1 2 3 4 5 6 7 STAKEHOLDERS EVALUATION GROUP 8 MEETING 9 OF 10 DECEMBER 6, 2005 11 12 13 14 THE MIGHTY EIGHTH AIR FORCE MUSEUM 15 16 POOLER, GEORGIA 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 1 2 3 4 I N D E X 5 6 INTRODUCTIONS ------------------------------- 3 7 8 SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATION --------------------- 8 9 By Cardwell Smith 10 11 SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATION --------------------- 69 12 BY Mark Maimone 13 14 15 COMMITTE REPORTS ---------------------------- 148 16 MITIGATION DISCUSSION ----------------------- 156 17 18 CERTIFICATE --------------------------------- 177 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 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 9:00 a.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: Good morning. I'd like to 14 call the meeting of the Stakeholders Evaluation 15 Group to order. There didn't appear to be a 16 lot of people running through the parking lot, 17 and so we'll get things going. 18 I'm Ben Dysart, SEG facilitator, and it's 19 nice to see all of you here. Press Brownell 20 was commenting a few minutes, or Larry, or 21 several people commenting on, you know, several 22 years ago, you would think in a couple of years 23 we're going to get this all whipped out. We're 24 going to have a big celebration when we go 25 through the 100th month. 4 1 INTRODUCTIONS 2 Hopefully, we'll be through well before 3 then. But anyway, there a lot of familiar 4 faces, as usual, and some new faces around, and 5 everybody is welcome. Which way do you want to 6 start going this way -- we'll start in that 7 corner and go around, and give your name very 8 clearly, and indicate what your affiliation is, 9 how ever you wish, whatever flag you wish to 10 fly today. 11 MR. MAIMONE: I'm Mark Maimone. I work 12 for CDM. It's a consulting firm, and we did 13 the groundwater modelling. I'll be doing the 14 presentation this afternoon -- or this morning 15 on the groundwater model. 16 MS. McINTOSH: My name is Mackie McIntosh, 17 and I'm a geologist with the Corps of Engineers 18 here in Savannah. 19 MR. SMITH: Card Smith, geologist with the 20 Corps. 21 MR. GRIFFIN: David Griffin, Georgia 22 Department of Transportation. 23 MR. GARRETT: Alan Garrett, Army Corps of 24 Engineers, project manager. 25 MR. EUDALY: Ed Eudaly with Fish and 5 1 INTRODUCTIONS 2 Wildlife Service. 3 MR. FLOCK: Allan Flock, Savannah National 4 Wildlife Refuge. 5 MS. MOORER: Hope Moorer, Georgia Ports 6 Authority. 7 MR. SCANLON: Bob Scanlon, City of 8 Savannah. 9 MR. KEEGAN: Larry Keegan, consultant to 10 Georgia Ports Authority. 11 MR. REES: Morgan Rees, consultant, 12 Georgia Ports. 13 MS. VAUGHN: Cathy Vaughn, Georgia Ports. 14 MR. KYLER: Dave Kyler, Center for a 15 Sustainable Coast. 16 MR. FLEMING: Joel Fleming, Georgia DNR 17 Fisheries 18 MR. GADDIS: Gabe Gaddis, Georgia DNR 19 Fisheries. 20 MR. BAILEY: Bill Bailey, Corps of 21 Engineers. 22 MR. BROWNELL: Press Brownell with 23 National Marine Fisheries Service. 24 MR. DYSART: Ben Dysart, and I'm here -- 25 one of my main job is to try to keep Will 6 1 INTRODUCTIONS 2 Berson in line, which is frequently a 3 challenge, but anyway. 4 MR. BERSON: I'm Will Berson. I need a 5 lot of oversight. I'm with Georgia 6 Conservancy. 7 MR. WRIGHT: I'm Tom Wright. I guess I'm 8 the sole citizen here today. 9 MR. DYSART: Hopefully, everybody's also 10 a good citizen. Okay. You have in front of 11 you -- has that been passed around. 12 MS. VAUGHN: Sorry. 13 MR. DYSART: Okay. We'll skip a little 14 bit forward on that. I hope there's not a lot 15 of surprises on the draft agenda. But what 16 about the October transcript, which you've had 17 an opportunity to examine. 18 Are there any comments that need to be 19 made on the record, clarifications or what not? 20 Seeing no suggestions to that effect, we will 21 consider that the transcript, as posted from 22 the October 2005 meeting, is a fair and 23 accurate record of what transpired here. 24 Take a look at the draft agenda, which you 25 have just received, and this included 7 1 INTRODUCTIONS 2 considerable input from the Ad Hoc Committee. 3 And it seems to be working, functioning 4 smoothly now, and I appreciate that. And as 5 usual, any individual member who wishes to have 6 any input to the agenda is, in my view, 7 completely welcome to do so, as well as having 8 input to the Ad Hoc Committee as they consider 9 the recommended agenda for the next meeting. 10 Are there any changes, or any additions, 11 you would like to make to the draft agenda as 12 has just been circulated? 13 Okay. Seeing no suggestions, we will 14 operate under this agenda. And the first thing 15 we have this morning is, aquifer analysis 16 briefing by the Corps, requested by the interim 17 agenda committee. Who would like to kick that 18 off or introduce that? 19 MR. SMITH: I guess I will. We're going 20 to go ahead start, if you want to start now. 21 MR. DYSART: Card Smith said -- he didn't 22 use the word distinguished when he introduced 23 himself. He conveys the impression he is 24 distinguished. 25 MR. MAIMONE: I can vouch for that. He is 8 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 very distinguished. 3 MR. SMITH: He got paid to say that. 4 Well, good morning. We're glad to be here this 5 morning. We have an awful lot of ground to 6 cover this morning -- maybe I should say 7 underground to cover. 8 So what we'd like to do is I'm going to 9 talk about -- I'm going rehash, just very 10 briefly what -- some of what you may have -- 11 what some of you may have seen before when we 12 made the previous presentation on the data that 13 we collected, and then go from there and go up 14 to the point of the model. That's where Mark 15 Maimone will come in and take up the model. 16 Then we'll come back -- I'll come back and 17 try to wrap things up. What we were wondering, 18 we wanted to ask you if after I finish and 19 before we go into Mark, is it possible the 20 folks would like to take a break? 21 It's probably going to be 30 or 45 minutes 22 worth just on the first part. So if you would 23 like to do that, we don't have any problem at 24 all -- 25 MR. DYSART: Let's see to what extent 9 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 you've worn the group out and tried their 3 patience. 4 MR. SMITH: And as far as questions, I 5 guess what we'll say is that if you have a 6 burning question, that you feel needs to be 7 asked, go ahead and stop me and ask it. But 8 otherwise, if you could please hold it, we'll 9 try to allow time for questions, just try to 10 here as long as you want to ask questions too, 11 to go wherever you want to go with it. 12 Let me get logged back in here. Okay. 13 What we'd like to do is cover the report, of 14 which this is the title, Supplemental Studies 15 to Determine Potential Groundwater Impacts to 16 the Upper Floridan Aquifer. 17 This is report that's been out on the 18 website now for what, I guess several months, 19 hasn't it Larry, along with the comment that we 20 received so far on the report. 21 I'm going to kind of step through the 22 report in a summary fashion and try to move 23 through things. You've seen this slide before, 24 and this is -- I kind of like to start things 25 off with this. It's an ultimate shot of the 10 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 harbor project. 3 I usually say this is the way most folks 4 envision the harbor project, but when we look 5 at it in my office, this is what we think of 6 when we look at this project. The beauty in 7 the project is, for us, out of sight. 8 Also, we concocted this little block 9 diagram. This was actually generated from the 10 GIS, the geographic information system that we 11 developed and generated for this project. You 12 may not care or appreciate, but this is the 13 real data that went into making this little 14 model. Here's Ft. Pulaski. Of course, this is 15 the just a chunk out of the whole project. 16 This is the Ft. Pulaski, Tybee is out here. We 17 just wanted to use some real GIS data, bottom 18 data. 19 Of course, everything is exaggerated in 20 the vertical by a large amount. If you don't 21 do that, as we talked before, you just can't 22 pick up some of these features if everything is 23 in real scale or true scale. 24 But the point of this diagram, of course, 25 is just to show a slice into things, and show 11 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 maybe a little clearer picture, for some folks, 3 on how these paleochannels are oriented down 4 there, and varied. 5 They're underneath this surficial 6 material, and yet underneath the present 7 navigation channel, and these paleochannels 8 have certain breadth. Some of them are a half 9 mile wide, and some of them, undoubtedly, go on 10 for miles. 11 But this one here, for instance, might 12 come on up through here, come underneath Ft. 13 Pulaski, and come on over to Tybee. So they 14 wander around a lot down there. Of course, as 15 we know as part of this project, they're 16 significant features. But we're also just 17 trying to show the stratigraphy a little bit, 18 the surficial material here overlying the 19 confining unit, or the miocene confining layer 20 here in green, and the limestone of the 21 Floridan Aquifer. 22 Okay. Now, here's just a schematic of the 23 present day -- well, the pre-development and 24 modern day or present day groundwater flow 25 conditions in the Savannah area. 12 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 I know you've all seen these types of 3 slides on the USGS presentation. These are 4 actually a couple of the USGS slides we've 5 doctored up a little bit. Of course, the 6 situation in Savannah, in pre-development 7 or before pumping began about 80 or so years 8 ago, was one of artesian conditions, where 9 water in the aquifer was trying to come out of 10 the aquifer, and exerted a pressure to come 11 out. 12 So in these areas where we had 13 paleochannels and streams and rivers, the 14 freshwater was actually exiting up through the 15 confining unit, had enough pressure on it to 16 force it out and up. And this is the 17 potentiometric or potential head within the 18 aquifer. 19 If you drilled a well in the aquifer, this 20 is how high water rise above ground, sometimes 21 30 or 40 feet above ground level in those old 22 artesian conditions. 23 Well, then we started pumping. We pumped 24 more and more and more. So we're in the 25 situation we are today, where now this 13 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 potentiometric surface within the aquifer or 3 the height to which water would rise from the 4 aquifer, when you drill into the aquifer and 5 tap into it, is this blue line right here. 6 As you can see, it slopes back toward 7 Savannah, where there is a cone of depression 8 due to pumping in the Savannah area. But the 9 important part to our project is these arrows 10 now, instead of going out and up are now coming 11 down and headed towards the aquifer and headed 12 towards Savannah, ultimately. 13 And of course, the effect from that is to 14 pull seawater or saltwater down into these 15 paleochannels, and ultimately through the 16 confining unit and into the aquifer. I should 17 point out, you don't have to have a 18 paleochannel there for this to happen. This 19 can happen whether there is a paleochannel 20 there or not. 21 We learned some interesting things about 22 paleochannels we'll be showing you and their 23 effects on this situation. 24 Okay. So the main focus for us, for all 25 this work in this study, was to focus on the 14 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 effect of dredging on the chloride content of 3 the Upper Floridan Aquifer. When we first 4 started having meetings in the SEG, in the 5 Aquifer Committee, we went a lot of different 6 directions. 7 We talked about a lot of possibilities, 8 exploring different avenues of the saltwater 9 intrusion problem, but to us the central theme 10 has always been, and always needed to be for 11 this project, to stick solely to the effect of 12 dredging only on the chloride content of the 13 Upper Floridan Aquifer. 14 Early on, we talked about maybe we need to 15 determine the rate of saltwater intrusion and 16 things like that. Well, rate is one of those 17 things that kind of factors into the model that 18 Mark has done, but this is the bottom line to 19 us; no matter what the rate is, or any of the 20 other things, what is the effect on chloride 21 content of the Upper Floridan Aquifer. 22 What is the -- what is the effect to the 23 aquifer from chlorides, and we need to have an 24 idea of how long that's going to take to cause 25 a problem, if we keep things as they are now. 15 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 Okay. If we look at the cone of 3 depression, and again this cone of depression 4 is a depression in the potentiometric surface, 5 or the water surface from the Floridan Aquifer 6 that water would rise to if you tap the 7 aquifer. 8 Because of pumping in Savannah, we have 9 drawn that potentiometric surface down into a 10 cone of depression around Savannah, and that 11 cone has been as deep or has been changed as 12 much, in the past, as 130 feet or decreased 130 13 feet. It has come back up some now because of 14 a somewhat decrease in pumping. But 15 nonetheless, there is a cone still there. 16 The effect of that cone, the area we're 17 really interested in is the area within the 18 zero contour of that cone of depression, which 19 of course means anything inside the zero cone 20 is going to tend to want to go down through the 21 confining unit, into the aquifer, and towards 22 the center of pumping. It's being pulled 23 toward the center of pumping from all 24 directions. 25 So the real reason we want to show this 16 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 slide is if you look within that zero contour 3 at the sources of saltwater, or chloride laden 4 water, then about half of the area within the 5 zero contour is in more or less direct contact 6 with saltwater, whether directly in the ocean, 7 or the creeks and rivers, or the marsh. 8 There's a large area, within that cone, 9 that has access to saltwater. And again, what 10 we focused on was this little red band of the 11 river that comes through here. And this is 12 solely what we focused on, in all of our work 13 and in our model, not the effects from out 14 here, but only along the river. 15 Okay. Just want to throw up a quick 16 little schematic of a typical situation for 17 dredging in the channel with the elements that 18 we're concerned about, a paleochannel here, the 19 miocene confining layer in green, and the 20 Floridan Aquifer, and maybe a typical dredge 21 prism or dredge cut that might be done in that 22 area. 23 In some areas, where there are 24 paleochannels, the dredging project would be 25 cutting down into those paleochannels and into 17 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 the miocene, in places particularly where the 3 paleochannels exist. 4 Okay. An overall map of the project area 5 with just some of the elements of the work that 6 we've done, these are the borings that we've 7 done, Corps borings and otherwise, just along 8 the whole extent of the channel. And you see 9 there is a greater concentrations of borings 10 in this area. 11 This is the area, for lack of a better 12 term, we've been calling the area of concern. 13 It's from about station plus 30 here, about 14 Fields Cut, out to minus 30 off of Tybee. So 15 you've got about 60,000 feet there, that is an 16 area where the paleochannels are prevalent, and 17 we'll point out in a second. There are some 18 other extenuating facts or factors in this area 19 that make this area an area of particular 20 concern. 21 But as you can see, we also have borings 22 and even some wells that come all the way in 23 beyond the City of Savannah, particularly sheet 24 five and sheet 15 -- I'm not sure if there is 25 beyond that. 18 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 Okay. So these were the six basic 3 elements that we studied in this work, and 4 you've seen these before. We have talked about 5 these before. I just wanted to point these out 6 again to lay the groundwork, and for us to move 7 forward and step through each of these elements 8 a little bit to tell you what we've done in 9 each of these elements. 10 Okay. We've conducted additional 11 subbottom seismic surveying, and we 12 concentrated in that yellow area that you just 13 saw on the map, and the paleochannels areas. 14 that was our focus for the additional seismic 15 survey. 16 We've also conducted additional marine 17 core sampling and porewater analysis, and also 18 some land borings that we did the same thing. 19 And one of the huge things we wanted to do was 20 to combine all the data we had from the 21 historic data, previous drilling projects and 22 dredging projects, and combine them all into a 23 geographic system. That would allow us to 24 analyze that data in the best manner possible. 25 The GIS has turned out to be an 19 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 exceptional tool for this project. We knew it 3 would, but we didn't understand just how well 4 it would work for us. We'll show you some 5 examples of that. 6 Of course, we wanted to develop a 3D 7 groundwater model, for flow and transport, to 8 plug all this data into and see what the model 9 could tell us about all these things. 10 We also proposed conducting a trial 11 pumping test, if it were feasible, on some 12 existing wells to determine the feasibility of 13 running a full blown aquitard test in the 14 confining unit. We'll talk about where we went 15 with that. 16 Okay. Just a quick little cartoon here, 17 more or less, to show you how some of this data 18 was incorporated. For instance, the subbottom 19 seismic data that was collected went into some 20 products. The guys that did that work produced 21 some excellent graphics and 3D diagrams, maybe 22 you want call them 2 1/2D diagrams. 23 What they also provided that was critical 24 was some 3D digital data for us to plug into 25 the model. Every -- every point -- every 20 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 seismic point that was taken, and we ran over 3 60 miles of seismic survey in this concentrated 4 area, where the paleochannels were, and 5 everyone of those millions, I'm sure, of 6 digital points that were collected went into 7 Mark's model in one fashion or another. 8 Okay. Also the porewater data that we've 9 collected, and we're going to talk a lot more 10 about porewater water, you saw earlier on the 11 initial porewater data we collected. 12 We complied that data, along with some 13 stratigraphy, and fed all that into Mark's 14 model, to be able to better determine 15 stratigraphy, as well as the porewater values, 16 because we wanted to know more about the 17 geology and put that data into Mark's model. 18 Of course, we've talked about the GIS. We 19 used the GIS to create some interesting 20 figures, and to let us do some map analysis of 21 these different layers that we have in the 22 subsurface. 23 So the intent here is not to have you 24 think that the ground water model was the 25 ultimate end of all of our work. That's not 21 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 the case. What we simply want to show is how a 3 lot of these elements went into Mark's model. 4 His model is not something -- it's based 5 on real data that was collected from all these 6 different elements. When Mark goes through 7 that, you will see that he used some of that, I 8 hope. 9 Okay. The subbottom seismic survey, just 10 quickly want to point out the density. These 11 are red track line. I realize they kind of run 12 together. The point is to show you the 13 density. All of the surveying took place right 14 in here, whereas before we just a center line 15 survey down the center line of the channel, all 16 the way out to minus 85. 17 So we had that survey. We came back with 18 this more detailed one, where we knew there 19 were paleochannels, but we knew we needed to 20 better define those paleochannels. Again, 21 here's some of that date produced in that 22 survey. And it's pretty explicit where these 23 paleochannels are. This particular 24 paleochannel right here, this is the one I'm 25 thinking about, 13, yeah, this is -- look at 22 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 the station numbers, on the overview map, from 3 station 12 to station seven. 4 So 5,000 feet, okay, along this 5 paleochannel. These are not insignificant 6 things. They cover large areas. Of course, it 7 depends on how you slice them. This 8 paleochannel, we'll see in another area map, 9 somewhat crossed the channel like this, kind of 10 normal to the channel, but they are not 11 insignificant features in their breadth. 12 Okay. Here they are. Let's see -- here's 13 the one. There's 13 right there. Here's the 14 paleochannel area we were just looking at, and 15 actually there's probably a couple of 16 paleochannels in there that kind of coalesce. 17 It's a pretty significant area of 18 paleochannels. 19 Now, the thing about these paleochannels, 20 of course, they don't just pass underneath the 21 navigation channel. This paleochannel here may 22 have come from up in here somewhere. It may 23 wander and meander and come underneath the 24 channel, go out go under Tybee into the ocean. 25 If they go anywhere -- we don't know where it 23 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 goes. 3 What we were mainly interested in is how 4 they crossed under the navigation channel, and 5 what effect dredging in that area might have on 6 the paleochannels. 7 Okay. The core sampling and the porewater 8 analysis, you saw the map of where the boring 9 locations were, we had done a previous 10 iteration, for this project, of core borings, 11 but the important thing that we did not have in 12 those earlier core borings was the porewater 13 analysis, and we need to give credit tot he 14 porewater analysis where it's due. 15 That mainly is to Camille Ransom, who is 16 with South Carolina DHEC. He and Dr. Jim 17 Landmeyer, with USGS, started looking at the 18 possibility of using porewater analysis for 19 saltwater intrusion studies in this area. It's 20 just turned out to be a great tool, in fact, to 21 use for this type of work. 22 And if it weren't for Jim and Camille, we 23 might not have gone down this path, but we're 24 glad we did go down it, because it's turned out 25 to be some really great data. 24 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 This is just a jack-up barge, just a shot 3 to show you how close we worked to the channel. 4 We didn't drill -- we rarely, if ever, drilled 5 in the navigation channel, because of the 6 effects on shipping. So we stayed right on the 7 edge, usually, to do what we needed to do. 8 Of course, the paleochannels as we said, 9 they're out on the edge, just as if they're on 10 the inside. We can encounter them on the edge 11 without having to be out in the center of the 12 channel. 