1 2 3 4 5 SAVANNAH HARBOR IMPROVEMENT PROJECT 6 7 STAKEHOLDERS EVALUATION GROUP (SEG) MEETING 8 9 JUNE 6, 2000 10 9:00 A.M. 11 MIGHTY 8TH AIR FORCE HERITAGE MUSEUM 12 SAVANNAH, GEORGIA 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 1 2 3 4 5 I N D E X 6 7 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS ------------- 3 8 FACILITATOR'S COMMENTS ------------------------ 6 9 PRESENTATION & QUESTIONS ---------------------- 19 10 MTRG ------------------------------------------ 134 11 FISH AND WILDLIFE PRESENTATION ---------------- 162 12 CERTIFICATE ----------------------------------- 182 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 2 MR. DYSART: If everybody would please take a 3 seat, we're going to start. It's 9:07 and we're 4 going to call the meeting of the Stakeholders 5 Evaluation Group to order. 6 I think I need my bottom part of my first cup 7 of coffee. The first thing we'd like to do is to 8 go around the table, and everyone introduce 9 themselves and indicate who you are here 10 representing. 11 And then I will try to remember, as late 12 comers come in, we'll have other people 13 introduce themselves so we know whose talking. 14 MR. ZADACH: Steve Zadach, Georgia Stevedore 15 Association. 16 MR. DYSART: Everybody speak up so the court 17 reporter can hear you, so you'll be a part of the 18 official, legal record 19 MR. BEASON: Fred Beason, Bottom Line Echo. 20 MR. BROWNE: Tommy Browne, Savannah Pilots. 21 MR. SUTLIVE: Charlie Sutlive, Savannah 22 Maritime. 23 MR. O'NEILL: Robert 0'Neill, Corps of 24 Engineers. 25 MR. PHILLIPS: Jack Phillips, Corps of 4 1 2 Engineers. 3 MR. PARROTT: Dan Parrott, Corps of Engineers. 4 MR. PLACHY: Doug Plachy, Corps of Engineers. 5 MR. O'BRIEN: Pam O'Brien, Tybee Island City 6 Council. 7 MR. DYSART: I'm Ben Dysart, your facilitator. 8 MR. DESA: Chris Desa, Jonaro Technomar. 9 MR. KRAUSE: I'm Rick Krause, K-R-A-U-S-E, 10 with Hydrovision and a volunteer with US Geological 11 Survey. 12 MR. BAILEY: Bill Bailey, Corps of Engineers. 13 MS. REESE: Patricia Reese, Georgia Ports 14 Authority. 15 MS. PERLING: Florence Perling, League of 16 Women Voters. 17 MS. JENNINGS: Judy Jennings, Georgia Sierra 18 Club. 19 MS. LEFFEK: I'm Teri Leffek, Fife and 20 Clydesdale Plantation. 21 MR. KEEGAN: Larry Keegan, Lockwood Greene 22 Engineers and GPA. 23 MR. REES: Morgan Rees, Consultant for Georgia 24 Ports. 25 MR. SCHALLER: David Schaller with Georgia 5 1 2 Ports Authority. 3 MS. VAUGHN: Cathy Vaughn, Georgia Ports 4 Authority. 5 MS. GAY: Dodi Gay, Chamber of Commerce and 6 Manufacturer's Council. 7 MR. MERONEK: Tom Meronek, Georgia Department 8 of Natural Resources. 9 MS. McKEE: Gwen McKee, Georgia Wildlife 10 Federation. 11 MS. McINTOSH: Patty McIntosh, Georgia 12 Conservancy. 13 MR. BERSON: Will Berson, Georgia Conservancy. 14 MR. ROBINETTE: John Robinette, Fish and 15 Wildlife. 16 MR. FARMER: Bill Farmer, City of Tybee 17 Island. 18 MR. STAFFORD: John Stafford, Ogeechee Audubon 19 Society. 20 MR. SCHUBERTH: Chris Schuberth, Chatham 21 Environmental Forum. 22 MR. RICH: Fred Rich, Georgia Southern 23 University. 24 MR. CALHOUN: Andy Calhoun, Colonial Group. 25 MR. PHILLIPS: John Phillips, Georgia DOT. 6 1 2 MR. HAIR: Dave Hair, Georgia DOT. 3 MR. SMITH: Card Smith, Savannah District 4 Corps of Engineers 5 MS. KRUEGER: Gail Krueger, Savannah Morning 6 News. 7 MR. COOEY: Bob Cooey, Georgia Dock and 8 Pilots. 9 MR. BREWTON: Ben Brewton, Coastal 10 Environmental Organization. 11 MR. MIKELL: Rob Mikell, South Carolina DHEC. 12 MR. STEVENS: Stuart Stevens, Georgia DNR. 13 MR. DYSART: Okay. The first thing we'd like 14 to do is -- we've taken care of that. I don't have 15 any old business except to remind you we have a 16 mission. 17 I assume you're familiar with it. I hope 18 everything that happens today in the next four 19 hours will help advance that very specific mission. 20 Moving right along, you have before the draft 21 agenda for the meeting today, which is the 18th 22 month of existence of the Stakeholders Evaluation 23 Group. 