 10 considering that work may be available by that 11 time. 12 MR. DYSART: Judy Jennings. 13 MS. JENNINGS: Yeah, just a question. 14 This is really a good turnout. At the interim, 15 this isn't our regular meeting date. We met on 16 the first Tuesday for many years. 17 Some people said they wanted it this way, 18 but we changed it. I'm just really impressed 19 with how many people are here. Just curious, 20 did you find date change of any consequence or 21 not? 22 I mean like at an interim SEG meeting, if 23 the Corps says, well we've got this really cool 24 product that's going to ready on the 10th, if 25 we could meet on the second Tuesday, we'd have 112 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 a more meaningful meeting. Was changing the 3 date a problem for anybody? I'm just curious 4 in the future, because a lot of us sat there 5 and pined over whether to change the date or 6 not, because we're like lemmings, we've been 7 coming here the first Tuesday for so many 8 years. 9 MR. DYSART: If you have got a timely 10 notification, like at least a month. Kind of 11 sitting on it, kind of -- I mean, I think 12 everybody needs some decent interval to plan to 13 be here as opposed to saying it could be any 14 Tuesday. 15 MS. JENNINGS: I'm not objecting to the 16 fact we put a date on the calendar. That way 17 you know you're coming to an SEG meeting. I'm 18 just curious and pleased that everybody managed 19 to show up on a date that you didn't have more 20 than a month's notice. 21 MR. DYSART: I would think if the interim 22 committee wants to make a change, they can get 23 that out immediately, without having to wait 24 for all the review of summary, that kind of 25 thing. That would be convenient, I think, for 113 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 most everybody. Chris. 3 MR. SCHUBERTH: I think we all know this 4 date was selected to accommodate the two 5 reports. Earlier in the month, when we 6 normally meet like lemmings, it would have been 7 too soon for them to have the reports, so we 8 pushed it over to this 15th date. 9 I think the system works well. The 10 interim committee would meet in March instead 11 of April 5th. If we think the middle of the 12 month is a little bit better, it could be 13 pushed down to the 12th. If that report, that 14 next presentation is going to be worked better 15 for them on the 12th of April, even the 19th of 16 April, then we'll meet on the 12th of April or 17 the 19th of April. 18 MR. DYSART: For Planning purposes, it's 19 been recommended the 5th, in other words two 20 months. 21 MR. SCHUBERTH: That's kind of where we've 22 been. 23 MR. DYSART: Is there a consensus, 24 everybody happy with that -- consensus is noted 25 around the table, April 5th, unless the interim 114 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 committee decides that, for some good reason, 3 they would like to slip in a week early. 4 MR. SCHUBERTH: When will the interim 5 committee meet? 6 MS. BEARD: That was my question, do we 7 have enough to talk about on the 1st? That's 8 only two weeks away. Do we need to push that 9 meeting further back in the month? What do you 10 think Larry and Bill, what day is the best? 11 MS. MOORER: What about March 8th, that 12 target date is March 9th, we'll know whether 13 the report is going to come out or going to be 14 finalized; how about that? That would push it 15 back one week. 16 MR. SCANLON: Can I make a suggestion that 17 we really look, I agree we'll know, but I think 18 it would really critical, very worthwhile to 19 have Chuck's analysis, which was another eight 20 to 10 days after that, to be included. 21 I would suggest making the -- maybe the 22 interim meeting there around that same time, 23 but really to get Chuck's input. I think Chuck 24 added something, I think, very valuable today. 25 I'd like to see his analysis of the model as 115 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 well. 3 MS. BEARD: Are we Saying the 15th now? 4 MS. MOORER: The only reason why -- the 5 15th, I think, would be fine with me. The only 6 reason why, we really want them to hold March 7 9th, but they may not. It may slip anyway. We 8 really want them to hold March 9th -- March 9 8th, push it to the 15th, that's fine with me. 10 MS. BEARD: Fine with me. 11 MR. REES: Let me just point out, I recall 12 Chuck said eight to 10 days for him to do his 13 thing when he gets the report. 14 So I don't know that we're going to know 15 anything more about Chuck's views on 15th than 16 we are on the 8th. 17 MR. SCHALLER: I think it's just to have 18 the interim meeting. 19 MS. JENNINGS: We won't discuss Chuck's 20 report in detail at the interim meeting. We 21 just want to know you got it or you don't. 22 MR. DYSART: How do you like meeting at 23 1:00 o'clock? Everybody happy with that. 24 chris said he was very happy. Okay. Teri. 25 MS. BEARD: Are we the 15th or the 8th? 116 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 Judy mentioned a concern that if we meet on the 3 15th, then we as a group decide April is not 4 going to work. That's not really timely 5 notice. That's only two weeks notice for 6 people changing the SEG date. Should we stick 7 with the 8th that was originally suggested. 8 That gives people at least three weeks 9 notice -- actually it gives about a month 10 notice. So let's stick with the 8th, if that's 11 okay. 12 MR. DYSART: Okay. So noted. John. 13 MR. ROBINETTE: I would like to move the 14 meeting back to 9:00 o'clock morning for folks 15 that travel from South Carolina. You can make 16 that in a one day trip, as opposed to getting 17 out at 5:00 o'clock, having to drive two hours. 18 It makes it much easier for those folks to get 19 in and out of town. 20 MR. DYSART: What is the sense around the 21 table, who has preferences of one time versus 22 the other? 23 MR. PRUSA: I prefer 9:00 o'clock. 24 MR. FLOCK: So do I. 25 MR. SCHALLER: Our facilitator has 117 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 trouble getting here for a 9:00 o'clock 3 meeting, from Tennessee, unless he comes a day 4 before. 5 MR. REES: Same with me. I can make it 6 down and back in the afternoon meeting, but 7 also how about if it's not 1:00 o'clock, 8 accommodating both the early folks and the late 9 folks and start at 10:00 or 10:30, run until 10 2:00. 11 MR. DYSART: What's the pleasure of the 12 group, you want to try that? 13 MR. REES: No, not including lunch, not 14 offering lunch. 15 MS. VAUGHN: It may be a problem with this 16 room. 17 MR. DYSART: How many favor staying with 18 the 1:00 o'clock period, as tried this time? 19 Raise your hands. 20 MR. REES: What was that, Ben? 21 MR. DYSART: Who prefers to stay with 1:00 22 o'clock, as tried this time -- one, two, three, 23 four, five six, seven, eight. Okay eight or 24 so. Who prefers meeting at 9:00 o'clock -- 25 two, four, six -- let's try it again at 1:00 118 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 o'clock. 3 MS. VAUGHN: This room is booked for 1:00, 4 at least next -- 5 MR. DYSART: And this is obviously 6 something that is worth thinking about, think 7 about it between now and then. If we need to 8 discuss this again next time, let's do it. 9 Okay, April the 5th, 1:00 o'clock here. I 10 declare the meeting adjourned. Thank you very 11 much. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 119 1 NEW BUSINESS 2 3 4 C E R T I F I C A T E 5 G E O R G I A 6 CHATHAM COUNTY 7 8 I hereby certify that the foregoing transcript 9 was taken down, as stated in the caption, and the 10 questions and answers thereto were reduced to 11 typewriting under my directions; that the forgoing 12 Pages 1 through 119 represent a true and correct 13 transcript of the evidence given upon said hearing, 14 and I further certify that I am not of kin or 15 counsel to the parties in the case; am not in the 16 regular employ of counsel for any of said parties 17 nor am I in anywise interested in the result of 18 said case. 19 20 This, the 25th day of February, 2005. 21 22 _______________________________ 23 Kathleen Dore, Certified Court 24 Reporter, B-2041 25