13 Here is a typical core run, about 10 feet 14 of core. Here's what some of the core looks 15 like. I think we brought some of the core in 16 before and let you look at some of core. 17 This is the greenish clay miocene sandy 18 silt, and this is the contact between the 19 confining layer and the limestone below it. 20 This is an interesting point for us, and we 21 always looked at with interest, because they 22 were never the same. 23 It was a little bit different contact 24 here, which was interesting to look at the 25 different samples along the reach of the 25 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 harbor. 3 Here's Dr. Landmeyer actually on the 4 explorer of the jack-up barge squeezing some of 5 these porewater samples. Just a small junk of 6 the miocene core was cubed out, and put in a 7 stainless steel cylinder, and about 2,500 psi 8 of pressure was put on that cylinder. 9 It was pretty amazing to see what appeared 10 to be somewhat dry core, but when you squeeze 11 it with about 2,000 or 2,500 pounds of 12 pressure, the droplets just pour out of this 13 core. So it's just pretty enlightening just to 14 see that in and of itself. 15 Of course, what we were interested in 16 was analyzing that porewater to find out the 17 chloride content of that porewater. And a 18 little tool that turned out to be extremely 19 useful for us, while we were drilling, was a 20 little handheld fractometer used in the food 21 industry, and a lot of other things, just to 22 determine the sugar content or the salt content 23 of liquids. 24 In this case, you could take one little 25 tiny drop of the porewater, five minutes after 26 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 that core has come out of the boring, and 3 put it on the fractometer, hold it up to the 4 sunlight, and you can just read off, in parts 5 per thousand, right Mackie, in salinity, not 6 chloride, but total salinity you could read on 7 that scale. 8 So why was that useful to us? We're going 9 to take a sample and send it Jim Landmeyer's 10 lab anyway and to do a lab analysis. 11 But we're in the field. To have that kind 12 of information might help us to decide to take 13 a sample above and below this sample that we're 14 looking at, so that we can capture the 15 chlorides like we need to. Instead of maybe 16 biasing the chlorides, just sampling at every 17 five or 10 feet, if we looked in here and see 18 chloride contents that we feel like are 19 representative and need to be sampled, then we 20 can throw those in too. So it was just a great 21 little tool, a $200 instrument used in the 22 field to do that. 23 Okay. So what we end up with for all 24 that, we're going to zoom in on that in a 25 second so you can read the numbers, we want the 27 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 overview here. 3 This is probably on of the most critical 4 graphics in the whole thing. And that is that 5 along the entire stretch from offshore of Tybee 6 all the way in to Downtown Savannah and beyond, 7 the profile of borings, and the stratigraphy or 8 the geology underneath the harbor, again, we're 9 looking a lot of miles here, so we've got many 10 miles compressed down, and we've exaggerated 11 the vertical tremendously again to able to 12 represent these layers, because if we had a 13 true scale, you would hardly be able to see 14 these layers when you are looking at so many 15 miles worth of data. 16 All right. So what we want to make very 17 clear, though, is a thing we've done a lot of 18 talking about before; that is, the top of the 19 limestone or the aquifer has a great change 20 from Downtown Savannah out towards Tybee. It 21 rises around 100 feet or so from downtown -- 22 maybe not quite 100 feet, but a tremendous 23 rise, from Downtown Savannah, to about -- see 24 where are -- here's Ft. Pulaski, here's Tybee 25 right here. 28 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 So you can see how the top of this kind of 3 geologic high on the top of this limestone 4 occurs right underneath Tybee. Well, so what. 5 How does that affect the channel or this 6 project or the drilling that we did? 7 You can see from the borings that just the 8 sheer fact that the aquifer is higher here and 9 closer to the top of the confining layer, or 10 closer to saltwater, and the fact that we've 11 got these paleochannels in here is kind of a 12 combined situation that caused this to be our 13 area of concern. 14 And that is because the thought all along 15 has been probably the paleochannels were areas 16 where the pull of saltwater, down into the 17 aquifer, would be more enhanced because of the 18 infilling material that's in these 19 paleochannels. 20 Let me point out and remind you, these 21 paleochannels are filled with material. 22 They're not open channels, but they are filled 23 with material that, in some cases, is not 24 nearly as good a confining material as the 25 original material that was eroded out of that 29 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 channel. 3 It's, in some cases, a more sandy or silty 4 material that has come back and infilled this 5 channel way back in geological time. So these 6 turned out to be enhanced areas of saltwater 7 intrusion. 8 And of course, these curves, that you are 9 looking at here, are the actual porewater data 10 that we collected from each one of these 11 borings by squeezing the cores. 12 Okay. Here's some of that data and up 13 close. This is the part of the section, the 14 outermost section. This is -- this is station 15 zero. This is right where the jetties meet 16 land at Ft. Pulaski, if you're familiar with 17 that area. That's around station zero. So 18 here we are with the paleochannels. 19 We've got area of thinned confining layer, 20 and look at the porewater values in here. Now, 21 these are chloride -- these values are 22 chlorides in parts per million. Okay. 23 Seawater is around 18 to 20,000 parts per 24 million. 25 All right. So for instance, if we look at 30 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 this porewater profile here right at the top, 3 this is about 5,000 parts per million, come 4 down to three, it may go out to five, go out to 5 seven, then drop back to 1,400. Then we come 6 back to 900, 9, 0700, and down to 500. 7 Let me point out, I know this is a little 8 confusing. This curve goes with this boring. 9 This curve goes with this boring. Wherever the 10 lower part of that curve comes back and settles 11 into the boring, that's the boring it belongs 12 to. 13 Okay. The thing that you see right off 14 is where there are paleochannels, look where 15 this curve kicks out right about where the 16 paleochannels -- where the bottom of the 17 paleochannel is in the miocene. 18 We saw this several times in the 19 paleochannel porewater borings. Of course, 20 these are borings we drilled right down through 21 the paleochannels. We knew, from all the 22 seismic work, exactly where to go to put that 23 boring to get in the deepest part of the 24 paleochannel. 25 That's what we tried to do to get the 31 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 deepest access drilling. The reason is we kind 3 of wanted to find the worst case or the deepest 4 part of the paleochannel that might be having 5 some effect. 6 Okay. But if we come up outside, here's a 7 boring here not in a paleochannel in the 8 porewater profile. Look at the difference in 9 this profile. This is more a smooth curve 10 where we started out at around 12,000 parts per 11 million chloride, we start dropping quickly to 12 5,000, 2,000, 1,000. And we come on down into 13 80, 20, 10, and actually that bottom value was 14 actually in the limestone. 15 So there's a value of 24 parts per million 16 that's actually in the limestone. Here's one 17 that 151. That was in the limestone too, right 18 Mackie? 19 So, this was not necessarily what we 20 expected to see. I can tell you that. I 21 remember that I think one of the first borings 22 where we saw this happen, this happened to be 23 on media day when we're out drilling, and 24 several of the TV stations were there, of 25 course a lot of the reporters were there. And 32 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 we discovered in one of these paleochannel 3 borings we had chlorides all the way down to 4 the top of the aquifer, and probably some 5 chloride values in the aquifer. So interesting 6 borings to say the least. 7 Okay. Same profile, if we focus on the 8 borings back towards Savannah, okay, we're not 9 in paleochannels now. I need to point out to 10 you that some of these borings are actually on 11 land, like in the disposal areas -- 18 is right 12 about where Fields Cut is. It's actually on 13 the edge of the bank between the disposal area 14 and the channel or the river. And see the rest 15 of these 2A, 5, and 15 were actually in the 16 river. 17 But the one we want to look at here is 15. 18 This is one up very near the center of the cone 19 of depression up above the bridge, and this is 20 in the area where the confining unit is at its 21 thickest, in the Savannah area, or along the 22 channel at least. 23 And there's about 150 or 160 feet of 24 confining layer. And that's really quite 25 fortuitous that we would have that much 33 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 thickness near the center of the cone, because 3 this is not only the area where the confining 4 unit is the thickest, it's where the draw down 5 from the cone is the greatest. 6 The greatest pull in the Savannah area 7 is -- this is actually what we're trying to 8 represent here. This is near the center of the 9 cone in Savannah at its deepest point. This 10 boring is near the center of the cone of 11 depression. 12 So the idea was, well, knowing you have 13 that greater pull in this area in the center of 14 the cone, is there enough confining material 15 there to inhibit that downward travel of 16 chlorides, or is this going to also be an area 17 where we really need to be concerned, because 18 of that greater pull in the -- near the center 19 of the cone. 20 When we do this pore profile, we notice 21 that you start up high here, and we discovered 22 later we're not actually in the miocene on this 23 first value. But then we come down into the 24 miocene and we start out at about 7,000, 3,000, 25 1,400, 280, and then we pretty much hug 90, 34 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 100, 45, back up to 100, back down to 50, 16, 3 12, 24. 4 We get down to right above the bottom of 5 the bottom of the limestone is about 24. 6 That's kind of encouraging, at least, not 7 having the benefit of the model yet. It's kind 8 of encouraging to us to see that we don't have, 9 you know, a more serious problem here because 10 of that combined effect -- or not the combined 11 effect, but the effect of a greater draw down. 12 So the greater thickness of the confining 13 material is definitely helping out there. 14 Okay. Again, just the same one to recap 15 very quickly just to show you the extent of 16 these borings all along the channel, and the 17 locations where they were drilled. Okay. 18 Moving on to the GIS, we created a harbor-wide 19 GIS, and we wanted that for visualization, and 20 also for analysis of, not only the new data we 21 were collecting, but to go back and plug in all 22 the historic data we could find. 23 We found a considerable amount of data, 24 for instance, old, old dredging project data. 25 It wasn't as easy as we hoped it would be to 35 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 find. Some of it was so old it was in paper 3 format and had to be digitized, scanned, 4 whatever, but it was -- it was put into the GIS 5 nevertheless. 6 So we incorporated all the geologic data 7 that we could scarf up, old projects, all the 8 new data, plugged that into the GIS, any 9 hydrogeologic data, if it was USGS data, no 10 matter where it came from, we plugged it into 11 the GIS -- all the seismic data. 12 I think the seismic data will probably 13 never be appreciated for what it was, because 14 the extent of the work that these guys had to 15 do to get us that data in the format that they 16 did, but I would venture to say there is 17 probably not anywhere, in the United States, 18 over the small area that we do seismic work 19 that is as well-known as this area that we did 20 the seismic work in to identify the 21 paleochannels, because we cut it in every way 22 possible. 23 If we found a paleochannel, we tried to 24 slice it any direction we could to get the best 25 data on it. 36 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 As I mentioned, we went back and tapped 3 into some historical dredging records. One of 4 the big reasons we wanted to look at the 5 historic dredging records, we wanted to get an 6 idea of how historic dredging projects might 7 have affected the miocene before now, you know, 8 what did those projects -- what kind of effect 9 did they have on the miocene. 10 So we had data that went back to like 1890 11 and even before then of just bathymetric data 12 taken by hand. Nonetheless, it was some good 13 data. But normally, you don't start seeing any 14 effects on the channel, as a whole, until you 15 get into the '30s and the '40s. 16 When we would dredge in those years, it 17 wouldn't be like you would dredge the entire 18 channel. You would hit the high spots, come in 19 and dredge those areas, hit high spots and 20 knock them down. That would be a project. 21 I need to point out these red circles are 22 where paleochannels are. That's all we're 23 trying to show with them, for the time being in 24 this graphic. 25 Notice the date on this, 1945. That's 37 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 where we kind of chose to start showing the 3 data. Really before then, the data did not 4 support anything that we could measure, as far 5 as the effects on the miocene. 6 But there actually some little orange 7 blips, very hard to see, that if we jump down 8 to now, 1992 is this section, now you start to 9 see that, from dredging projects, were starting 10 to notch in into the miocene, or expose some of 11 the miocene in the bottom of the channel. 12 That's really what this represents. 13 Okay. So if we go to 1998, we can see 14 even more effect, and of course if we go to 15 2003, we see even more effect. Well, there's 16 -- it's what we would expect to see because of 17 the dredging projects. 18 But the main thing is we wanted to see, if 19 we could determine, if prior dredging projects 20 might have had some effect on the situation of 21 saltwater intrusion that's already occurring. 22 We'd have to say, undoubtedly it has an effect. 23 We wanted to see if we could time frame that 24 and learn something that might be meaningful to 25 what we're doing now. 38 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 Basically what we've come up with is that 3 since this data tells us that it was about the 4 early 1990s, before we really started exposing 5 much miocene in the bottom of the channel, it's 6 really been a pretty short time period that 7 exposing this miocene would have had to make an 8 effect on the chlorides moving down. 9 Undoubtedly, it's had an effect, whatever 10 the minuscule effect it is, but it's only been 11 occurring over the period of about 10, 15 12 years. 13 Okay. Very quickly, just some of the 14 other things we can do in the GIS. This 15 represents the thickness of the miocene removed 16 along the Savannah River. This is total 17 removal through time. So of course these 18 colors -- I realize you can't read those, but 19 the blue -- so that's zero to 50 feet, I mean, 20 five feet, excuse me, zero to 5. 21 Then we go from like five -- from five to 22 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20. So the blue colors -- 23 I'm sorry -- the red colors are the greatest 24 material that's been removed. 25 Okay. Notice where those are -- these are 39 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 in the paleochannels, paleochannel areas. 3 That's not miocene removed during dredging. 4 That's natural removal by paleochannels in 5 these areas. 6 But these areas in blue that come back 7 toward Savannah, those are areas where dredging 8 has removed some of the miocene, undoubtedly. 9 So with the GIS, it was very easy to say, 10 well, I wonder, in certain area, how much 11 miocene is remaining, how much miocene has been 12 removed. Very quickly with the GIS we could do 13 that and create a nice maps for a report or 14 whatever we need. 15 The last GIS, I just want to give an 16 example up here, thickness of the miocene 17 confining unit along the Savannah River. We 18 just looked at the amount removed. Now the 19 kind of other side of that is we can look at 20 the remaining thickness. 21 Okay. And these -- moving from yellow to 22 orange, the orange is the thinner thickness, 23 so just as what you saw in the section, as you 24 move back towards Savannah, it gets thicker and 25 thicker. As we come out to this high 40 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 underneath Tybee to Fields Cut, offshore Tybee, 3 then it gets thinner, and the apex is kind of 4 -- there's Tybee right here -- kind of over 5 Tybee. 6 I need to point out as you move further 7 offshore, the miocene starts to thicken more 8 and more as you move offshore. 9 So it's mainly in the area from Tybee, in 10 through the jetties, and to about where Ft. 11 Pulaski is where the main area of concern would 12 be because of the thick and the thin confining 13 layer and the prevalence of paleochannels. 14 You know, no matter what you do in the 15 harbor, no matter what depth you decide to 16 dredge in the harbor, the ironic thing is you 17 still have to come over this hump, so to speak 18 at Tybee. If you are going to dredge, whatever 19 you dredge interior, you certainly have to 20 dredge here or you can't get over the hump. 21 Okay. So what I've tried to cover are 22 these first four elements of the six original 23 elements. Now we're going to let Mark talk 24 about the model, and also the analysis that 25 we've done on a trial pumping test. Now, we 41 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 can take a quick break or we can proceed on. 3 MR. DYSART: Would you be receptive to 4 some questions and clarification now or would 5 you rather wait? 6 MR. SMITH: That's fine. We can do that. 7 MR. DYSART: Would y'all like to take a 8 break, after some questions, before we proceed 9 with the rest of the presentation? Okay. 10 We'll take a break after a few questions. Ed. 11 MR. EUDALY: Go back to the slide that 12 shows the miocene exposure 1998 through 2003. 13 MR. SMITH: This one. 14 MR. MAIMONE: '98 to 2003. 15 MR. SMITH: '98 to 2003. 16 MR. EUDALY: There was no harbor deepening 17 between those points, right? I mean, the last 18 deepening was completed in '94? 19 I'm just curious. That looks like a 20 pretty big difference to me. Well, let's 21 see -- 22 MR. SMITH: Yeah. If you look right here, 23 here's Elba Island. If you look right here, 24 here's say the point of Elba right here. Look 25 here and you can see it extending on down here. 42 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 MR. EUDALY: Maybe further out too -- 3 MR. SMITH: Right, yes. 4 MR. EUDALY: What accounts for the 5 difference? I'm curious, what would cause 6 that. 7 MR. SMITH: Well, I'm not sure. You're 8 saying -- do you remember, Mackie, as far as 9 the dates of dredging? 10 MS. McINTOSH: It's just based on, you 11 know, the annual surveys are composites. The 12 dredging is not completed for a given section. 13 The whole channel is not dredged all at once, 14 so maybe between 1998 and 2003, it was a high 15 spot and it went back down, was over-dredged. 16 It's not like there's a new project. Like we 17 said, we can't dredge the whole channel at 18 once. 19 MR. REES: Pardon me, can you talk to the 20 rest of the group too? We can't hear. 21 MS. McINTOSH: I'm sorry. I was just 22 talking about the entire channel is not dredged 23 at one time. You know, all the surveys we have 24 are composite surveys of the most current 25 condition for a given year. 43 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 We have the annual surveys, and that may 3 be a subtle difference. If you went back and 4 figured that may not be -- the thickness may 5 not be that great. It may be one foot was cut 6 in. It just means that -- 7 MR. GARRETT: It maybe post-deepening, it 8 may have shoaled in some. 9 MR. SMITH: I think probably the part of 10 what's going on is like what Mackie said, not 11 only do you not dredge the whole harbor, you 12 don't take a survey of the entire length 13 either. 14 You survey in bits and pieces, depending 15 on what you are doing in those areas. So if 16 these are, you know, they are in fact composite 17 surveys that have been pieced together from -- 18 I mean in realty, the data that's shown here 19 probably, and most likely isn't all 1998. It 20 may be a few years before or a few years after. 21 MR. EUDALY: Does that mean that's kind of 22 an artifact of where you are in the dredging 23 cycle, rather than the real difference between 24 1998 and 2003? 25 MR. SMITH: Yeah. I mean, really what we 44 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 were interested in here was just trying to 3 visualize change. And, you know, by 4 compositing some of these surveys, and like 5 subtracting the surfaces of the GIS from each 6 other, that's really all we were trying to show 7 was change, and the exposure, so to speak, of 8 the miocene in the bottom. 9 For instance, what year -- how many years 10 ago was it dredged at Elba Island for the new 11 turning basin, Alan, do you remember what year 12 was that? 13 MR. GARRETT: Six years. 14 MR. SMITH: Okay. Well -- 15 MS. MOORER: We were having a debate over 16 it. I was thinking it was '03. 17 MR. SMITH: Okay. I'm not sure. I don't 18 remember. I do remember this, the thing sticks 19 in my mind, it was dredged in here, the turning 20 basin at Elba Island. I remember riding over 21 the disposal area one day and seeing the 22 miocene coming out of the pipe over there. 23 Okay. 24 So that caught my eye, of course. And it 25 was not insignificant. I'm not saying it was 45 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 that deep, but it was over a pretty good area. 3 They were definitely, during that period of 4 time -- that was not a Corps project -- they 5 were removing miocene in that area. 6 MR. DYSART: David Kyler, and Will Berson, 7 please. 8 MR. KYLER: Card, one of your earlier 9 slides showed sort of a cartoon schematic of 10 the channel, when deepened, transecting and 11 disturbing the paleochannel. 12 MR. SMITH: Yeah. You want me to run back 13 to that real quick? That one. 14 MR. KYLER: How does that relate to the 15 existing channel in depth, relative to the 16 paleochannel? 17 MR. SMITH: I'm not sure I understand. 18 MR. KYLER: That dotted line represents a 19 dredge cut in the proposed project? 20 MR. SMITH: Right, that's right. 21 MR. KYLER: Where would the comparable 22 line be in the existing project? 23 MR. SMITH: Unless I'm missing something, 24 David, I mean, it's this. This would be the 25 bottom of the present channel. 46 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 MR. KYLER: So we're already in the 3 paleochannel, is that what you're saying? 