24 I would invite you to comment upon this. If 25 you want to move anything around, you want to 7 1 2 change the priorities of anything, put it in a 3 different place, feel free to say so now. 4 Also, I would like your advice from the entire 5 group about approximately how much time you would 6 like to spend on the major things that are on the 7 agenda, so that we do not end up at quarter of 1:00 8 having used up all the time, and having another 9 three and a half hours worth of presentations. 10 So if you will give me and your colleagues 11 some advice on how much time you want to spend on 12 particularly the first items under old business, we 13 will use that as a guide and try to maintain 14 discipline as we go through today. So, comments 15 and suggestions concerning the draft agenda. 16 Chris. 17 MR. SCHUBERTH: My recommendation is to leave 18 it open-ended on those first two items. 19 MR. DYSART: Okay. Chris recommends that we 20 leave the first two items open-ended. Ben Brewton. 21 MR. BREWTON: I would concur with that. It 22 seemed like we had a lot of questions built up by 23 the end of the last meeting. It's a very important 24 topic. 25 I did want to ask just a couple of 8 1 2 questions about another item. What is the GPA's 3 overview presentation? Can I have an overview of 4 what the presentation is? 5 MR. DYSART: I was going to say, that's been 6 on for a couple of months. It's not anything new. 7 Morgan, can give an overview of the overview. 8 MR. REES: The SEG requested us several months 9 ago to describe what else is going on in the 10 project, besides what we're doing in the SEG. 11 MR. BREWTON: Right. Okay. The other thing, 12 the next item after that is Dan Parrott on the 13 channel maintenance. I think Dan said he didn't 14 have anything other than to say what he gave us at 15 the last meeting, unless we had questions. 16 I haven't completed a review of what he gave 17 us, so I don't know if there's anything today 18 for that or not. 19 MR. DYSART: Dan, would you like to comment? 20 MR. PARROTT: I do have some additional 21 information in terms of cross sectioning and am 22 here to answer any questions. 23 MR. BREWTON: Okay. Good. 24 MR. DYSART: Judy Jennings. 25 MS. JENNINGS: I'm very empathetic to be 9 1 2 open-ended on first two items. I want a full 3 discussion of that. The GPA overview presentation 4 is an item that is a holdover. 5 I don't know who else requested it, but I know 6 I personally did some months in the past. I would 7 like to get to that. 8 MR. DYSART: Okay. John Phillips. 9 MR. JOHN PHILLIPS: Ben, I would just like to 10 extend an invitation if anybody is interested 11 in touring the disposal areas, particularly over in 12 South Carolina. If I could see a show of hands to 13 see what level of interests, then we could plan our 14 transportation accordingly. 15 MR. DYSART: When would that tour be? 16 MR. JOHN PHILLIPS: It depends on the 17 response. I saw two hands go up, is that it? 18 Yesterday, y'all didn't want to go. 19 MR. DYSART: Perhaps you added a free lunch or 20 something. 21 MR. BROWNE: We want lunch. 22 MR. JOHN PHILLIPS: My e-mail is John dot 23 Phillips at DOT state dot GA dot US. Send me a 24 message and let me know. 25 MR. BREWTON: Two L's in Phillips? 10 1 2 MR. JOHN PHILLIPS: John dot Phillips at DOT 3 dot state dot GA dot US. 4 MR. SCHUBERTH: Okay. Thank you. 5 MR. DYSART: Darrell Greenwood would want to 6 know, has anybody got something he can get in his 7 car with. If anybody has any elicit devices they 8 would like to share, please feel free. 9 MR. STEVENS: He found one. 10 MR. DYSART: Might be several in this crowd. 11 Is there any other advice on the schedule? I would 12 add that last time we had things open-ended and we 13 basically ran out of time before we got to the 14 major presentation. If you want it open-ended 15 today, again, we'll let it be open-ended. Ben 16 Brewton. 