4 MR. SMITH: Yeah, yeah, in some areas. 5 MR. KYLER: I did not get that. 6 MR. SMITH: Yeah. Well, we definitely 7 have dredged in some paleochannel areas. 8 MR. KYLER: And from your historic 9 analysis, or anything else, is there any 10 suggestion as to what effect that has had? 11 MR. SMITH: We didn't zero in on that 12 effect for paleochannels only. I don't -- I 13 don't know what that -- I'm not quite sure how 14 we would even do that. What we have are 15 borings that now go through some of these 16 paleochannels that we have porewater profiles 17 in. 18 What that porewater profile would have 19 looked like 10 years ago, or whenever, I don't 20 know. 21 MR. KYLER: Another clarification. Your 22 reference to the miocene, that essentially 23 means the material in the confining layer? 24 MR. SMITH: That's right. I should do a 25 better job of being more specific. Anytime we 47 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 say miocene, to us that means confining layer, 3 confining material. 4 MR. DYSART: Will. 5 MR. BERSON: With reference to Ed's 6 question, do you think that the increase 7 between '98 and 2003 could be the result of 8 maintenance dredging? Have we sort of reached 9 a point where every maintenance dredging is 10 going to expose a little more miocene? 11 MR. SMITH: Maintenance dredging really 12 shouldn't expose anymore because that's not -- 13 it takes new work dredging, what we call new 14 work, yeah. 15 Maybe I should back up. It might be 16 possible that it might have -- is it possible 17 we have over-depths in maintenance dredging? 18 MR. GARRETT: Well, we definitely have 19 over-depth dredging in maintenance -- 20 MR. SMITH: Let me -- in other words, he 21 could have gone out and dredged a little 22 deeper. Let me tell you this about this 23 miocene material, the dredgers load that 24 material. 25 They call it rubber rock because what it 48 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 does, it coats up on the cutterhead, if they're 3 using a cutterhead to dredge, and it is a 4 nightmare for them. So -- and the reason they 5 call it rubber rock is because the cutterhead 6 literally bounces when it hits that material. 7 It just coats up the cutterhead. They 8 have pull it up and dig it all off of it. So 9 they aren't going to cut anymore than they have 10 to. That's one saving grace. 11 MR. GARRETT: If anything, they can cut to 12 a more accurate depth, because of the GPS and 13 the new channel data, they can stay within 14 that, you know, depending on tides. 15 MR. SMITH: We've been saying, and trying 16 to impress upon our operations folks, all along 17 if we do this project that area of concern is 18 probably going to be the most watched-after 19 area for dredging the Corps has ever done, 20 because of what we're talking about right now. 21 It's easy to say, well, you know, that's 22 too much trouble. We all know what we've been 23 through studying this. It won't be taken 24 lightly at all. Anymore questions? 25 MR. DYSART: Bob. 49 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 MR. SCANLON: Comment on Dave's question. 3 I think the paleochannels, if I'm not mistaken, 4 they come all the way to the top of the 5 miocene, is that correct? 6 MR. SMITH: That's right. That's right. 7 MR. SCANLON: Actually, if you are 8 removing the material in a paleochannel, that 9 material is more porous than the miocene layer, 10 so if we're looking at the impact on porewater, 11 removing paleochannel is actually less 12 impactful than removing miocene layer, is that 13 correct? 14 I just wanted to make clear that was clear 15 in Dave's mind. From the sound of your 16 question, I thought you were thinking the 17 reverse of that. 18 MR. SMITH: That might not entirely be 19 true. In other words, the way we tend to view 20 the paleochannels, they shorten or if you want 21 to say speed up the path -- 22 MR. SCANLON: Correct, they're more 23 porous. 24 MR. SMITH: -- of saltwater intrusion, so 25 it is true that if you remove paleochannel 50 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 material, you have still shortened the path, 3 part of which that path accelerated. I don't 4 know -- 5 MR. SCANLON: The same thing if you are 6 removing miocene, you're also shortening the 7 path. 8 MR. SMITH: You are, certainly not in as 9 critical a situation. Right. I see what you 10 are trying to see. 11 MR. DYSART: Judy and then back to Will. 12 MS. JENNINGS: Yeah. You said that you 13 did the porewater analysis usually on the sides 14 of the channel, not necessarily in the -- 15 MR. SMITH: In the very center of it. 16 MS. JENNINGS: Right. Are you fairly sure 17 there's no bias in that. 18 MR. SMITH: There may be a little bit of 19 bias, but we still feel like it's 20 representative of what's there. Here's part of 21 the reason too, Judy, is that -- I think we 22 talked a little bit about this the last time we 23 were here, you know. 24 In these paleochannels, the preferred 25 direction of groundwater, groundwater is trying 51 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 to go down because that's the way it is being 3 pulled because of pumping in Savannah. 4 But there is also some sort of component, 5 along the paleochannel, probably also. If you 6 have got material in here that is more 7 permeable material, you know. 8 What I'm getting at is if this 9 paleochannel is in the center of the channel 10 and we're drilling over here, but the drilling 11 in this paleochannel over here which winds 12 around to the side here, and we're drilling our 13 boring here, you know, because of the nature of 14 this material, the idea is that you are 15 sampling something, you know, at least in the 16 paleochannel material that is the pretty 17 representative, probably, of what's out here in 18 the center. 19 At least, that's the way I kind of think 20 of it. The bottom line is we feel like that 21 those borings are representative of the 22 situation, and you know, they definitely show 23 effects from paleochannels, the bump -- at 24 least we feel like they do. 25 That bump that's there, we looked at it in 52 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 the profiles, we don't really have an answer 3 for what that bump is. We've had a lot of 4 speculation for what that might be. Why does 5 it peak up right at the bottom of the 6 paleochannel where it hits the miocene. 7 Even Mark mentioned even the model doesn't 8 help us with that. So we're not exactly sure 9 what's going on there. 10 But of course, the part we're interested 11 in greatly, the part of the profile and the 12 boring that goes on down through the miocene 13 and right to the top of the limestone, those 14 are areas that we are concerned about 15 particularly. 16 MR. DYSART: Did you have a follow-up, 17 David? 18 MR. KYLER: Yeah. So I'm a bit confused 19 about the fixation on the paleochannels. The 20 significance of the paleochannels is that they 21 reduce the thickness of the confining layer -- 22 MR. SMITH: That's right. 23 MR. KYLER: -- because of their existence. 24 MR. SMITH: That's right. 25 MR. KYLER: It's not the paleochannel 53 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 itself, it is how much the confining layer is 3 reduced by their presence. 4 MR. SMITH: Exactly. It is also the type 5 of material infilling the paleochannel. 6 MR. KYLER: Okay. 7 MR. SMITH: Early on, there was a lot of 8 great concern about the paleochannels. I mean, 9 we've always -- we've known for a long time the 10 paleochannels were there, and we've surmised 11 that they would certainly have an effect on 12 what we're talking about. 13 But there seemed to be a train of thought, 14 early on in some of the Aquifer Committee 15 meetings, that if we came in and dredged over 16 the top of some of these paleochannels that it 17 would be akin to a catastrophic event. I never 18 really understood why that thought was there, 19 but, you know, if you come in -- it was almost 20 like some folks thought there was a sealing 21 zone or sealing layer here, and by seal I mean 22 sealed off the paleochannel. 23 If you came along and disturbed it with 24 dredging, you would then create the situation 25 where water was much quicker to find its way 54 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 down to the limestone, but the paleochannels, 3 you are correct in saying that their effect is 4 one thinning the miocene. They just happen to 5 thin it in a critical area where it is already 6 thin. 7 There are areas -- Mackie, do you remember 8 what the shallowest -- what's the least 9 thickness of miocene that we have? 10 MS. McINTOSH: It's around 213, and I 11 think the seismic indicated it is 26 feet. 12 MR. SMITH: Okay. There is an area, 13 around that boring, where the miocene, the 14 remaining miocene is less than 30 feet. 15 MS. McINTOSH: That's in the deepest part 16 of the paleochannel. 17 MR. SMITH: As we said, we tried our best 18 to drill in the deepest portion of the 19 paleochannel, outside the navigation channel 20 area. I know it's confusing when we keep 21 talking about the paleochannel and the 22 navigation channel. 23 But that's why we try to generate some of 24 the diagrams and things to help you understand 25 our fixation on the paleochannel. 55 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 MR. DYSART: Will. 3 MR. BERSON: I think this is all really 4 fascinating. I love the graphs. They help me 5 picture what's underwater. I was just 6 wondering, I appreciate you would be focusing 7 on the potential impact of the channel, the 8 navigation channel. Have you any sense of what 9 -- how well you've captured the universe of 10 paleochannels? Do you expect there lots more 11 out there that we don't where they are or -- 12 MR. SMITH: That's a very good question. 13 What we feel, and I feel very good about this, 14 if a paleochannel crosses underneath that 15 navigation channel, we know where it is. 16 There's no doubt in my mind. 17 I mean, the guys that did this seismic 18 work did just a super job, and we had a lot of 19 back and forth with these guys. The bottom 20 line is yes. If it crosses underneath the 21 navigation channel, yes, we knew where it is. 22 I don't know kind of where you were going 23 with that. As I pointed out, these 24 paleochannels certainly exist other places. 25 The upstream end of that paleochannel and 56 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 downstream, where they are, we don't know. 3 But we know, in the seismic work all around 4 Tybee, all around the offshore, they're 5 everywhere. 6 But the ones that cross under this 7 navigation channel, now there are some 8 paleochannels that are kind of off the map that 9 we've been looking that are further out, but 10 the reason that we hadn't focused on those is 11 because the confining layer thicken more as go 12 offshore. 13 The other thing is the effects of 14 dredging, it's already naturally deep out 15 there, so we wouldn't even be dredging there. 16 we would stay away from that. 17 MR. BERSON: I was just sort of globally 18 curious, not with respect to the project. 19 MR. SMITH: There are a lot of places on 20 the East Coast where these paleochannels are 21 being looked at more and more. I think 22 particularly up around Baltimore there are some 23 saltwater intrusion studies done relating to 24 the same thing. 25 MR. MAIMONE: We have on Long Island the 57 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 same thing, the ancestral Hudson cuts right 3 through Long Island -- huge channel. 4 MR. SMITH: You'll see more when Mark 5 talks, you'll see a lot more graphs, I 6 guarantee. 7 MR. DYSART: Alan and then Judy. 8 MR. GARRETT: Card, obviously we've 9 dredged through that paleochannel before to get 10 the to the current project depth. 11 MR. SMITH: Right. 12 MR. GARRETT: What are the salinities, 13 what kind of salinity is in the miocene, under 14 the paleochannel, in the borings compared to 15 the salinity in miocene outside the 16 paleochannel at the same depth? 17 MR. SMITH: Well -- 18 MR. GARRETT: Can you tell it increased 19 salinity because you dug through four feet of 20 paleochannel is my question? 21 MR. SMITH: If you had enough borings in 22 the right places, and that's kind of what we 23 tried to do here, Alan. This is not the one 24 you were talking about necessarily. We did 25 that, specifically, with that in mind. 58 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 Here's 17. It's in a nice paleochannel 3 here. This is station minus 10. Okay. So 4 that's -- okay. There's zero where the jetties 5 meet. Anyway, there's 10, and this is the 6 curve that goes with 10, okay, right here. 7 Here's 16, which is in an area where there 8 is no paleochannel. So the nearest I can say 9 to answer your question, to look at something 10 to say how those are comparable, you see -- I 11 wish now, in retrospect, I wish we had several 12 more of these in between borings. In looking 13 back, we should have done at least another one. 14 But this one was specifically put in to check 15 an area between the paleochannels. 16 We were focusing in on paleochannels, 17 drilling in them, and seeing these types of 18 curves. Then we realized, hey, we need to get 19 out of these paleochannels and see what the 20 porewater curve looks like out of them. So 16 21 was fairly close to 17, and not too close as 22 you can see from up here. 23 MR. MAIMONE: It gives you a free ride, 24 basically, down deeper into the miocene 25 chloride. 59 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 MR. SMITH: Mark's making a good point, 3 that he will mention later, is that I think in 4 general we saw whether a paleochannel, it is 5 somewhat accelerated, right? 6 MR. MAIMONE: Yeah. It gets down -- 7 MR. SMITH: And you see -- you see these 8 higher values of chlorides down in the top of 9 the limestone, in general, where there are 10 paleochannel porewater profile, correct? 11 MR. MAIMONE: Yeah, but basically what 12 happens is the saltwater can get through those 13 paleochannels in a much faster rate. So in 10 14 years time, for example, that sucking action of 15 the pumping will move the chlorides through the 16 paleochannels faster, at a great distance than 17 they would through the miocene. That's why you 18 see higher concentrations deeper in the 19 paleochannels than you do -- 20 MR. SMITH: In other words, in the 21 paleochannel, it's kind of short-circuited. 22 One thing I think we can say right now about 23 the model is the assumption you guys used in 24 the model was that -- 25 MR. MAIMONE: That that stuff is very 60 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 loose. We made it as if was really porous 3 sand, because we wanted to a little bit -- 4 MR. SMITH: We were pretty conservative. 5 MR. MAIMONE: Right. 6 MR. SMITH: As Mark says, when they 7 modelled it, even though we know from borings 8 there's a lot of pretty doggone impermeable 9 material in these paleochannels. I mean, it's 10 in there. To make it even more conservative, 11 when they did the model, they counted it as if 12 it were all like a silty sand. 13 MR. MAIMONE: Your point earlier is 14 correct. Slicing off some of that less 15 permeable material, you know, is not -- it's 16 not as worrisome as slicing off the miocene. 17 MR. DYSART: Judy. 18 MS. JENNINGS: Yeah, I have a couple, two 19 points. One, I guess I'd say just I'm a little 20 confused. The difference between accelerated 21 and concentrated, you know the difference there 22 because of historical data that you have, 23 that's how you can sort those two things, 24 right? 25 MR. MAIMONE: Concentration is just how 61 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 salty the water is. When I say accelerated, 3 I'm talking about the speed that it's getting 4 down towards the -- 5 MS. JENNINGS: You know that by historical 6 data? 7 MR. MAIMONE: We know -- we know that to a 8 certain extent. Basically, what we know is 9 this is the snapshot now. We know how long the 10 pumping has been going on that would have 11 caused this. 12 That gives us a rate. This was caused by 13 80 some odd years, 70 some odd years. That's 14 how we use the model. I'll show you that later 15 on. The model simulates the 80 years and 16 tracks the salt. 17 MS. JENNINGS: I may understand it better 18 then. 19 MR. SMITH: That's a good question. I 20 should have done a better job. What Mark, of 21 course, is saying is that we know, as you are, 22 Judy, we know how long pumping has been going 23 on, 80 or so years. Okay. So -- well, it's 24 been going on longer than that. 25 What I meant to say was we know about when 62 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 everything reversed. There used to be the 3 artesian conditions, when no saltwater could 4 come through, because the freshwater was trying 5 to come out. About 60 years ago it flipped. 6 About 60 years ago, because of pumping, 7 everything reversed. Now instead of freshwater 8 trying to come out, saltwater is trying to come 9 down. Okay. 10 MR. MAIMONE: And it moves slowly, so it 11 takes 10 years to move a foot or so, or two 12 feet, something like that, because this tight 13 is really tight. It's like pushing water 14 through concrete or something. That's that 15 rate we're talking about, you need a long 16 period of time where you're pulling it down, 17 before you begin to see pictures like that. 18 If we had had pore samples every 10 years, 19 we could have actually watched that movement 20 down. Since we didn't do that, we did this, we 21 used the model ones -- well, how did it get 22 here, what rate did it move in? 23 MR. SMITH: The concern early on was we 24 didn't have any real data. We got into huge 25 arguments about hydraulic conductivity, the 63 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 vertical hydraulic conductivity of the 3 miocene. 4 Okay. What is it? How are we going to 5 determine it? Well, there are ways that it 6 might could be determined, but they're 7 hellishly expensive or just very impractical. 8 So that's why the porewater started looking 9 better and better. 10 It's like taking a snapshot in time, in 11 modern day conditions looking at these 12 porewater profiles, and then kind of back 13 calculating. We know when everything reversed. 14 We know about when saltwater started to 15 trying come down. So we can look at some of 16 these values. This is, again, what Mark is 17 going to do with the model and talk about, kind 18 of in a crude way of thinking, before he goes 19 into the model, that's why these porewater 20 numbers are so important, because we know they 21 occurred. 22 We know the period of time they occurred 23 over and you don't always have that luxury, but 24 we do here. So it's kind of a way of having 25 some real data, reaching down there and pulling 64 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 this porewater data out, this real data, and 3 plugging that into the model and seeing if the 4 model can replicate what's actually going on 5 out there. 6 If you plug in some real other real world 7 flow parameters, into the model, does it work, 8 can the model do it? You'll see the model is 9 able to do it. I'm sorry -- 10 MS. JENNINGS: No, that's great. I 11 appreciate it very much. The model may help me 12 understand this better too. The interest about 13 the bump in the numbers at the bottom of the 14 paleochannels as hits the miocene, is that -- 15 could that be a chemical thing? I mean, I 16 don't know. It's like a is molecule is a 17 molecule is a molecule. It actually seems to 18 me you would have expected to find that. 19 MR. MAIMONE: Well, there is a little -- 20 you mean just a fusion of chlorides down 21 through that -- that happens to a certain 22 degree. You have to realize that all these 23 thousands of years there's been a tremendous 24 amount of freshwater blowing up here and it's 25 sweeping it clean. 65 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 MS. JENNINGS: Okay. All right. I'll 3 have to readjust my thinking on what we just 4 talked about. I'll get better. Thanks. 5 MR. DYSART: Will, Joel, and then we'll 6 take a 10 minute break. 7 MR. BERSON: I was just going to note, I'm 8 very impressed. I think this does a lot, not 9 only for the project but for our understanding 10 of aquifer system management here in Savannah. 11 It's going to be an increasing problem in 12 our area how ever we want to use the water. I 13 think that's why I was asking the global 14 question. It begs the question, if we could 15 advance -- if we went back 60 years and got 16 artesian flow, in a sense this wouldn't be a 17 concern. 18 I mean, in a way, the port project is 19 being impacted by pumping elsewhere that, if it 20 wasn't occurring, we would see a flow in a 21 different direction. 22 We wouldn't be worried about what the 23 effect of the channel cut would be on the 24 actual resource. I think this is one of those 25 examples where y'all are part of a bigger 66 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 picture in all of this. 3 I think it's one we're, as a region, I 4 think, going to have to deal with. We talked 5 about how studies ought to be preserved and the 6 data preserved. 7 I just sort want to put a marker here. 8 This is another example where this work can 9 serve a wider purpose. I don't know how we 10 preserve it. I don't know how we make it more 11 accessible, but I think that's something we 12 want to think about. 13 MR. SMITH: It is definitely going to 14 serve a lot of purposes, because what you are 15 going to see is this data incorporated into the 16 wider regional-type things. 17 MR. DYSART: Joel. 18 MR. FLEMING: Just got a question, 19 probably a real simple question. Are you guys 20 taking surface water salinity into account? 21 I'm assuming, over time, for a number of 22 reasons deepening and/or the amount of 23 freshwater influence from the aquifer itself, 24 we've had an increased salinity wedge upstream. 25 I guess my question would go, especially 67 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 as move up and get higher salinities inland, 3 could we see a more drastic effect on the 4 inshore wells, if we get a salinity going 5 upwards, based on the fact that we may be more 6 dependent upon the ambient salinity of the 7 water versus the thickness of the confining 8 layers? 9 MR. SMITH: What I'm going to do with that 10 is you are on target, you understand what some 11 of the concerns are, and what some of the 12 factors are. All of you in here know 13 everything that's going on with the surface 14 water modelling. 15 We've got -- as you will see from Mark's 16 presentation, our data that Mark plugged into 17 the model came from the surface water 18 modellers. 19 What I would like to do is let Mark 20 address that in his presentation. He's got 21 some graphs that show the kind of thing that 22 you are talking about. Okay. 23 MR. DYSART: We'll be back in 10 minutes. 24 Thank you. (Short Break) 25 MR. DYSART: Let's reconvene and we'll 68 1 PRESENTATION - SMITH 2 proceed with the Corps presentation, but first 3 I would like for those who came in, after we 4 had introductions, to introduce themselves on 5 the record. 6 MS. BEARD: Teri Beard. 7 MR. DYSART: Speak out a little louder. 8 MS. BEARD: Everyone knows me here, Teri 9 Beard. 10 MR. DYSART: Representing? 11 MS. BEARD: I have no official 12 affiliation. 13 MR. DYSART: Citizen. 14 MS. BEARD: Interested citizen. 15 MR. DYSART: Introduction, Judy. 16 MS. JENNINGS: Judy Jennings. 17 MR. DYSART: Representing. 18 MS. JENNINGS: Georgia Sierra. 19 MR. DYSART: Who else? 20 MR. PRUSA: Tom Prusa, Savannah Coastal 21 Refuge. 22 MS. AKINS: Lynn Akins, Savannah Coastal 23 Refuge. 24 MR. DYSART: I also see Mr. David 25 Schaller, from GPA, came in shortly after we 69 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 did introductions and he'll be back in, I 3 presume, in a moment or so. Anybody else who 4 is momentarily not in the room or what not? We 5 want the record to indicate the broad 6 participation of interested parties. Okay. 7 Let's continue with the Corps' presentation, 8 Mark. 9 MR. MAIMONE: Thank you. This is the 10 modelling aspect County of it, as Card pointed 11 out. What I'm going to do here is I'm going to 12 talk a little bit first about why we did a 13 model. 14 I think it's slowly becoming obvious, but 15 I think it's always good to reiterate what 16 exactly we were trying to achieve. I'm not 17 going to spend much time on the data sources. 18 Card showed you what those sources are. I'll 19 just go over a little bit what we took from the 20 USGS as well. 21 I'm not going to harangue you with a whole 22 lot about model building, but I just want to 23 briefly tell you why we built it, why we think 24 it's a pretty good model, and what we were 25 trying to do. 70 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 Of course, here's what we really want to 3 talk about. What did the model show us in 4 terms of impacts of dredging. So why did we 5 model? 6 Basically, you model for two reasons; one 7 to understand the history a little bit better. 8 Card showed you those snapshots of the 9 porewater penetration of chlorides, and we also 10 want to understand how that happened. 11 We know that we reversed the pressure, so 12 that the pressure of the sea was greater than 13 the pressure down to the aquifer system, so 14 that started pushing water. Water flows from 15 high pressure to low pressure, as we know. 16 But we don't understand exactly how that 17 happened over the last 80 years. The question 18 earlier about the rate of movement, for 19 example, was a very, very good one. We can't 20 tell that because we only have this one 21 snapshot. 22 The model is very, very good to help us 23 understand the history, and what why we're 24 seeing today has occurred. The second reason 25 is, of course, to look into the future. We 71 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 haven't dredged the harbor in the way we're 3 proposing to do it. The only way to figure out 4 what that impact might be would be take the 5 model, of course, and then do the what ifs. 6 That's something that would help us to 7 look into the future. So there are really two 8 big things; understanding the system, and then 9 enabling us to predict what might happen in the 10 future. 11 Of course, the job here was not to address 12 the larger issue, which was raised a little bit 13 earlier by number of questioners, particularly 14 Will, what is the pumping doing in our area in 15 general. That was not the focus of this 16 particular model. 17 I keep reiterating that because it's a 18 really difficult thing to do here. We do 19 have a large issue here. The job of this 20 particular model was to look at dredging 21 impacts only. We tried to continue to focus on 22 that. 23 The approach we took was very much to 24 designed to focus on that more narrow issue of 25 dredging. Now, there has been a lot of work 72 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 done, and Card showed you they did a lot of 3 work. They are not the only ones out there 4 doing this study. There was this other Sound 5 Science Initiative that I found out that the 6 report came out yesterday -- 7 MR. SCANLON: Yes. 8 MR. MAIMONE: -- which has been ongoing 9 for about seven years now. They are looking at 10 the big picture on the entire coast of Georgia. 11 The USGS has done a tremendous amount of 12 data collection and modelling as well. So 13 between the two, the very focused information 14 that Card has been producing, and this larger 15 data collection effort of USGS, provided us 16 with a gold mine of information. 17 We simply used that. So we took the USGS 18 aquifer investigation. We had a USGS model of 19 the Savannah area. You can ask why would you 20 have to develop a separate model; and I'll show 21 you that in a second. 22 The main reason is primarily their model 23 is to look at the larger area, and therefore, 24 they don't have enough of what we call model 25 discretization, the fineness of their model is 73 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 not fine enough to look at such issues of a 3 river. 4 They're only looking at the larger 5 picture. We developed a model on the very fine 6 details of the river, and took a step back from 7 trying to look at the bigger picture. So the 8 two models have different purposes. 9 How do you do that? Well, we have all the 10 very detailed information from Card, so we 11 increased the accuracy of the USGS model 12 greatly with their data right along the river 13 and focused our model there. 14 Once we had built the model, then we used 15 it, as the investigatory tool, both to take a 16 look at what happened over the history of the 17 last 80 years, but then of course to look at 18 what we're trying to determine here, which is 19 what would the dredging do to the saltwater 20 intrusion. 21 This is the model that we built. Now, if 22 anybody has seen any of the Sound Science or 23 USGS presentation of their Savannah model, you 24 will see the shape of this one and the shape of 25 their model are identical. 74 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 In fact, that's what we did. We took 3 their model and then we rebuilt it. What you 4 will see in our model is our grid is entirely 5 different than the one the USGS had. The grid 6 is the little triangles that we have here. 7 The way these models work actually, it 8 does calculations at each modal point or 9 intersection of these elements. So in an area 10 like this, you can see the elements are huge. 11 They may be a mile or two across. You 12 don't have very much information there. It's 13 much too crude. So we're not interested in 14 simulating, accurately, what's going on here, 15 nor were we interested in simulating what was 16 going on all in this area. 17 This was all done just to get the model to 18 have the same boundary conditions, as the USGS, 19 to be able to piggy back on all of the 20 information they collected. 21 Our stuff occurs here. You can see the 22 model gets so fine here all you see is a purple 23 blob right there. If you zoom in on that, 24 you'll see exactly what we're doing here. You 25 can see the grid here is pushed in along the 75 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 river. We had to make sure this is what we're 3 focusing on. Our grid begins to get bigger as 4 we move away from the river. 5 So our model is completely different from 6 the USGS, however, all of the information that 7 they collected is imbedded in our model. It's 8 just that the focus of the calculations we 9 actually do are different. They're focused on 10 the river. 11 This is just a sketch of the aquifer 12 system as we know it. You've seen a lot of it 13 on Card's. This is what's in the model. We 14 break our model into horizontal layers. We 15 have seven layers in our model which pick up 16 all of the major units that we're interested 17 in. Again, the focus being, primarily, on this 18 area here, what's happening between miocene 19 confining unit, the Upper Floridan Aquifer. 20 In the area of the Savannah Harbor, this 21 is the way the units look. If you move away 22 further south, some of the miocene actually 23 becomes aquifer. There's a little bit of 24 confusion there. Our models does contain the 25 aquifer's, but south of the area here. 76 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 When you see all my graphics, you will be 3 looking at areas that look like this and not 4 like this, but since our model is so big, we 5 have aquifers in them, in the miocene further 6 south. 7 Quick -- model cross-section, this is 8 generated by the model itself. You can see the 9 layers I just described. They're listed here. 10 This is the surficial, the miocene confining 11 unit, this sort of pinkish purple area, then 12 the Upper Floridan Aquifer. You can see here 13 this is the area we're mainly interested in. 14 You can see by the fact the model is a little 15 bit more detailed here, you can see that 16 reflected in this particular cross-section. 17 But it does, of course, go -- this is the 18 model again. This extends all the way inland. 19 You can see the aquifers get thin inland, and 20 offshore they get quite thick. 21 This is just to show you we brought all 22 the information, that Card and USGS produced, 23 into our model. All right. I mentioned that 24 what we were trying to do here was model 25 history first. 77 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 The reason we do that is twofold. One, 3 it's the only way to figure out whether your 4 model actually works. You need to take a look 5 at data. You need to produce the same period 6 of time on your model, compare it to full 7 calibration. And then if your model is able to 8 reproduce history, they you have some 9 reasonable confidence, when it looks into the 10 future it might be accurate. 11 So we had to look at history. One of the 12 inputs then, of course, we've been talking 13 about this all morning, this issue of pumping. 14 What is the pumping doing to our aquifer system 15 and saltwater intrusion? 16 So we needed to get pumping from the 17 entire period of record in the 20th century, 18 from when pumping really started. Fortunately 19 for us, and I guess the Corps, GS has been 20 doing that, and as part of Sound Science they 21 gave us all that information. 22 They did the best they could. They could 23 collect direct pumping data from permits, and 24 then they also had county records going back so 25 they had general countywide totals. So what 78 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 the GS had to do, and we mimicked them, was to 3 take pumping, and they used the county records 4 for that more diffuse pumping. 5 You can see this is just a county-based, 6 number of millions of gallons per day, and the 7 intensity kind of thing. It shows that there's 8 a lot of intense pumping down here, and a lot 9 less intense pumping up here. Now, the reason 10 that the pumping up here is less intensive is 11 most of the pumping that occurs up here is 12 actually permitted, so that the second portion 13 of our pumping is the actual pumping rates from 14 wells where we know that they are. 15 Here you'll see this intense pumping 16 that's going on. We had to sort of blend two 17 sources of information; one being a general 18 countywide, in which we distributed that 19 pumping across the county fairly equally. A 20 lot of that pumping is agricultural pumping. 21 Then the people with permits, the larger 22 pumpers, we knew exactly where they were and 23 how they were pumping. We had all that 24 information from USGS. That went into the 25 model itself. 79 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 So we actually had a pretty easy time to 3 build the model, because we had all this very 4 good information from the GS, and we started 5 with their model, and we just refined it for 6 the purposes of the Army Corps' dredging 7 analysis. 8 You have to calibrate a model to see if 9 it's going to work. We proposed, at the very 10 beginning of this project, to do something a 11 little different than most models. Although we 12 wanted to calibrate and work very hard at 13 getting the model to be as accurate as 14 possible, no matter what model you build, and I 15 understand you have been involved in the 16 surface modelling as well, you see there are 17 always controversies about whether or not a 18 model is well-calibrated and accurate. 19 We wanted to avoid that as much as 20 possible. 21 What we decided to do was not only 22 calibrate it, but then to make sure that 23 whenever there was a question, that we would 24 run the model with very conservative 25 assumptions; in other words, make the model 80 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 err on the side of being likely to overpredict 3 saltwater intrusion. 4 If we build up a bunch of these 5 conservative assumptions, if the model shows 6 dredging doesn't have a huge impact, then we 7 can be reasonably certain that the impact is 8 going to be less than what we're predicting. 9 If we say, here's a model that's 10 overpredicting, and the impacts are fairly 11 small, that we can generally get a consensus 12 that dredging is not the issue we have to worry 13 about. 14 So, we did two things; one, calibrate the 15 model, and two, bracketed the problem and used 16 a very, very conservative assumption of all of 17 the input parameters of concerns, make sure 18 that we were predicting it in the worst case. 19 We did calibrate it. We first compared it 20 to the USGS model, because they had spent a 21 number of years calibrating their model. If 22 our model results looked like theirs, then 23 we already are in pretty good shape. We also 24 compared them to specific water levels 25 ourselves. 81 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time 3 doing that, but I do want to point out this is 4 the model generated cone of depression. It 5 looks almost identical to the one Card showed 6 you earlier, from the data itself, generated 7 and estimated from the wells. 8 When you are modelling an area with this 9 kind of a gradient and heavy pumping, it is 10 very difficult to calibrate a model because 11 small changes in distance result in a very 12 great differences in head. 13 Despite this difficulty, we did a very 14 good job of calibrating, and part of that has 15 to do with how much information we have 16 received from our sources. We do have a draw 17 down, currently 100 feet below sea level, right 18 near the center of Savannah. If you look at 19 USGS's recent model, their results are shown in 20 green. Our results are shown in blue. 21 You'll see in general they're almost 22 identical. Where they are not are in the areas 23 where we have a lot of focus, and very, very 24 tight grids. Our model is probably more 25 accurate here. Our model is less accurate 82 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 out here where we don't have very much accuracy 3 in terms of our grid. And the USGS models, of 4 course, are focused on this area over here. 5 But basically, the two overlay. If you 6 look here you can see our cones of depression 7 are almost identical, so forth. If you compare 8 the statistics, I can show you a whole series 9 of statistics on the model. I'm not going to 10 go over that. 11 This very simple graph, this shows -- puts 12 a dot on this axis. It's actual measurements 13 of the pressure in a well. This is the one 14 with the simulated heads that the model 15 predicts. Of course, if there were exactly 16 accurate, you would be right along this 45 17 degree line where, if the model said you're at 18 a pressure of 100 feet, and the measurement was 19 100 feet, it would right on that line. 20 What you are trying to do when you 21 calibrate a model is to get a scatter of points 22 that are on both sides of the line. Sometimes 23 a model slightly overpredicts, and sometimes 24 it underpredicts. The model is never entirely 25 accurate. You'll never see a model which lines 83 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 up perfectly. So what we try to do is get a 3 good scatter and keep them as close to that 4 line as possible. 5 These statistics are very good. They 6 really are. What it does is basically shows 7 that the USGS' model was well-calibrated; 8 therefore, ours was pretty well-calibrated as 9 well. 10 Okay. This is the portion of it where we 11 said all right, let's take a look at the 12 history. We had porewater samples which 13 suggested that saltwater was penetrating down 14 through that confining unit towards the Upper 15 Floridan. That, of course, is what everybody's 16 concerned about, because if salt gets into the 17 Upper Floridan, there goes the water supply. 18 We know that pumping occurred in Savannah 19 for almost 80 years, maybe closer to 100 years 20 now. We had a record of that pumping and we 21 used that. The idea was to take a look and 22 have the model actually simulate from 1900 23 right up to 2005 every year, month by month 24 going through, simulating what the pressures 25 were, what happens with the saltwater all 84 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 through that period of time. 3 When we get to our snapshot time where the 4 porewaters were taken, somewhere in the 5 beginning of 2002/2003, we would stop the 6 model, and then compare, and see if we were 7 doing a reasonably good job. If it doesn't 8 work, then we start to adjust the parameters. 9 We're checking off what we call a 10 transient simulation. That, in modelling 11 terms, means we are actually stepping through 12 time and modelling the entire period. 13 We look at the rate of migration of 14 saltwater downward through the miocene and we 15 compare it to those bore hole results that Card 16 was showing you earlier. 17 Just to give you some idea of how the 18 pumping went, this is the record the USGS has 19 compiled. You can see that pumping really 20 started to get going in the '50s here, and 21 really, really peeked out in the '90s. Right 22 now it has actually come back a little bit, 23 since 2000. That's one of the reasons why that 24 cone of depression is a little bit less than 25 it was about five to 10 years ago. 85 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 You can see here, this is the pumping in 3 millions of gallons per day. This is actually 4 for the entire modelling area and not just 5 Savannah, by the way, and you can see that it 6 generally went up very, very rapidly in the 7 second half of the century. Of course, this is 8 what caused the pressures to go down. 9 All right. Not a whole lot of -- I'm not 10 going to show you a whole lot of transient -- 11 you can see here these are simply plots of 12 various wells that we have. This is where we 13 were checking our accuracy of the model to see 14 how we were doing. 15 This line here, I mentioned 1900, this is 16 2000. This is a time line. Okay. This line 17 here is simply model results. We modelled that 18 entire century. We took snapshots every year 19 or two and we plotted them here. We have 20 occasional points, where measurements were 21 taken in a well. This well was probably 22 installed back in the '70s, and then they took 23 periodic measurements. Same thing here, same 24 thing here. 25 You can see that the model is predicting 86 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 all of this period of time. This is the slow 3 drop in the potentiometric over the decades. 4 We had no information from the field on this, 5 but the model now is going to tell us what 6 happened over there. We can see when we do 7 start to get information, the model is pretty 8 good in predicting that -- actually, is very 9 good. 10 So that gives us a bit more confidence, 11 over the period of time we have no data, that 12 the model is probably doing a pretty good job. 13 Those are three plots, three more plots further 14 down here, you can see, again, there's a fair 15 amount of accuracy here. Some of this stuff 16 occurs when our pumping data is not exactly 17 accurate. 18 We have assumptions on pumping that 19 appeared that pumping was increasing through 20 this period. There might have been some 21 inaccuracy here. The data suggests it wasn't 22 happening. But again, the model was 23 reproducing the cone very, very well. That 24 gives us a certain amount of confidence that it 25 was doing the historical simulation pretty 87 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 well. 3 Okay. This is the point we keep coming 4 back to. The model was used to reproduce the 5 heads, and the gradients, the pressures, and 6 all of this stuff. Then we went back and said, 7 all right, now we're going to add this 8 saltwater intrusion aspect of it. We actually 9 put the chloride into the model and started to 10 track how that would go. 11 One of the discussions we had early on is 12 how are we going to do this; are we going to 13 start putting chloride everywhere it exists out 14 in the ocean, in those saltwater marshes, and 15 so forth. 16 We decided not to do that for two reasons; 17 one is just simply practical, the more areas of 18 chloride, the way this model actually does is 19 it has to track all of that chloride over time, 20 so it becomes a real calculating nightmare. 21 The runs become huge, when you have all 22 this areas to put salt in. But the second has 23 to do with the point of the modelling we had to 24 do here. 25 This job was about dredging. So we were 88 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 really only interested in the saltwater that's 3 coming in through the dredge channel along the 4 river, and nowhere else. So what we did was we 5 simply modelled the only source of saltwater 6 placed along the river, so we could only focus 7 on the impact of dredging. 8 That's exactly what this model is designed 9 to do. Getting back to the question earlier, I 10 can't remember who asked it, about the impacts 11 of dredging and the concentrations at the 12 bottom of the river and causing the intrusions, 13 we took those concentrations from the surface 14 water model. 15 We had to do that for two reasons. We 16 could have taken concentrations from what they 17 had measured in the porewater, but that would 18 not have allowed us to do the what if. Only 19 the surface water model will tell us what 20 happens to the concentrations in the harbor and 21 how far it goes up and what the concentrations 22 are, in the future once they have dredged, 23 because they haven't dredged yet, at least this 24 proposed dredging. 25 So model concentrations are based on the 89 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 surface water model itself, and we were able to 3 make the what if simulations, one with dredging 4 and one without, and then compare the results. 5 We had to take salinity, of course, and change 6 that into chlorides. Chlorides is what most 7 people are familiar with. 8 These are the -- this is the plot and the 9 data that the surface water modellers gave us, 10 in order to use as input to our groundwater 11 model. What you see here is again the -- I 12 guess this is the downstream to upstream. 13 This is closer to the mouth of the harbor, 14 and this is out near Savannah. This is a plot 15 of salinity parts per thousand. The green line 16 is the salinity that they project will occur at 17 the bottom of the river. 