17 MR. BREWTON: Maybe we could just quickly get 18 into it and dig into this aquifer stuff. About 19 11:00 o'clock, if we're still talking about it, 20 maybe we can reevaluate it at that time. 21 MR. DYSART: It is my presumption that there 22 is a great deal of interest on the aquifer area, 23 and that is probably, my guess is that perhaps a 24 majority of time today will be devoted to that. 25 That's my understanding. 11 1 2 I want to make sure that when this meeting is 3 over at 1:00 o'clock we don't 49 items that we 4 didn't get to, and people are upset we didn't get 5 to them because they talked about other things. So 6 anyway, we'll keep it open-ended. We will, at 7 11:00 o'clock, assess things and we'll try to make 8 sure we get through the agenda. Anything else on 9 the agenda? Okay. 10 How about, you've all had the opportunity to 11 examine the transcript from last months SEG 12 meeting. Is there any recommendation regarding 13 approval or acceptance of those minutes. Morgan 14 Rees' card is up. 15 MR. REES: Just one minor fix -- actually 16 three minor fixes, all the same. And before I 17 suggest the fixes, I want acknowledge our 18 stenographer, who does an incredible job of 19 getting through all this stuff. 20 Having said that, in the transcript on page 22 21 line 14 and 22 and page 23 line 2, the term central 22 fish habitat should be essential fish habitat. 23 That's the only thing I found. 24 MR. DYSART: I think the spirit of reviewing 25 these things in recent months has been that if 12 1 2 there is some change, simply put it in the next 3 record, instead of going back and fixing things and 4 monkeying around with that sort of thing. 5 So if anybody has -- I think Patty asked her 6 one time, something was not clear, some of the 7 words had been missed, she clarified it for the 8 record. So we're trying to do this minutes summary 9 transcript thing in the most humane, painless, and 10 accurate manner. 11 If anybody wants to read anything new into the 12 record, feel free. Can anybody not live with the 13 transcript as now modified? Seeing no hands, we 14 will assume that that has been adopted. Thank you. 15 Old business, the first thing we want to do is 16 to get rolling and continue with the presentation 17 we started in May about the impact on the aquifer. 18 Card, where is Card. 19 MR. SMITH: I'm here with a little bit of 20 technical difficulty for a minute here. 21 MR. PARROTT: Do we know where Bo Ellis is 22 now? It's his projector. 23 MR. DYSART: Bo Ellis is -- his baggage didn't 24 get in, so he is out shopping for clothes. He 25 showed up in a golf shirt and shorts. I thought 13 1 2 well, I didn't get the message. He is out 3 MR. TOLLISON: Looked like a tourist. 4 MR. DYSART: He is out making sure he comes 5 here showing proper respect for the members of 6 this august body dressed properly. 7 MR. PARROTT: The problem we have is with his 8 projector here. He may know how best to operate 9 this. 10 MR. DYSART: Larry, can you go be his second? 11 MR. KEEGAN: I've never seen it in my life, 12 literally. 13 MR. DYSART: Is there anyone else in the house 14 who could assist in this? 15 MR. FARMER: Maybe Morgan could do his 16 presentation first. 17 MR. REES: Morgan's presentation is on Bo's 18 machine. So -- 19 MS. GAY: Call Bo on the mobile. 20 MR. SCHUBERTH: Does anybody have some chalk 21 and a blackboard. 22 MS. LEFFEK: Can anybody do a report, if 23 there's a brief one, that way we can get that done. 24 MR. DYSART: David. 25 MR. SCHALLER: I was going to do something 14 1 2 like that. I had an item I wanted to add to the 3 other. 4 MR. DYSART: While we're still technically in 5 the item four, is there any other items you would 6 like to add to the agenda? 7 MR. SCHALLER: I'd like -- I'll take up my 8 item, if that pleases the group. 9 MR. DYSART: Okay. Go ahead. 