18 It's very important, because we're only 19 interested in the salinity that's going down. 20 We don't care if the salinity, at the top of 21 the river, or the surface of the river water 22 is a certain amount. 23 We're only interested in what's actually 24 in contact with the bottom that's going down. 25 So we asked them, specifically, for salinities 90 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 at the bottom of the river along the river 3 bottom. The green shows that the dredging 4 will, in fact, increase salinities somewhat. 5 The red line is the baseline condition. That's 6 where we are today. 7 So, for example here, we have a salinity 8 of 20 parts per thousand today, and the surface 9 water model predicted that that would go up to 10 about 22,000. So we made a simulation into the 11 future, using this red line first. Then we 12 made one using the green line. 13 That helped us assess, partially, what the 14 impact would be. This is the slide to orient 15 yourself that Card showed you with the numbers 16 here. I use this occasionally just to let you 17 see where you are, in terms of the each of the 18 profiles. 19 Okay. So we simulated 1900 through 2000. 20 We checked the heads in the salinity 21 penetration depths against that very, very 22 interesting core data that Card had showed you. 23 The idea here again was to get the 24 concentrations, and depth of penetration, 25 bracketed by two plausible simulations. 91 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 Let me just stop a minute about this two 3 plausible simulations. When you do a model, 4 any kind of a model, and groundwater models are 5 no exception, you have a lot of input 6 parameters. You know some things pretty well, 7 others you don't know that well. 8 You go ahead and calibrate it, but there 9 are about eight or 10 or 12 various things that 10 have a very big influence on the results. You 11 might know -- let's say there are eight 12 parameters that you are putting into the model 13 that will affect the result. 14 You know maybe five or six of them pretty 15 well from the data, although there's 16 variability. You have to sort of work with 17 that. Two of them you might not know so well. 18 Okay. You run the model. It doesn't look 19 too good when you compare it to the data. You 20 start to make some adjustment with all these 21 variables until you finally get a match. I 22 showed you our match is very, very good. 23 What modellers don't often tell you is 24 their model might not be the only solution to 25 that question. You might be able to take a 92 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 different set of parameters, adjust them in a 3 different way, and get somewhat similar 4 results. Then you will have different two 5 models that look pretty much -- have the same 6 accuracy, but they have a somewhat different 7 configuration. 8 You're never quite sure how close you are 9 to that in reality, whether your model has 10 actually got all the parameters exactly the way 11 it is in the field. Depending on the situation 12 and how much data you have, your measure of 13 assurance is either greater or lesser. 14 In our case, we decided to do something -- 15 there were a couple of parameters, and they 16 were pretty important where it was very hard to 17 understand. 18 One of them is the hydraulic conductivity, 19 the ability of that miocene to actually block 20 the saltwater from coming down. That 21 particular parameter is actually very, very 22 difficult to measure in the field. 23 I'll talk a little bit about that. That 24 was Card's hesitancy about doing those pump 25 tests. Those pump tests are hard to figure out 93 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 what's going on. 3 That particular parameter is difficult to 4 measure in the field, and because it was so 5 critical to our results, we realized it was 6 going to be something that we wanted to make 7 sure we had results. We could come up here and 8 tell you, with a great deal of assurance, that 9 we know what we're talking about. 10 The way we decided to do that was to 11 bracket that. We know that that value can't be 12 lower than a particular value and it can't be 13 higher than a particular value. We know that 14 range where it has to be. 15 I can show why that is in a second. All 16 right. We said, let's make sure when we make 17 these runs that we bracket it with those two 18 outer most extremes as well, so that you will 19 know somewhere between these two the reality 20 is. 21 If you look at the extreme one, which is 22 the loosest value possible, that's going to the 23 worst case. What I'm going to show you in a 24 second is somewhere between the two runs is I 25 generally show you the results will be the real 94 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 thing. We don't know exactly where between, 3 but this was our solution to that problem of 4 not being able to come up with a perfectly 5 unique model. 6 All right. How do we know where those 7 values are? Well, the saltwater intrusion is 8 very sensitive to how tight that miocene is, 9 but something else is very sensitive to that as 10 well. That is the pressures, the cone of 11 depression, how deep that cone of depression 12 gets in response to pumping. 13 What we found we have that mid value. 14 This is a value very much in line with the 15 values that were measured from the core 16 samples. Card did provide us with a whole 17 series where they actually tried to estimate 18 through the field. That's very, very good, but 19 what you get is a wide variety of values. of 20 course, everybody can argue until the cows come 21 in about which one is the correct one for area. 22 So we figured out what we think that value 23 is, and that's the same value that USGS thinks 24 that value is, and that is because it 25 accurately reproduced the cone of depression, 95 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 based on the pumping, even over historical 3 time. 4 So if you ask me what I think the value 5 is, this value here I don't care what the 6 number is, but that represents how tight or how 7 difficult it is to push water through that 8 confining unit. I will tell you I'm pretty 9 convinced this is the number. 10 However, if you drop that number down by a 11 factor, you still -- we have seen some values 12 as low as that, for example, from the data 13 Card gave us, nothing lower than that. So if I 14 drop this one down, what happens to our cone of 15 depression, it drops to 126 feet below sea 16 level, where we're actually measuring it at 17 about 100. 18 So that's why I'm telling you I think this 19 value is the correct value. This cone of 20 depression, and the response of the aquifer to 21 our changes in that tightness of miocene is 22 very sensitive. By this method I can tell you 23 it's got to be less than this, and it's got to 24 be more than that, and somewhere in between. 25 then I'm going to tell you I think it is this 96 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 value or close to that value. So, that's how 3 we do that. 4 But to avoid just making the one run with 5 my opinion of the best value, or USGS' opinion 6 of the best value, we always made the run with 7 that other value so that we can tell you 8 somewhere in between here, probably closer to 9 the value I think is correct is the real -- 10 real result. 11 Then we go ahead and run this thing for 12 100 years, and compare the depth of penetration 13 of the saltwater, and we compare the 14 concentration of the saltwater in the Upper 15 Floridan Aquifer, to the results that Card 16 showed you earlier. 17 As I said, that's the snapshot in around 18 the year 2000 of what happened, because we 19 pumped for 50, 60, 70 years. Okay. So the 20 model starts at the beginning when all that 21 freshwater was coming up. The aquifer was 22 clean and the miocene was all clean and there 23 was no saltwater in there. 24 Over that long period of time, the model 25 starts to simulate the downward movement of 97 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 saltwater. In 2000, we stop the model. We 3 say, all right, let's compare the results with 4 this. Then we start to make our comparisons. 5 Let me just show you how that looks, in 6 terms of the model and how this work. Here's a 7 cross-section of the -- of across the river 8 with the tight grid. You can see our grid 9 here. We have a bunch of computation points in 10 there. 11 Where the model actually works, it puts 12 the saltwater in as particles of salt. Then we 13 can use that to calculate both concentrations. 14 This is a snapshot in 2000. What you see is 15 this is the result of 80 years of pumping. 16 Before, when we started this, there were 17 no particles in here. There was only saltwater 18 up in here. 19 Over a period of time, because of pumping, 20 these particles start to migrate downward. You 21 can see the depth of penetration, simply how 22 far these particles make it down to the 23 miocene. 24 In this particular case, they make it down 25 three quarters of the way through. Some of it 98 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 migrates off to the side, as the water gets -- 3 saltwater gets pulled in the direction in the 4 surface as well. 5 This is how we actually look at the model, 6 and the model actually simulates the saltwater 7 going down. And the idea then here is we have 8 these pore data points, where we compare with 9 the concentrations here, with what the model 10 simulates here. 11 This is just a schematic of how the model 12 might look. This is actual concentration data 13 along the river. Here's the river here. We 14 actually cut a cross-section of the model along 15 the river, and we look at the concentrations. 16 They are color-coded here starting at 25, 17 50 fluorides right up to 5 to 10,000. The 18 green here, the 5 to 10,000 is, of course, at 19 the top of the miocene where it is in contact 20 with the river. This is along the river. 21 As I pointed out, then the concentrations 22 go down and down and get lower and lower as you 23 move through the miocene, because it -- the 24 concentrations get lower and lower. But again, 25 what you are seeing here, this is 8-A. This is 99 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 up at the top near Savannah. In this 3 particular simulation, the penetration has been 4 quite deep through the confining unit, but it 5 has not broken through. Down here at the 6 bottom, the simulation showed that the 7 chlorides broke through and into the Upper 8 Floridan Aquifer. 9 I'm not sure exactly which simulation this 10 is. What it suggests, again, is here where the 11 confining unit is thinner, it has a quicker 12 ride down through to the Upper Floridan. Here 13 where the confining unit is thicker, it hasn't 14 quite made it through yet. 15 These are the kind of plots we made, in 16 order to take a look at what the effects of the 17 pumping was and drawing these chlorides down. 18 So this would be the result of about 80 years 19 of pumping. 20 Again, the overview of where we had all 21 our data. I'll show you few plots, just to 22 show how this works. This is at SHE-15. This 23 is up at Savannah, very near the heart of 24 Savannah. What this plot simply shows is here 25 at elevation, this is sea level down to 300 100 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 feet below the sea level. This line here 3 represents the top of the miocene. This is 4 where the confining unit begins. Here's the 5 entire thickness of the confining unit. Here's 6 the start of the Floridan Aquifer here. 7 This particular run -- this is the 8 measured porewater data, the same data that's 9 shown on all of the plots that Card was showing 10 you for this particular well. You can see it's 11 somewhat variable, up at the top is quite 12 higher, and then it moves down. 13 This is the model data. Up at the top 14 what it is is the start value, which the 15 surface water model gave. Now, you can see the 16 model here -- what this plot is showing you is 17 here are results for our best estimate of the 18 value of the confining unit. 19 The model is overpredicting, and that was 20 part of what we were trying to do. We were 21 trying to be conservative. I can go over all 22 the assumptions that we have in the model that 23 are conservative. Whenever we were faced with 24 a question on an input parameter, we chose the 25 value that would accelerate the saltwater 101 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 intrusion the most, in order to be able to say 3 what's the worst it possibly could be, because 4 that's probably the best way of answering these 5 questions of uncertainty. 6 So the model predictively is 7 overpredicting a little bit. How do we know 8 this -- this is the concentration here on this 9 axis, so here further out to the right, the 10 higher the concentration, and as you go down 11 in depth. 12 You see as you go down, of course, the 13 concentrations of fluorides go down. The same 14 with the model, but the model is much slower. 15 It predicts a deeper -- well, roughly the same 16 penetration, but a much, much higher 17 concentration. 18 This is a typical result where we're 19 comparing with the actual results, and our 20 model is overpredicting, somewhat, the depth 21 of penetration and the concentration. We see 22 that overprediction consistently right down 23 to the end of the model. 24 Here's one somewhere in the middle of the 25 river, the area of concern. Again, we're 102 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 over-predicting the depth a little bit here. 3 Here the model predicts right about now it 4 should be very close to completely down through 5 the miocene and is entering the Upper Floridan, 6 or will enter in the next few years. The data 7 suggests that we're probably several decades 8 away still and the concentrations are a little 9 lower. 10 Same thing here, here we have some very 11 odd-looking actual field data. This is 12 probably due to paleochannels where there is 13 some sideways movement of the salt. We're not 14 exactly sure why the data looks like that. Our 15 model is much more smooth than that, but again, 16 aside from this area near the top of the 17 miocene, where there are probably some land 18 layers that are the making the actual chloride 19 concentration a little bit more interesting, 20 put it that way, our model doesn't have some of 21 those smaller little differences in the sand 22 bracket. 23 Ours is smoother. But again, the depth of 24 penetration on the model again is 25 over-predicting, and the concentration, as you 103 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 get down toward the Upper Floridan is 3 over-predicting. So we have a very 4 conservative model. This run shows somewhat of 5 an overprediction, and that's kind of what we 6 were aiming for. 7 So we did these historical simulations 8 with a number of values for the confining unit. 9 Here's some of the conclusions you can draw 10 from that. The model was very accurate in 11 simulating the heads, using what we call the 12 mid KV value. 13 The mid KV value is the value that 14 represents the permeability of the miocene, 15 the ability of the miocene to move water 16 through it. 17 Generally, the model is over-estimating 18 the depth of penetration, usually by 10 to 20 19 feet, and it tends to over-estimate the 20 concentrations. So interestingly enough, 21 although we calibrated -- this is the value 22 USGS says the miocene is, the porewater data 23 tells us there is something else going on 24 there. 25 We may have that KV value slightly wrong, 104 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 or there may be another parameter that we have 3 in there which is making the model be a little 4 too fast in its penetration of saltwater. 5 We're not sure what that is, but we prefer it 6 to be too fast than to be too slow. 7 All right. So we have this model which we 8 think is slightly conservative in 9 over-predicting, but we're going to use now to 10 take a look at the next 200 years with and 11 without dredging. 12 The idea here was, all right, we got an 13 overly predicting model a little bit, but we 14 can show, even with that model, the impacts of 15 dredging aren't too bad, then we can all come 16 to the conclusion that dredging is not our 17 problem. 18 So what do we do? Well, we don't know 19 what the pumping is going to be in the next 20 2,000 years, so we decide all right, let's take 21 the high pumping we presently have today. 22 We know, from the Georgia EPD, they are 23 never going to allow pumping to increase. It 24 is much more likely to decrease, and we've 25 already begun to see that decrease. So this is 105 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 another very conservative assumption we're 3 making here. We're saying we're going to go on 4 for the next 200 years exactly the way we're 5 going today. 6 We took the surface water models 7 concentrations, as I mentioned, with dredged 8 and non-dredged. We know, from what I just 9 showed you, the model is a little bit 10 over-predicting with mid value for the 11 hydraulic conductivity of the miocene 12 protective. 13 It's too rapid a penetration, so we also 14 made all the simulations with another one, a 15 lower KV, we know is a little bit too tight and 16 sightly underestimates the penetration. I'll 17 show you the two side-by-sides so you'll know 18 what I'm talking about. 19 We know that the real situation is 20 somewhere in between these two runs I'm going 21 to be showing you. 22 A couple of notes, you will see that the 23 shift in the concentration, due to the 24 dredging, is more due to the fact that the 25 concentration at the bottom of the river, from 106 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 the surface water model, races the 3 concentrations than it does to the effect of 4 scraping the miocene. That had a greater 5 effect than scraping the miocene. 6 The dredging does have some impact on the 7 depth of penetration, but not a whole lot. As 8 I mentioned before, we know that the reality of 9 what's actually going to happen out there is 10 probably somewhere between the two runs I'll be 11 showing you. 12 All right. Let's go back. What I'm 13 showing you here are two runs side-by-side. 14 This is the mid KV, the one that's 15 over-predicting, this is the one that's 16 underpredicting. So when you look at these 17 two you can think, all right, what's going to 18 happen is going to be somewhere between these 19 two. 20 What you are showing here, this is the 21 chloride, the carbon chloride position, as 22 simulated by the model. Here's the one with 23 the low KV. Here's the one with the high KV. 24 If you remember the actual, this was 25 probably a little bit too deep and a little bit 107 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 too high. This one would be too shallow and 3 too low in concentration, so again, somewhere 4 in between was the real value. 5 These dotted lines here are the two runs 6 after 200 years. This is in the year 2200, 7 200 years from today. The blue one without 8 dredging, the -- whatever that color is with 9 dredging -- same thing over here. 10 What is it showing? Dredging will cause a 11 slight shift in the concentration upward, but 12 as you can see by the fact it is parallel, most 13 of that shift occurs because of the starting 14 concentration, in other words, the dredging is 15 increasing the concentration at the bottom of 16 the river by this much. 17 That plays itself right through to the 18 bottom. The actual depth of penetration 19 doesn't change a whole lot because of the 20 dredging. Here you can see they hit almost the 21 identical spot, so there is not a whole lot of 22 effect, in terms of how deep that penetration 23 is. 24 There is a slight shift of concentration 25 upward. And again, these two represent two 108 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 extremes. The actual, what we think will 3 actually occur is somewhere in between. 4 If you take that same spot and say all 5 right, what kind of concentrations are we going 6 to see at the top of the Floridan Aquifer over 7 time? This represents the year 1990. This 8 represents the year 2200. What we did, we said 9 all right. Let's read the model concentration 10 for the dredge and the non-dredge; the dredge 11 being the brownish and the non-dredge being the 12 blue. 13 This number here is 500 parts per million. 14 What you see here, this is the mid K or 15 over-predicting model run. It takes about 50 16 years, and then you begin to see concentrations 17 rise upward. And slowly they get up to about 18 100 parts per million, in this particular case. 19 So the chloride concentration at the end 20 of 200 years into the future is probably going 21 to rise to about 100 parts per million, still 22 within the drinking water standard. 23 This is with the overpredicting, if you 24 take the lower value, you see the chloride 25 never gets down there. It never makes it 109 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 through the miocene. You remember that from 3 this plot -- it never gets down into the 4 Floridan Aquifer. It's still somewhere hung up 5 in the miocene, so you get a flat line down 6 here. 7 I think the most interesting thing, and 8 this goes back to the point of this modelling, 9 look at the brown and blue lines. They're 10 almost indistinguishable really. What that is 11 telling us is the concentration we're going to 12 see in the Upper Floridan, with and without 13 dredging over time, is pretty much the same. 14 The dredging isn't what's happening. 15 What's causing the concern here really is the 16 pumping, and whether you dredge or not, you're 17 going to see almost the same results. 18 Let's take something somewhat in the 19 middle. Again, the same kind of values, the 20 overpredictor model, the underpredictor, the 21 results somewhere in between. Here's what we 22 think is the present position. 23 This is probably a little bit under what 24 we really know today. This is a little bit 25 over. Again, the shift here, and the 110 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 concentration. The dredging does have somewhat 3 of an impact on the concentrations, primarily 4 due to the fact that the concentrations at the 5 bottom of the river will go up. 6 The depth of concentration is almost 7 identical. The dredging doesn't really impact 8 that very much. Here are the results, 9 overpredicting here, you can a little bit more 10 than the other one. 11 This particular one, this is halfway down 12 the river where the miocene is thinner, the 13 concentrations are predicting to get up close 14 to 400 parts per million, above the drinking 15 water standard, but it's going to take a good 16 40 or 50 years before that begins to happen 17 from today. 18 The dredging and non-dredging here is a 19 little bit more extreme. The dredging does 20 seem to shove it up to about 50 or 100 parts 21 per million over what it would have been 22 without the dredging. Again, with the low KV, 23 you just begin to see some breakthrough in 24 about 130 years, so somewhere between these two 25 is what is likely to occur. Finally, as you 111 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 get down closer towards the mouth of the river 3 and the Tybee Island area, same kind of thing, 4 overpredicting, underpredicting. Again in here 5 you see the two lines are almost identical, 6 dredging, non-dredging. 7 Here it is predicting breakthrough. 8 Actually, both models, the tighter model and 9 the looser model are both predicting 10 breakthrough. And if you recall, this is the 11 area where the current pore data suggested 12 there was some chlorides already, in the Upper 13 Floridan Aquifer, that the breakthrough has 14 in fact occurred to some degree. 15 So the model is doing a pretty good job at 16 predicting what we see. Again, the same plot 17 starting in 1990 and going through 2200. You 18 see it is a slow increase. 19 The dredging does have a little bit of an 20 effect here. Now we're getting much higher 21 concentrations. These are concentrations in 22 the Upper Floridan right below the river, not 23 spread out over the whole area, right below the 24 river where the source is. 25 It does get up in the high hundreds close 112 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 to 1,000 with this particular model. This one, 3 the tighter one, it only gets up to 3 or 400, 4 but the difference in dredging and non-dredging 5 is not terribly significant. 6 This is -- this is -- these plots are 7 interesting because this is the chlorides that 8 we're going to see, in the Floridan Aquifer, 9 directly below the source where the river is. 10 That's not really what we're all worried 11 about here. We're worried about our drinking 12 water supply. What's going to happen in the 13 wells nearby? That's more of a question, 14 because there's a little bit of chloride right 15 below the river. 16 That's not really much of a concern. So 17 we took the model -- we had all these wells in 18 there, so we said, let's take a look at the 19 chloride concentrations that we expect in these 20 wells, due to the saltwater that's coming down. 21 Again, this is the key thing to remember. 22 I'm not going to show you what I think the 23 chloride concentrations will be in those wells 24 actually, because there's a lot more saltwater 25 out there than this little ribbon here. All 113 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 I'm going to show you is what this saltwater, 3 from the river itself, is going to do to the 4 wells over time. 5 I don't actually know, I'd have to pull up 6 a map to show you where all these wells are. 7 Maybe you guys know where these wells are with 8 a little bit more accuracy. Help me out here. 9 This is a GAF well, I don't know what the use 10 it for. I believe it's an industrial well. 11 What it suggests here again, same code here, A 12 model is the one overpredicting, the B model is 13 underpredicting. 14 This B model says they're never going to 15 see any salt. The A model says yeah, they're 16 going to see some salt, probably starting 17 around 2050 to 2070, and they're going to see 18 salt which is almost insignificant. 19 You can't probably see it in the back, 20 this is 10 parts per million. By the year 21 2200, this well is likely to reach about three 22 parts per million of salt from the river. 23 That's nothing. I mean, the drinking 24 water standard is 250. That's not even 25 noticeable in background. So this well, you 114 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 can say is not going to be heavily impacted 3 by this saltwater. The other thing to mention, 4 look at the brown and blue. The two lines 5 overlay each other pretty much. 6 The dredging or the non-dredging makes no 7 difference. This well will have a very similar 8 effect, and it's going to take an awfully long 9 time. 10 MR. SMITH: And Mark, that well is way 11 upriver where the confining material is thick. 12 MR. MAIMONE: Okay. Okay. Here's 13 International Paper, again, the tight model 14 says in the 200 years we simulated, you're 15 going to see nothing. The loose model says 16 yeah, you're going to start seeing something in 17 about 50 years. 18 But even in 200 years, it doesn't even 19 reach 10 parts per million. Again, not a big 20 deal for them. It's barely noticeable and the 21 drinking water takes a long time to get there. 22 Again, the dredging and non-dredging, here 23 you can see a slight separation between the 24 two, really a one ppm difference between 25 dredging and non-dredging is not even worth 115 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 discussing. It's not even going to be 3 measurable. 4 Here is the Hunt Wesson well, I guess 5 further downstream, I would assume from looking 6 at this, same thing. No impact under the tight 7 model, the looser model shows impact, this time 8 getting up to 20 parts per million by the year 9 2200. It takes about 30, 40 years before 10 you're likely to see it. 11 Actually, probably more, because the 12 reality will be somewhere between the two runs. 13 But again, keep in mind, this is not what 14 they'll actually see in the well. There might 15 be other sources nearby that we're not 16 simulating. 17 The other well, same thing. This is a 18 little higher, 25 parts per million, but still 19 that's actually what we're seeing in the Upper 20 Floridan is in the 20 parts per million range. 21 This is saying that's going to add another 20 22 to it, or maybe not, depending on where between 23 these two models the two lie. 24 Savannah Well Number 11, only with the 25 looser model do you see something, somewhere 116 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 around 190 years out in the future, it's just 3 beginning to reach that well or not, somewhere 4 in between, and it will probably never be 5 impacted. 6 Whitmarsh Island, again, way off in 7 future, 2150 or something, you're going to get 8 10 parts per million or not, depending on where 9 between these two. 10 And finally, Tybee Island, here it's a 11 little closer and a little bit more dramatic 12 impacts here. We're showing actually in the 13 hundreds parts million. The time to impact 14 would be somewhere in the 25 to 90 years into 15 the future. We're not sure where between these 16 two. 17 Again, the tight one, you don't see 18 impacts for about 50 to 100 years, and then 19 it's just beginning. The overpredictor model 20 says it's going to start real soon, so 21 somewhere in between. 22 Again, the brown and blue line, some 23 separation. As you can see, the real problem 24 here is not the dredging. The dredging is the 25 difference between the brown and the blue line. 117 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 It's the fact that there's saltwater and it's 3 probably getting sucked down by the pumping. 4 All right. Just to reiterate one more 5 time, this is an overview of the entire river 6 system, with a color code, of what the 7 concentrations are likely to be at the top 8 of the Floridan Aquifer over time, the year 9 2000, 2250, and way out 200 years into the 10 future. 11 This is if we don't dredge. You can see 12 right now the model is already predicting some 13 penetration in this area of -- of the -- of the 14 Upper Floridan. Now, we know there is a bit of 15 penetration. We also know this model is overly 16 predicting. 17 This area is probably less than what you 18 are seeing here. The model is a little bit 19 overpredicting. This is the high, the mid KV 20 or the overpredictor model. 21 You get to 2050, you can see how the 22 chlorides move up the river and slowly go up 23 over time. The concentrations begin to get 24 higher, in the 1,200 range down here. And then 25 in 200 years, it's already sort of gone all the 118 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 way up here. 3 Here's the one with dredging, and I defy 4 you to see the differences. There are if you 5 get a microscope on it, but it's real hard to 6 see. Here's a little difference here with 7 dredging or not, but really dredging is not 8 what -- what jumps out at you. 9 What jumps out at you is the fact the two 10 are almost identical, but that there is a 11 problem. 12 All right. Those are the results. What 13 we conclude from that, I'll do in a second. I 14 want to make one little digression for one 15 slide. 16 We were asked to take a look at what a 17 pump test would do. This was one of the things 18 that had been suggested. We had made the 19 suggestion early on that a pump test was not 20 practically feasible and we would not be able 21 to do one. 22 Card asked us to take the model and act as 23 if there were a pump test, to see what would 24 occur, so we did that. We went to Tybee Island 25 on the model, our virtual Tybee Island. 119 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 We stuck a well in there and we pumped it 3 at various rates for quite a long time. What 4 we did was we took a look at what we would 5 expect the measured changes, in pressure, would 6 be in Floridan, in the miocene at various 7 points, and then in the surficial aquifer. 8 The idea of the pump test would have been 9 to pump the Floridan Aquifer to measure changes 10 in the surficial aquifer, and that way we would 11 be able to evaluate the permeability of the 12 miocene, which I told you before is very 13 difficult to measure. 14 Well, what did we find? We found that you 15 had to pump an awful lot of water to get any 16 kind of a response, 1,000 gpm was about the 17 minimum. Then you had to have another well 18 which is very close to the original well that 19 was screened. 20 We would have to pump for about three 21 months. After three months, we would probably 22 see, perhaps, a drawdown in the surficial 23 aquifer of an inch or so. The problem here 24 is, first of all pumping for three months at 25 that rate, and disposing of that water. Second 120 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 of all, that inch is much smaller than the 3 natural variation that we're going to see in 4 that surficial aquifer. 5 So, it's going to be really, really 6 difficult to understand what any of this means, 7 and likely that we will not produce any kind of 8 information that we can use. 9 That conclusion, of course, is what we 10 thought was going to happen, but it was 11 confirmed by what the model said, the pump test 12 would be inclusive and impractical. 13 We suggested to Card that they probably 14 shouldn't go ahead and do that. It wouldn't do 15 us any good in terms of our calculations. 16 Another reason why we used that approach, 17 of an overpredictor and underpredictor model, 18 is because we really have a really hard time 19 pinning down that miocene. So that was a 20 secondary model run, I think is independent of 21 the report. 22 Okay. Some conclusions, first one, of 23 course, is we did put together a model we think 24 does a very, very good job of simulating the 25 history and projects the future. 121 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 We're not exactly sure where, and we have 3 two models we used, and we know the reality is 4 somewhere in between. The overpredictor model 5 is the one that is probably more accurate than 6 the underpredictor model, but we have a model 7 that works. 8 We were actually able to simulate what we 9 were seeing out in the field, both in terms of 10 heads and in the chloride penetration. 11 I think the big conclusion here has been 12 drummed into your heads all morning. We have 13 an enormous cone of depression. This has 14 reversed the gradient. It's pushing water down 15 instead of the way it used to come out. 16 These heads are the dominant force for the 17 saltwater to increase. And the dredging 18 probably doesn't have a whole of impact on any 19 of that. 20 Here's another way of looking at that. 21 This graph shows the total amount of pumping in 22 the Savannah area. We just took an area around 23 there. 24 We totaled up all the pumping. It's about 25 24,300 gallons per minute on a rate basis. 122 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 That's the pumping, at least, occurring right 3 near the year 2000. 4 That's this part here. This is the amount 5 of water that is actually leaking down through 6 the river, that ribbon of river that moves all 7 the way up that we simulated. It's only about 8 250 gallons per minute. That miocene is very, 9 very tight. It's hard to get water through it. 10 This is the amount of water if we don't 11 dredge. This is the amount of water if we do 12 dredge, 250, so the difference is about seven 13 gallons per minute, in comparison to pulling 14 out 24,300. 15 The point is, of course, this dredging is 16 not really an issue. It hardly makes any 17 difference whatsoever. The value is increased 18 about 3%, and it's such a small amount, in 19 comparison to the total, that it shouldn't be 20 an issue. 21 I think someone mentioned earlier, it's 22 kind of the same idea of an analogy of this 23 room being the entire area, and this cord being 24 the ribbon of river going through. Think of 25 water going down through this whole room, and a 123 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 slight change in the amount dripping through 3 that cord, it's not going to make a big 4 difference in the overall concentrations. 5 All right. Some other conclusions, the 6 simulated concentration at the top of the 7 Floridan Aquifer, once it penetrates the 8 miocene are very sensitive to two things; 9 the aquifer thickness and the hydraulic 10 conductivity of the miocene. 11 You have two things competing here, 12 upstream near Savannah, center of city, the 13 miocene is very much thicker. That was shown 14 in Card's cross-section very clearly. That's 15 about 200 feet -- 16 MR. SMITH: About 160. 17 MR. MAIMONE: -- 160 feet. That thickness 18 is counteracted somewhat by the higher pressure 19 gradient that you get, the cone of depression 20 is centered on Savannah, so the two fight with 21 each other a little bit. 22 In general what we're seeing is it takes a 23 good long time, maybe 200 or more years, before 24 we're going to see any kind of effect of this 25 cone of depression on the Upper Floridan down 124 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 here. 3 Downstream, Tybee Island area, the miocene 4 is relatively thin. I think Mackie mentioned 5 26, 27 feet at its thinnest point, although the 6 gradients aren't as big, that thinness is the 7 deciding factor here. We get much higher 8 concentrations in the Upper Floridan, predicted 9 over 200 years, and we actually think there's 10 already a little bit of a breakthrough down 11 there occurring. 12 We do see a slight impact of dredging. 13 It's mainly due to the chloride concentrations 14 predicted to go up, at the bottom of the river 15 slightly, and penetrate a little bit further 16 upstream once you dredge, than they are now. 17 But the differences are very, very minor. 18 Now, these word like minor and insignificant, 19 which I use here, that's my opinion. It's for 20 you to make the decision as to how you feel 21 about that. I think what we've shown is that 22 those differences are very, very small in 23 comparison to what the impacts might be, which 24 I think are due to the pumping and not to the 25 dredging. I think the larger issue dwarfs the 125 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 dredging issue. 3 In terms of timing, I showed you on most 4 of those graphs, the dredging didn't appear to 5 make the slightest bit of difference as to when 6 that breakthrough might occur. 7 It always occurred pretty much at the same 8 time, quite late, hundreds of years in the 9 future where the miocene is thick, and it may 10 be already starting in some selected areas 11 downstream near Tybee Island where the miocene 12 confining unit is thin. 13 And so, that's basically what the model 14 did, how we built it, how we used it, and what 15 the conclusions are. I think Card -- well, do 16 you want to wrap up with your conclusions and 17 then take some questions. Does that make 18 sense? 19 MR. SMITH: I just had several slides to 20 kind of conclude the whole thing, or we can 21 have questions for Mark now. 22 MR. DYSART: I think we had questions of 23 you after yours. Why don't we take some 24 questions now for Mark and then you can wrap 25 up. 126 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 MR. SMITH: After that, it will take a 3 couple of minutes to finish the last few 4 slides. 5 MR. DYSART: Bob, Teri, Judy, Will, Bob. 6 MR. SCANLON: Mark where you showed the 7 concentrations increasing, you were showing 8 them along the river, where you had your areas, 9 is that only because that's only the area you 10 concentrated? 11 You haven't done any modelling out in any 12 other areas, similar to the work say Camille 13 Ransom had done? 14 MR. MAIMONE: No. We had this discussion 15 earlier. I decided not to do that because, you 16 can see in this whole presentation, we're 17 balancing two things here. 18 I keep calling it the elephant in the 19 room. Our job was to look at the dredging 20 impacts. We want you, because that's your job, 21 to focus on that. The decision here that you 22 have to make is dredging significant. 23 The elephant in the room, of course, is 24 what other people are alluding to. We have a 25 general that Camille Ransom, South Carolina, 127 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 has been talking about, there is a general 3 downward movement of saltwater through the 4 miocene. It's continuing to occur and due to 5 the fact we have reversed the gradients. 6 There are lots of other sources out there 7 than the river. We don't want to get into 8 that. That was the Sound Science Initiative's 9 job to take of that. We wanted to concentrate 10 on what Card asked us to do. 11 So, you're right. We only modelled the 12 river, and then we went out and took a look at 13 wells, drawing that little bit of saltwater 14 from that part of river into their wells, and 15 looked at the impacts there, because that was 16 what we were trying to do. That's the decision 17 we have to make. 18 MR. SCANLON: The concentration you're 19 showing at the top of the aquifer, is that -- 20 you're saying this is where, at the 21 breakthrough -- 22 MR. MAIMONE: Right. It's right below the 23 river at the top of the Floridan Aquifer, so 24 the worst, worst, worst spots we could find. 25 Of course, that begins to diffuse out as you 128 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 move away from the river. Now, the interesting 3 thing is, and I can show you -- this was kind 4 of funny actually. Take a look at the fact 5 that here's the time series now, 50 years, and 6 200 years. It doesn't spread very much, and 7 the reason is it's just -- it's actually 8 happenstance. 9 The cone of depression is here. If you 10 remember, the circle's going out there are like 11 this. The river happens to be aligned almost 12 perpendicular with the lines of the cone of 13 depression. 14 What we actually see happening is this 15 stuff doesn't want to move in this direction. 16 It wants to move toward Savannah, which is the 17 hole or the big cone of depression, so it 18 happens to ride itself and move up along the 19 river, and never really goes out very much. 20 So oddly enough, the impacts of dredging 21 don't extend out from the river very much, 22 simply because the river happens to be aligned 23 with the cone of depression in a certain 24 direction. That's -- 25 MR. SMITH: The flow lines. 129 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 MR. MAIMONE: -- an accident of geography 3 and the placement of the city. 4 MR. SCANLON: But that's only with 5 reference to the -- 6 MR. MAIMONE: That's right -- 7 MR. SCANLON: -- I mean, realize this cone 8 of depression -- 9 MR. DYSART: One at a time. 10 MR. MAIMONE: Remember that there are 11 other sources, I mean, all of these are 12 sources, none of which we modelled expressly. 13 MR. DYSART: Judy or Teri. 14 MS. BEARD: I think you've answered my 15 question. I just wanted to make sure. From 16 the graphs that you showed, when you are 17 getting some penetration into the Upper 18 Floridan Aquifer, that's fairly localized. 19 MR. MAIMONE: It's right below -- 20 MS. BEARD: Okay. You answered my 21 question then. 22 MS. JENNINGS: I think it's interesting 23 that I realize the salt numbers are low, and 24 you don't, with either of your models, see much 25 of a difference, but I thought it was 130 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 interesting that would see any difference after 3 about 100 years. What's different after about 4 100 years? 5 MR. MAIMONE: Between the dredging and the 6 non-dredging? 7 MS. JENNINGS: Oh, actually right, and 8 between the -- 9 MR. MAIMONE: The overpredictor and the 10 under predictor? 11 MS. JENNINGS: Right. I mean it's small, 12 but I'm just curious, what factor is that? 13 MR. MAIMONE: Well, because as I mentioned 14 before, one of the key input factors, one of 15 the key things that controls how fast the 16 chlorides get down, and then also how much of 17 the chlorides get down that affects the 18 concentration is how easy it is to push through 19 that confining unit. 20 So one of the models makes it a little 21 easier. So when it is easier, more saltwater 22 gets through, not only faster but more of it. 23 You end up with higher concentrations earlier 24 on, so in 100 years time you're going to see 25 higher concentrations for two reasons; one, 131 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 it's getting there earlier, so more and more is 3 getting in, and two, it's allowing more water 4 through just physically -- saltwater. Is that 5 kind of clear? 6 MS. JENNINGS: I'll think about it. I 7 don't understand why it would allow more. 8 MR. MAIMONE: Because it's looser. 9 MS. JENNINGS: What about time makes it 10 looser? 11 MR. MAIMONE: No, it's not time. the 12 property stays the same over the whole period 13 of time. Remember this stuff is still pretty 14 tight, this miocene stuff. So it takes a long 15 time, so probably the best, I think, is this 16 area here, the miocene is maybe 30 or 40 feet 17 thick on average. 18 That's about right, somewhere along that. 19 It took about 80 years of pumping, in that 20 pressure gradient, to push the saltwater 40 21 feet through that stuff. 22 The way -- that KV value I keep talking 23 about, that permeability measure, the units of 24 that is actually in feet per day. What it is 25 is the velocity that that water can make it 132 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 through. 3 And if you saw the numbers, real small, 4 like .001, so that means it's like moving a 5 hair's breadth a day. It's really tight. Now, 6 if you replace that stuff with something with a 7 lot more sand, that value could be a foot per 8 day, or 10 feet per day. 9 It really goes through really quickly. So 10 if the miocene were made of sand, and it were 11 10 feet per day, it would take four days for 12 that saltwater to make it through that 13 confining unit. 14 Because it's made of the material that it 15 is, it took about 80 -- 80 years, okay, because 16 it's just tight. Does that sort of explain it? 17 MS. JENNINGS: I'm sure I'm just not 18 getting it. I don't understand what changes 19 the tightness in 50 years, 80 years. 20 MR. MAIMONE: Nothing changes it. We're 21 just tracking it through time. We're 22 simulating 1901, 1902, 1903, and we're stopping 23 in the year 2000. Then we're saying where is 24 it now. Then we're simulating 2001, 2002. The 25 tightness doesn't change. All that time it is 133 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 slowing winding its way down. So in 1940 it 3 has made it this far. 4 When we take a snapshot, that's how far it 5 is. We simulate month-by-month right up to the 6 year 2000. In that time, it is still moving 7 down. So when we stop it at 2000, it's down 8 here. Okay. It's just tracking it over time, 9 like watching this thing inching its way 10 through the miocene. 11 MR. SMITH: The only thing that changes is 12 the value that he assign for the hydraulic 13 conductivity -- 14 MR. MAIMONE: Right. 15 MR. SMITH: -- to the miocene. He uses 16 one value it's faster. 17 MR. MAIMONE: It's looser, so remember in 18 the overpredictor model I said hey, it's going 19 to move at this particular rate, because the 20 stuff is a little bit looser. In the 21 underpredictor model I made it tighter. 22 Instead of moving a millimeter a day, it's 23 moving two millimeters a day, something like 24 that, so over a number of years that begins 25 to make a difference in how far it actually 134 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 travels. 3 MR. DYSART: Will. 4 MR. BERSON: How sensitive are these 5 results to changes in surface water, either 6 from withdrawals, increased withdrawal of 7 surface water and sea level rise over time? 8 MR. MAIMONE: It's not at all sensitive to 9 withdrawals of surface water, unless that 10 changes the elevation of the river which it is 11 not likely to do. 12 It's a totally pressure-driven thing. 13 It's driven by sea level. That whole tidal 14 area is sea level. You're not going to change 15 sea level. 16 Your second question is sea level will go 17 up. That will, of course, if sea level goes 18 up, you've got an extra foot of head pushing it 19 down. Will that make a difference? 20 In this case, probably not. Remember 21 we're looking at a gradient of 120 feet, so 22 instead of 120 feet, it's going to 123 feet of 23 driving gradient. 24 When you put all that together, you 25 probably won't see the difference. It's not 135 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 enough -- it's like a 3% difference in pressure 3 head, and that's probably not enough to make a 4 difference. 5 You will probably see more variety in the 6 pumping effects. It goes up by 10 feet on a 7 daily basis, so that sea level rise isn't going 8 to make a big deal. Other questions? 9 MR. DYSART: Alan. 10 MR. GARRETT: This forecasted growth in 11 the coastal region, did your pumping rate 12 change? 13 MR. MAIMONE: No. We left it at today. I 14 mentioned earlier the reasoning behind that. 15 We talked to the state. They suggested that 16 they probably wouldn't allow -- now, this was a 17 little while ago. 18 I guess maybe the politics are shifting 19 again. I don't know. What we assumed was the 20 pumping rate in the year 2000 was pretty much 21 the highest it has ever been and would continue 22 for the next 200 years. 23 If they allow more pumping than we see 24 today, yeah, that's going to increase the 25 gradient. That's going to speed things up, 136 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 yeah. I think these results suggest that that 3 might be a bad idea -- I'm not supposed to say 4 that. 5 MR. DYSART: David. 6 MR. KYLER: We were talking about this 7 during the break a little bit. I would assume 8 the difference you're referring to, the state's 9 position on further withdrawals was before and 10 after the conclusion of the Sound Science 11 research. 12 I would hope, and this is very shaky 13 territory in public policy, that if there is 14 further withdrawal, it will be from dispersed 15 well fields, not concentrated in location, 16 which would have a much less proportional 17 adverse effect than as historic withdrawals. Bob, 18 you want to comment on that? 19 MR. SCANLON: I would think if you spread 20 it out, you're widening your cone of 21 depression. As your gradient changes, if you 22 have less of a, essentially, vacuum sucking the 23 water in, if by spreading it out you reduce 24 that sucking, it will probably slow it down, if 25 it spreads out. 137 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 MR. MAIMONE: I think GS did some 3 simulations of exactly that, dispersing the 4 pumping. I think that's in some of their 5 earlier reports that you could look at. 6 MR. KYLER: I don't know what the driving 7 force on doing that up here in Chatham is, but 8 in Glynn County that's the recommended solution 9 for the long-term water management in that 10 area. 11 MR. DYSART: Will. 12 MR. BERSON: I just wanted to say there 13 are a lot of points at which I have to say 14 critical things in this room. I'm very 15 impressed with this work and with Card's work. 16 I think this has really advanced our 17 understanding, not only of the project, as I 18 said before, I think it speaks to a wider 19 problem that we're trying to deal with. I 20 really congratulate both GPA and their 21 contractors and the Corps in doing this work, 22 because it was a request. I think it's 23 important to acknowledge when we've done things 24 and really added to our understanding of what's 25 going on. Again, I thank you very much. 138 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 MR. MAIMONE: Thank you. 3 MR. DYSART: Joel. 4 MR. FLEMING: I've got a quick question. 5 It's kind of on the side. I understand the 6 dredging, it appears, won't influence this a 7 whole lot. We continue to see that curve go 8 out with increased concentrations of chlorides, 9 as time goes on. 10 Do we think we'll ever hit a point where 11 we'll hit some level where we will actually 12 start to see an increase, even though the rate 13 doesn't change, we'll actually have an 14 increased level of chlorides within the 15 sediment itself? 16 So actually it will be larger -- a larger 17 supply of chloride, within the sediment, that 18 will allow it to push through faster almost 19 like a fusion-type situation? 20 MR. MAIMONE: Well, ultimately it reaches 21 what we call a steady state. It will stop 22 increasing. That point will be reached when, 23 in fact, the seawater has fully penetrated the 24 miocene and the miocene is all saltwater at the 25 same concentration as the chlorides in the 139 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 bottom of the river. 3 Once that occurs, then concentrations will 4 no longer increase. There will be a steady 5 flow of saltwater. Right now if there's -- 6 let's say 300 gallons of water per minute going 7 through that miocene along that river ribbon of 8 water, most of that is fresh right now. 9 In 500 years, 700 years, I'm not sure when 10 that steady state is reached, it will all be 11 saltwater, and so concentrations caused by that 12 will be predictively higher. 13 After decades, or hundreds of years, all 14 of that settles out and you have a steady 15 concentration of saltwater, both in the miocene 16 and in the Upper Floridan. 17 I don't know. We would have to run this 18 thing -- you can see, it's very slow. We ran 19 it 200 years -- maybe 2,000 years, you might 20 begin to be able to see that kind of 21 equilibrium being reached. I'm not exactly 22 sure -- does that answer your question? 23 MR. FLEMING: Yeah. I just didn't know if 24 that could, potentially, impact concentrations 25 further down the line. 140 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 MR. MAIMONE: Yeah. I mean, if I could 3 spin those graphs another 1,000 years, you 4 probably would have seen those lines. 5 Actually, some of them had reached steady 6 state. 7 This one did. This is down by -- this 8 suggests this will reach steady state probably 9 within about 50 to 75. See how these 10 straighten, flatten out, that's because at this 11 point the miocene is entirely salty. You've 12 established the gradient through it. It's no 13 longer going up. If I ran another 1,000 years, 14 these lines would remain exactly where there 15 are. 16 But this one, this is the tighter model, 17 again, somewhere in between. This hasn't 18 reached it yet. It's approaching after 200 19 years, but it might need another 100, 200 to 20 get there. This one up here, that is one is 21 too. 22 Let's see -- yeah, I guess you have to 23 look at it between -- this one here, for 24 example, this probably has. We don't know 25 where this one's going to top out. Maybe it's 141 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 flat here -- a little hard to tell. If I ran 3 this a couple hundred more years, it might tell 4 that that's reached steady state. 5 MR. DYSART: Bob. 6 MR. SCANLON: Back to the slide where you 7 showed the concentrations along the river in 8 the change of time -- 9 MR. MAIMONE: See, this plan view one -- 10 this one? 11 MR. SCANLON: That one, right. Those are 12 the concentrations that are resulting from the 13 leakage under the channel, and only under the 14 channel? 15 MR. MAIMONE: That's right. 16 MR. SCANLON: They're not taking into 17 consideration the area adjacent to the channel. 18 MR. MAIMONE: That's right. 19 MR. SCANLON: I'm really getting to the 20 broader picture here, if we have a similar-type 21 of leakage taking place throughout the thin 22 area of the miocene, we're getting those 23 concentrations a few years later in the 24 remaining areas; would that be correct? 25 MR. MAIMONE: That's quite possible, yeah. 142 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 Again, I would assume that that was -- I 3 haven't read the Sound Science report. 4 MR. SCANLON: It acknowledges this work 5 has taken place and the it needs to be further 6 investigated. 7 MR. MAIMONE: Okay. There you go. Yes, 8 this is just the river itself. 9 MR. DYSART: Seeing no more questions, 10 Card why don't you wind it up. Thank you, 11 Mark. 12 MR. SMITH: Okay. Several slides here to 13 kind of reiterate what Mark said, and hopefully 14 kind of tie everything back together, from the 15 whole series of six elements of study that were 16 part of this work; the seismic survey provided, 17 as we talked about, some of the most detailed 18 information on paleochannels that we've ever 19 had, and probably any area has ever had. 20 Of course, it was in that area of concern 21 from station plus 30 to minus 30 that we 22 pointed out. The core sampling and porewater 23 analysis do indicate the chlorides are moving 24 downward through the confining layer, and they 25 do suggest, from the porewater curves that we 143 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 see paleochannel areas, that those areas of the 3 paleochannels are, apparently, areas of some 4 enhanced leakage. 5 And in some of those areas, based solely 6 on the porewater data, the real data, seems to 7 support the idea that chlorides have, in fact, 8 in some of those areas migrated entirely 9 through the confining layer. 10 The GIS analysis indicates that historic 11 removal of confining layer material has 12 probably not had a lot of influence on the rate 13 of saltwater intrusion. It doesn't mean it 14 hasn't had an effect. It just means the effect 15 -- that the time period that the effect could 16 have occurred over has been short, in terms of 17 the overall reversal that we've been talking 18 about from the pumping in Savannah. 19 As Mark pointed out, results from the 20 simulated pump test indicate it would hard to 21 conduct a meaningful aquitard test to determine 22 hydraulic conductivity in that manner of the 23 confining material. 24 The cone of depression in the Upper 25 Floridan Aquifer, due to the pumping in 144 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 Savannah, is the dominant force causing 3 downward movement of saltwater through the 4 miocene confining unit. 5 The groundwater flow model indicates an 6 expected increase of downward flow of saline 7 water, due to -- indicates that the change in 8 the downward flow of saline water due to 9 dredging, would be small. 10 Last but not least, I want to point out 11 this study has gone through what we've called 12 an independent technical review, and it was 13 -- this review was performed by some of the 14 folks who have worked with us all along in some 15 of the planning, and in offering their thoughts 16 and ideas during all these studies; like USGS, 17 and Georgia EPD, and South Carolina DHEC, as 18 well as the Corps of Engineers Hydraulic 19 Engineering Center in Davis, California. 20 Those guys do most of the model review for 21 the modelling that the Corps does on surface 22 water and groundwater. They also looked at it 23 at the same time, and gave us their thoughts. 24 By the way, all these comments generated by 25 these folks are in the back of the report. If 145 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 you haven't seen them, they're all certainly 3 there. I imagine you have looked at some of 4 those, and you see where some of those comments 5 are coming from. 6 So lastly, what we're just getting ready 7 to do is put it through external peer review. 8 And I don't know if you remember or not, early 9 on we asked for suggestions of folks to do this 10 external review, so there would be no conflict 11 of interest these folks being chosen by the 12 Corps. 13 We received candidate nominations from 14 USGS, EPD, DHEC, and also the Aquifer 15 Committee. 16 In fact, this lady, Eve Kuniankis, with 17 USGS, was recommend by John Clarke with USGS. 18 She works in one of their regional groundwater 19 offices. She is a groundwater modelling 20 expert. 21 This Dr. Thomas Burbey, at Virginia Tech 22 was one of the nominees from the Aquifer 23 Committee. 24 And Mr. Larry Hayes, is an ex or retired 25 USGS employee, who was nominated by Camille 146 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 Ransom, South Carolina with DHEC. 3 So we're just about to turn this whole 4 report over to these folks to get an external 5 review on the whole thing, which will supersede 6 this independent, what we call an internal 7 review. 8 So that's where we are right now. One 9 thing, though, let me just point out one thing, 10 Dave Kyler asked me a good question earlier. 11 He came up and asked me about Mark's 12 presentation, as far as dredging depths that 13 Mark -- what was he assuming for dredging 14 depths? 15 What we assumed was worst case, in other 16 words, the total -- there is a table in our 17 report that shows by reach the dredging depths. 18 We included everything in those dredging 19 depths. 20 I think y'all have had some discussions, 21 in surface water modelling, about an allowable 22 overdepths and those types of things. What was 23 in Mark's model was the absolute worst case of 24 adding up all of those depths, and even adding 25 yet another worst case situation to that, and 147 1 PRESENTATION - MAIMONE 2 that is we even assumed that if you use a 3 cutterhead dredge to do this dredging, that 4 cutterhead in the area where the miocene is 5 could -- because of the way the cutterhead is, 6 it's a huge cutterhead device. 7 It cuts down -- the bottom of the 8 cutterhead actually cuts to a lower depth than 9 we are looking for. And so when he cuts down, 10 material will likely have been disturbed below 11 the depth that we're calling for to be dredged 12 to. 13 Mark even included an additional three 14 feet everywhere, for that cutterhead depth 15 having disturbed that material, and even though 16 that material may never be brought up, during 17 the dredging process, it has been disturbed. 18 For all intents of our purposes of 19 disturbing the miocene, he modelled it as it 20 were totally missing. That's just another way 21 we tried to be conservative in what Mark 22 modelled. 23 So with that, we'll relieve the agony. 24 Thank you. 25 MR. DYSART: Questions, reactions? Seeing 148 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 none, we would thank you very much, Card. 3 MR. SMITH: Thank you. 4 MR. DYSART: Very nice job, Mark. 5 MR. MAIMONE: Thank you. 6 MR. DYSART: Committee reports -- have 7 anything from the Aquifer Committee? 8 MR. SCANLON: Yeah. I decided not to 9 comment, but I'd wait till this opportunity, 10 I'd like to echo Will's comments earlier. 11 I think this has been extremely 12 informative, a tremendous amount of excellent 13 work here. I think how this information 14 relates into the Sound Science is a whole other 15 issue. 16 What I have -- have seen personally with 17 all of this the way I've interpreted it is the 18 impact of dredging is minuscule, compared to 19 the overall impact of the information that 20 we've really uncovered here, and that is the 21 downward migration through the miocene. 22 That, I think, is a significantly greater 23 issue of greater concern than the impact of 24 dredging. I just think overall that that is a 25 much greater concern. 149 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 I'm happy that this work took place, 3 because without this that whole point would 4 have been missed, would not have been included 5 in the Sound Science report. 6 Now, Sound Science report from EPD was 7 issued late yesterday, and it's available on 8 the EPD website and under the water issues. 9 I would want to point out, I'd like to 10 just read a short paragraph. I mentioned this 11 to the Card earlier, I think this group needs 12 to be very aware of. 13 This is an interpretation. It says, 14 studies of the core samples, where the 15 confining unit is thin, indicate that in 16 response to the reduced aquifer pressure in the 17 cone of depression saltwater has migrated 18 through the confining unit and can be detected 19 in aquifer water; however, this newly 20 identified process has not been fully 21 characterized, in geographic extent, for risk 22 of contamination to the aquifer. 23 Corroboration of this process is provided 24 by core samples, taken during United States 25 Corps of Engineers studies, evaluating the 150 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 effect of deepening the Savannah Harbor ship 3 channel. 4 Note the next sentence, deepening of this 5 ship channel will thin the confining unit and 6 potentially decrease the time period required 7 for saltwater to migrate into the aquifer in 8 the vicinity of Tybee Island. 9 I just wanted to emphasize that's what's 10 in this report. That is contrary to what I 11 think I just heard in the presentation today. 12 So I just think we probably -- it's something 13 I strongly urge that GPA and the Corps review 14 this carefully and comment on it. 15 MR. DYSART: Okay. Thank you, Bob. Bill. 16 MR. BAILEY: Since the report is out, is 17 the Aquifer Committee going to do anything with 18 the report now? 19 MR. SCANLON: I would say we may well, but 20 I -- it's too early. Like I said, it came out 21 -- oh, that report, oh that report, yes. I 22 don't know what it will be, at least finalize 23 it, bless it probably, but we need to bring the 24 committee together to do that. 25 MR. DYSART: Hope. 151 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 MS. MOORER: One thing you may want to 3 take into account, the timing of that external 4 review, you may want to time it after the 5 comments come back in from the external review. 6 MR. SCANLON: Yeah. 7 MR. DYSART: Judy, were you getting ready 8 to put up a card. 9 MS. JENNINGS: Well, I think the Aquifer 10 Committee was well-placed there, but did I miss 11 the model development status briefing? 12 MR. DYSART: Well gosh, no, you didn't 13 miss it. Why don't let's go back up, item 14 Roman V model development status briefing by 15 the Corps. 16 MR. GARRETT: Joe Hoke was not able to 17 come today, but he gave me a prepared 18 statement. I'll read it to you. 19 MR. DYSART: Please do. 20 MR. GARRETT: The modelling contractor, 21 TetraTech, has responded to agency comments on 22 the hydrodynamic and water quality modelling 23 calibration report. 24 We are presently awaiting confirmation, 25 from the agencies, that they are satisfied with 152 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 the responses. Additionally, the USGS is 3 performing quality control review of ATM 4 collected water quality data to ensure all data 5 used in the analysis meets the same standards. 6 Once this QC effort is completed, at the 7 end of December, and we obtain agency 8 concurrence, comment responses have been 9 satisfactorily addressed, Tetra Tech will 10 finalize the model calibration report. 11 Efforts to simulate and compare impacts, 12 from various deepening scenarios, have begun. 13 We realize there's risk in that, since we 14 haven't got all the agency response in yet. In 15 doing so, we've prepared a model output 16 post-processor that will format the computer 17 model results into graphs and charts, for 18 specific locations, and/or parameters or 19 combinations of parameters as requested by the 20 review agencies. So we're getting a leg up on 21 that development. 22 This output post-processor will prepare 23 output for analysis of fisheries, water 24 quality, wetland impacts, and 25 erosions/sedimentation. 153 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 Also, the chloride report has been revised 3 to respond to comments by the USGS and the City 4 of Savannah. We are waiting for a response to 5 determine if comments have been adequately 6 addressed in that regard. 7 Preliminary indications are there may 8 still be some outstanding issues on the 9 chloride report. 10 As far as the kinetic analysis, 11 Mr. Watson, no final disposition reached on 12 that. We're still awaiting agency response to 13 the proposal, so that's where we stand on the 14 model. 15 MR. DYSART: Thank you. Comments or 16 reactions, thoughts, Judy. 17 MS. JENNINGS: It may just be I couldn't 18 process it all fast enough, Alan, but do I 19 understand that you said that you're starting 20 to look at impact analysis -- 21 MR. GARRETT: Uh-huh. 22 MS. JENNINGS: -- at various channel 23 depths? 24 MR. GARRETT: For fisheries, I think 25 fisheries is underway, yes. 154 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 MR. DYSART: Okay. Let's continue with 3 committee reports, anything on Beach Erosion, 4 anyone have any? Okay. Dredging and Disposal? 5 Economics? 6 MR. BAILEY: Before you go, I guess I have 7 something to say. It's not from the committee, 8 but the Corps is doing some technical work, has 9 started that, and also some coordination work 10 with the agencies on placement of material from 11 the entrance channel. 12 If you dig it up, where are you going to 13 put it? We met with Georgia DNR, the coastal 14 resources folks, on the technical level first 15 and got a general assessment. Their desire is 16 to put as much suitable material as close to 17 Tybee as we can. 18 So that's kind of the direction from them, 19 and that's where we're going to try to go. I 20 think that's -- so we're running costs. We've 21 got figuring quantities, and now trying to work 22 with types of material, and types of equipment, 23 and trying to put all those things together, 24 ultimately, to get costs of different plans. 25 So we are starting some work on that. We 155 1 COMMITTEE REPORTS 2 have coordinated -- started coordination with 3 the agencies to see about any environmental 4 restrictions for placement of that work out in 5 the near shore area. Those things will be 6 continuing. 7 MR. DYSART: Thank you. Judy, Economics 8 Working Group. 9 MS. JENNINGS: If I could clarify with 10 Bill, are you talking about dredge material 11 from deepening? 12 MR. BAILEY: Yes. 13 MS. JENNINGS: Economics Working Group, 14 prior to the next SEG meeting, I will work with 15 the Corps to determine the opportunity, 16 desirability, feasibility of any Economics 17 Working Group meeting, so that we can go over 18 and have any questions or discussion of lots of 19 reports that are ripe from the economics 20 analysis. 21 MR. DYSART: Thank you. Will, Fisheries 22 and Aquatic Resources Committee. 23 MR. BERSON: The Fisheries and Aquatic 24 Resources Committee hasn't met, but I want to 25 talk to Alan about when the impact analysis 156 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 would be forthcoming, as an estimate, because 3 that would be certainly something that that we 4 could be looking at. 5 MR. GARRETT: Of course, until we get 6 agreement that the model is the model, it won't 7 happen. We have on our calendar schedule, 8 conclusions will be in January. So if 9 everything works smoothly, in the next month or 10 so. 11 MR. BERSON: So look for something soon. 12 MR. GARRETT: Yeah. We certainly plan -- 13 MR. BERSON: No, I meant from the 14 Fisheries Committee. 15 MR. DYSART: Teri, what do you have for us 16 from the Ad Hoc Committee and/or Operating 17 Guidelines Committee? 18 MS. BEARD: Well, I was not at the last 19 meeting, so I will let anyone else who was 20 present speak as to what occurred or what needs 21 to be brought to the SEG. 22 MR. DYSART: Hope. 23 MS. MOORER: We have another discussion 24 item a little bit later that we requested at 25 the interim SEG. If you want skip on down, I 157 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 don't know if there's anything from the Striped 3 Bass Committee on docket, or we can take it up 4 now, whichever one the group prefers. How 5 about I go ahead now? 6 MR. DYSART: Go ahead. 7 MS. MOORER: At the last SEG meeting or 8 the time before, the interim group reported out 9 that we had -- well actually, the Corps and GPA 10 had talked to the interim group about an idea 11 we had, as far as the Corps has the process, 12 the formal consultation process, and how does 13 the SEG -- where can we fit the SEG, bring the 14 SEG along with the formal Corps process, since 15 the SEG, one of the charges, is to a consensus 16 mitigation plan. 17 The Corps came back and presented an idea, 18 and it was with having public meetings at the 19 impact evaluation -- impact completion, the 20 known impacts are identified at the end of 21 March, early April, '06, we have a public 22 meeting, the Corps does, at that time to 23 explain the impacts from modelling effort. 24 Then again at mitigation plan complete on 25 the schedule, in August '06, another public 158 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 meeting to educate the SEG as to what the 3 mitigation plan includes, at that time, so that 4 the SEG is educated at that point, and the 5 public in general are educated at that point, 6 about what the impacts are, have been found to 7 be, or predicted to be, and what the mitigation 8 plan includes to address these impacts, or 9 mitigate for them, or avoid them. 10 Then that started discussion among the 11 interim -- people attending the interim 12 committee, what will a final product will be, 13 which is an issue that Bill Farmer has raised 14 several times at the SEG meetings. 15 And Tom Wright graciously volunteered 16 maybe to start outlining a document, to try to 17 avoid when we get down to the consensus part of 18 the charge, if we can agree ahead of time what 19 a document might include, then that would take 20 care of the decisions about a possible 21 document. 22 So Tom just outlined this as the 23 suggestion, and brought it back to interim 24 group. I'll let Tom him talk, or Will, and 25 Judy can jump in too, about kind of the other 159 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 reasons. Morgan and Larry too were there as 3 well of what, kind of what impetus was for this 4 document. 5 MR. WRIGHT: Well, what I did was go back 6 and look at the source documents which tasked 7 the SEG with the work that the SEG does. 8 And then I tried to summarize that and 9 outline and determine what types of things we 10 should document to be able to say, at the end 11 of the process, that the SEG did what it was 12 supposed to do. 13 So that's overall what I looked at. It 14 was an interesting process because there isn't 15 -- well, some people might think there is, 16 there isn't any one, specific document that 17 describes everything the SEG is supposed to do. 18 But the SEG is supposed to be a 19 collaborative body, of organizations, that 20 works together to come to a consensus, 21 basically in two areas; the scientific studies, 22 and in the proposed mitigation. 23 The thing that I saw that was important to 24 me, when I went through it, was that the 25 consensus needs to be on the scope of the work 160 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 as well as the content of it. 3 I thought today's presentation was very 4 good, because when the presenters went into 5 areas where they decided that enough was 6 enough, they explained why, and they explained 7 why it wouldn't be logical to continue on. 8 I think we do need to look at the scope of 9 our work as well as the depth of it inside 10 those boundaries. 11 What I did was lay out how I think the 12 process and the work of the SEG should be 13 documented, and would be very happy to have 14 peoples' comments. 15 MR. DYSART: Thank you. Hope. 16 MS. MOORER: One other thing I wanted to 17 mention was before when a final document or 18 a letter or a report, or just what is the SEG 19 going to produce has been discussed, the group 20 had been hesitant to talk about a report, when 21 we haven't gotten to a point where we don't 22 even know impacts. 23 We're not talking impacts here, it's more 24 what should be SEG-produced. Do we produce a 25 report, if we do a report, what's in it? Do we 161 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 produce a letter? And I think one thing that 3 the group was discussing is okay, we're coming 4 down on some very specific time periods here on 5 the schedule. 6 The SEG is going to be following along 7 with this process, but sooner or later the 8 process is going to conclude. On the schedule 9 right now the record of decision is in '07, 10 August '07, July '07. 11 So when you look at -- that doesn't leave 12 a whole lot of time, when we meet once a month 13 or once every other month. That was another 14 reason, I think, we started looking at is it a 15 report, is it a letter, what does the group 16 want to do? 17 That was another reason Tom volunteered 18 to put together an outline and bring that back 19 to the group for discussion at least. Maybe it 20 would spur discussion or bring up ideas or what 21 does everybody else envision. 22 That was kind of where the interim group, 23 I think, was going with it. Please correct me 24 anybody -- 25 MR. DYSART: Will. 162 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 MR. BERSON: I think Hope gave you exactly 3 the sense of our discussion. Somewhere along 4 the lines we sort of -- we spent a lot of time, 5 far more than -- we're sort of into the second 6 phase of this. 7 And the first phase was defining what 8 needed to be looked at, and how, and some other 9 questions. We turned a corner. I don't know 10 if it was the 56th month or the 77th month. 11 Somewhere along the line, we're sort of 12 turning a corner. And we can see, given a 13 schedule out before us, it is a good idea to 14 think about what -- Tom has given us some 15 direction on what the basis of our -- of what 16 we should be looking at. 17 I think I personally would want, you know, 18 just as a facilitator for the Fisheries 19 Committee, I would want to get their impression 20 of what they think they're supposed to be 21 doing. 22 I imagine that other committees will have 23 other ideas. I think it's just a good idea to 24 start thinking about what a final coda or note, 25 at the end of a process, would be. I don't 163 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 exactly want to prejudice it by saying what I 3 think it should be, because, I mean to be 4 perfectly frank, I'd be interested in hearing 5 what other people think. 6 I haven't formed an idea myself. I 7 suspect that if it were a report, that there 8 might be some opportunity for having a 9 dissenting opinion or something like that. I 10 don't think that that makes a report any less 11 valuable. I think it might make it more 12 valuable. 13 It's a lot to ask a group, as diverse as 14 this, to agree on every point and every 15 principle. It is possible to accommodate those 16 as well, but that's my sense of what we were -- 17 MR. DYSART: David Kyler. 18 MR. KYLER: I was not at that meeting, but 19 while I was having this fleeting thought, that 20 I may not be able to regain later, hopefully 21 somebody else would, but just in case, today 22 we discussed things like water withdrawals 23 and from both the surface and ground. 24 Over the many meetings, there have been 25 other discussions of other policies and issues 164 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 that affect the subject in hand here and our 3 analysis of it. 4 I would hope that a report, from this 5 committee, would include a thorough description 6 of the assumptions, and the policy implications 7 of those assumptions as they affect the 8 recommendations of this committee, because 9 there are things that beyond the control of 10 this -- of anybody at the table here, that 11 could affect favorably or more likely 12 unfavorably, the environment implications to 13 the project. 14 We need to do as much as we can, as a 15 group having studied this thoroughly for as 16 long as we have, to try to share our insights 17 with other groups that do have more authority, 18 and maybe some political clout, to make things 19 happen we alone cannot do, that would be 20 relevant to the assumptions and the 21 implications of the project. 22 MR. DYSART: Larry. 23 MR. KEEGAN: I just wanted to contribute 24 to the discussion that has gone on. I degree 25 with everything that's been said. I think it 165 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 illustrates the importance that deciding what 3 the SEG is going to finally produce is -- the 4 importance of that decision is growing every 5 month. 6 Because it will serve, in my opinion, as 7 the focus for how we proceed through what we'll 8 call this next phase of what's happening. If 9 we have a focus of what we're trying to get to, 10 then we can probably work effectively to get 11 there. 12 If we don't have that focus, I'm a little 13 concerned that we will not get to an end point. 14 I don't know what the right end point is. I'm 15 not suggesting that to anyone. 16 I think it's important to be focused, and 17 the decision in choosing what that focus is, 18 the importance is growing every month. 19 MR. DYSART: Hope. 20 MS. MOORER: To follow-up with what Larry 21 says, excuse me, but the final document goes to 22 headquarters for a record of decision. This is 23 after a draft and public review and comment 24 period. And then the final document, and then 25 the final document goes out for review and up 166 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 to headquarters. 3 When it goes to headquarters, for a record 4 of decision, I think it would be really good 5 the SEG's document, report, letter is able to 6 accompany it, with the opinion of the SEG, and 7 possibly any dissenting opinion, so that 8 they're all considered together, as part of the 9 record. 10 That time frame, as Larry says, it's 11 looming, coming up, is March '07, so a little 12 over a year. And that's why we decided it 13 would probably be a good idea to go ahead and 14 bring this back for discussion to the SEG, and 15 consideration, at least to plant the seed in 16 everyone's mind to start thinking about what 17 you, as a member of the SEG, think a final 18 report or letter should include, or look like, 19 and take a look at Tom's suggested draft, and 20 put any other pieces or suggestions to it that 21 you have. 22 We just thought that timing-wise, looking 23 at the schedule, it was starting to become 24 important. 25 MR. DYSART: Judy. 167 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 MS. JENNINGS: I agree with Hope, but what 3 you said about getting with the Corps, about 4 looking at specific time and ways to involve 5 the SEG in mitigation, there were only two, and 6 they involve the public in general. 7 If we're assuming that this body will 8 produce some document, regardless of how many 9 dissenting opinions there might be, that's not 10 a lot of exposure. 11 Of those two opportunities, it's really 12 not a lot of exposure to mitigation 13 alternatives or possibilities or alternatives 14 in harbor depth, and what that means. 15 I'm just thinking somewhere between me and 16 my signing off or not signing off, I'll need a 17 lot opportunities than those two that have been 18 suggested. 19 MR. DYSART: Bill and Teri. 20 MS. BEARD: I thought we talked about, at 21 one of the meetings, with these two meetings 22 Judy mentioned, that they were more sort like 23 workshops. Are the workshops different than 24 these public meeting, because we mentioned all 25 day workshops? 168 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 That way people SEG interested, SEG 3 members could participate and get more in-depth 4 information. Are we talking -- they are the 5 same thing -- okay. 6 MR. DYSART: Bill, yes. 7 MR. BAILEY: I brought a document that I 8 had talked to this group about, conceptual 9 mitigation actions in October '02, so we have, 10 and at that point, I think, we had it as a 11 standing item on the agenda. 12 If anyone had anything to say, they 13 could talk about it. We held that for a few 14 meetings and then dropped it off because nobody 15 ever said anything. 16 So we -- we have, I guess, had the 17 opportunity to talk about mitigation for a long 18 time. There had been a lot of reluctance to 19 talk about it, before we knew the level of 20 impact. And that's fine. 21 The document on conceptual mitigation 22 actions, I think, is posted on the website. It 23 is by resource, and it was just a list of 24 possibilities. 25 One more thing with that, we have done 169 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 some work on dissolved oxygen, on mitigating 3 for that. We have a report that talks about 4 the work that was done, the conclusions that 5 were reached. 6 We thought this meeting was probably a 7 little full to present that at this one, so we 8 can present that at the next meeting. 9 MR. DYSART: Good. 10 MR. BAILEY: Also we talked about putting 11 the results, so that the SEG can have more than 12 just those two meetings, we had talked about 13 putting the results, model results, up on the 14 website. 15 We'll probably end up going to the 16 agencies first, and then later on, when we're a 17 little more certain of them, being put up on 18 the public website that the GPA maintains. So 19 there will be more than just two meetings. 20 MS. BEARD: Those are just results, isn't 21 that what we talked about, not necessarily a 22 lot of explanation of the assumptions, and the 23 other conclusions from those results, is that 24 correct? 25 MR. BAILEY: Yes. 170 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 MS. BEARD: If anyone has specific 3 questions, they would need to talk to the Corps 4 or whatever agency that affected. 5 MR. BAILEY: Uh-huh. 6 MS. BEARD: I just wanted to make sure 7 that's clear. 8 MR. BAILEY: That would be getting the 9 same information the agencies get, basically 10 they won't be getting anymore. They will be 11 making their conclusions from their 12 professional knowledge, but they are the 13 results of the model runs that the agencies 14 have asked for, that they say they need to make 15 their evaluations. 16 MR. DYSART: Hope and then Larry. 17 MS. MOORER: I wanted to bring back up the 18 meeting. The SEG is open to the public. And 19 these meetings, the workshop sessions, how ever 20 they're termed, whether it's public meetings 21 or public workshops, it's open to the public as 22 the SEG is open to public. Content, I think, 23 as Bill said would be the same. It's just 24 they're all open to the public. 25 MS. BEARD: I think the term public 171 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 meeting gives a different -- I know what you 3 are trying to say. It gives a different 4 connotation, as I think we discussed in the 5 group. It was a little more intimate, a little 6 bit smaller. I think that's where the 7 confusion came from. 8 MR. DYSART: Larry. 9 MR. KEEGAN: Couple of things. The impact 10 analysis run results, when Alan read off the 11 status, he talked about the post-processor that 12 had been developed, and was being refined with 13 what the agencies had wanted to be able to see 14 coming out of that; that's what we'll 15 eventually be posting on the website. 16 You'll be able to look for the various 17 runs. If you look right now, you can see the 18 way the impact runs are broken out. There are 19 no results to post, because that post-processor 20 is still being finalized. 21 What Bill said what the agencies wanted to 22 see coming out of that is being finalized too. 23 That will be posted. I guess the other thing 24 we should keep in mind is that the two public 25 meeting, or workshops, or whatever they're 172 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 termed, I don't think anybody was anticipating 3 that they would be the only two sessions that 4 the SEG would have between now and finishing 5 whatever the work will be. 6 You saw those as two sessions. Those were 7 in addition to SEG meetings, at which there 8 will be opportunity to discuss and question 9 like we've been doing ongoing. So there is 10 additional time available for discussion for 11 this group. 12 MR. DYSART: Perhaps Tom could do, take 13 input from today, and additional input from SEG 14 members, so forth. This could be an additional 15 item for feedback discussion again next time. 16 I declare a consensus to that effect. Does 17 that complete y'all's presentation, Hope 18 MS. MOORER: I think so. 19 MR. DYSART: What about Striped Bass 20 Committee, Joel, we're bouncing around on the 21 agenda today. 22 MR. FLEMING: We haven't met, going along 23 with what Will said, we'll probably meet with 24 the Fisheries Committee in our next meeting and 25 join those two. 173 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 MR. DYSART: Anything else, discussion, 3 comments, what not, before we look at the next 4 meeting dates. On the back we've got 5 suggestions there for possible next meeting 6 dates. 7 MS. JENNINGS: Before I could offer input 8 in to this, I'm curious about when some of the 9 work product might be finished from the model 10 work that Alan gave. 11 MR. GARRETT: February, March, mid 12 February, first of March. 13 MS. BEARD: Does that mean we should have 14 an interim meeting in January? 15 MS. MOORER: That's what I would suggest, 16 possibly an interim meeting in January, and 17 then February for the next SEG meeting. 18 Hopefully by that time, we could have 19 maybe the model approved and presented. 20 MS. JENNINGS: Will there be any impact 21 analysis, from the Corps, in January? 22 MR. GARRETT: In terms of mitigation, 23 fisheries, wetlands? 24 MS. JENNINGS: Anything. 25 MR. GARRETT: Nothing finalized in 174 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 January. 3 MR. BAILEY: Till the model has been 4 approved, it's all preliminary. 5 MR. DYSART: You think you'll have enough 6 material to meet in February? 7 MS. MOORER: I think we discussed we could 8 have DO presentation. That report is on the 9 website already, for anyone that really cares 10 to read it. 11 MS. JENNINGS: There might be something 12 from the Economics Working Group. 13 MS. MOORER: I think February is 14 definitely a time frame. 15 MR. DYSART: Okay. Why don't let's now 16 say February the 7th, and put that on the 17 schedule. Look forward to the Ad Hoc Committee 18 providing some additional guidance and feedback 19 on that in January. 20 MS. BEARD: The interim committee is going 21 to meet on the 10th, does that suit everybody? 22 MR. KEEGAN: 10th of January. 23 MS. BEARD: In the afternoon as usual. 24 MR. DYSART: Hope. 25 MS. MOORER: For anyone else who would 175 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 like to attend that meeting, it's at Lockwood 3 Greene Engineers, from 1:00 to usually about 4 3:00, 3:30. 5 MS. BEARD: We welcome the participation 6 of other members. 7 MR. DYSART: Anything else to come before 8 the group? Alan. 9 MR. GARRETT: I'd just like to say 10 there's a whole lot of work being done, you 11 know, a whole range of these committees. 12 I'm sure at any time, we would share 13 whatever we were doing, the analysis, the 14 assumption, where we're heading, maybe would 15 be this interim SEG meeting purpose. 16 I think some of the other committees would 17 get some valuable information, and probably a 18 better understanding of where we're going with 19 all this. 20 Starting earlier is better than waiting 21 nine months and say, what did y'all do back 22 then. 23 MS. JENNINGS: Alan, could we maybe over 24 e-mail develop what some of those topics might 25 -- which I guess was the reason for my 176 1 MITIGATION DISCUSSION 2 question; might there be impact analysis we 3 could talk about in January? 4 MR. GARRETT: Not necessarily impact 5 analysis, but there a lot of products falling 6 out of the schedule right now. 7 MS. JENNINGS: Could we do just a little 8 schedule e-mail, pre-SEG meeting, and kind of 9 pick out what things would be ripe to discuss 10 in January? 11 MR. GARRETT: Uh-huh. 12 MR. DYSART: Okay. 13 MS. JENNINGS: No big splashy 14 presentations, just talk around the table. 15 MR. GARRETT: Sure. 16 MR. DYSART: Anything else? Will 17 MR. BERSON: Happy holidays move to 18 adjourn. 19 MR. DYSART: So ordered. Thank you very 20 much. 21 22 23 24 25 177 1 2 3 C E R T I F I C A T E 4 G E O R G I A 5 CHATHAM COUNTY 6 7 I hereby certify that the foregoing transcript 8 was taken down, as stated in the caption, and the 9 questions and answers thereto were reduced to 10 typewriting under my directions; that the forgoing 11 Pages 1 through 1 represent a true and correct 12 transcript of the evidence given upon said hearing, 13 and I further certify that I am not of kin or 14 counsel to the parties in the case; am not in the 15 regular employ of counsel for any of said parties 16 nor am I in anywise interested in the result of 17 said case. 18 19 This, the 20th day of December, 2005. 20 21 _______________________________ 22 Kathleen Dore, Certified Court 23 Reporter, B-2041 24 25