10 MR. SCHALLER: I, since our last SEG meeting, 11 I have corresponded with Mr. Watson concerning his 12 presentation to the SEG, I believe in March, and he 13 has made a suggestion that I said I would bring to 14 the SEG and recommend to the SEG, with respect to 15 his report. 16 He would like to meet with a small group of 17 SEG representatives to include a representative of 18 Fish and Wildlife Service, a representative of DNR, 19 one of the environmental groups, and the Corps 20 along with GPA, perhaps, to review his study 21 efforts. 22 And if that pleases the SEG, I would recommend 23 that. I will hook back up with Mr. Watson and we 24 will make those arrangements. 25 MR. DYSART: Discussion, reactions? Stuart. 15 1 2 MR. STEVENS: I think it's a good idea. I 3 would be happy to join the GPA to do that, if the 4 SEG would like to set that up. 5 MR. DYSART: Any other comments or 6 recommendations? Chris. 7 MR. SCHUBERTH: I echo what Stuart said. I 8 think also that's very important that there are 9 people who sit there, who understand the technology 10 that's being discussed, so that it can't be said 11 that this is something that is not mainstream, or 12 esoteric, or not appropriate, or not applicable. 13 So there should be people there who are 14 knowledgeable about the technology. 15 MR. DYSART: I think that's an excellent 16 comment. I think anytime there are committee 17 meetings where technical matters are concerned, all 18 interested parties should have competent people 19 there, so they can participate, so they can have 20 and form opinions of what is going on. 21 MR. STEVENS: I think Chris has an excellent 22 point. I certainly don't have the technical 23 knowledge to know whether the models are 24 appropriate or not. 25 I'm not sure that anybody on the SEG does. We 16 1 2 may have to seek some outside, if we are going to 3 try to do that. 4 MR. DYSART: Do you have any ideas about how 5 that would be done? David, and then John. 6 MR. SCHALLER: Our interest is trying to put a 7 grip on what Mr. Watson did to try to understand 8 it. Stuart, I think if you would stay with your 9 superior volunteerism, that you would be just fine. 10 MR. STEVENS: Okay. 11 MR. SCHALLER: We could get somebody from Fish 12 and Wildlife, again, to try to put a handle on what 13 Mr. Watson did, so we can make a determination 14 about further investigation. Doug, if there's 15 somebody from the Corps who might be appropriate -- 16 John. 17 MR. ROBINETTE: Yes. John Robinette, Fish and 18 Wildlife Service. ATM and Fish and Wildlife 19 Service has people that are competent in these 20 modeling efforts. I would recommend we bring 21 those folks with us. 22 MR. SCHALLER: So you could identify someone? 23 MR. ROBINETTE: Wiley Kitchens could probably 24 come if we set this up far enough in advance. 25 MR. SCHALLER: By Mr. Watson's recommendation, 17 1 2 one of the representatives of an environmental 3 group. 4 MR. DYSART: Just any environmental group? 5 MR. SCHALLER: That's what he said. 6 MR. DYSART: Would any environmental group 7 like to be involved with that? 8 MR. BREWTON: Yeah. 9 MR. DYSART: Bill. 10 MR. FARMER: Ben, the MTRG group has been 11 bragged about, as far as the quality of the 12 modelers in that particular committee. Perhaps all 13 of them or some of them should attend. 14 MR. DYSART: Judy. 15 MS. JENNINGS: I would also like to attend. 16 MR. DYSART: It's open -- anyone interested 17 may attend or is this strictly -- 18 MR. SCHALLER: Sure. All that we do is open 19 it. I'm concerned, you know, if it gets too big, 20 we're going to lose our focus on what we're trying 21 to achieve. Certainly wouldn't want to exclude 22 anyone. 23 MR. BREWTON: This is the very start of this 24 discussion. Could you redefine? I missed the very 25 start. 18 1 2 MR. SCHALLER: Yes. I corresponded with 3 Mr. Watson concerning his presentation to the SEG. 4 He corresponded back and said sure, he'd be happy 5 to tell us what he did, how he did it, so forth and 6 so on. 7 He recommended that he do it via the SEG by 8 assembling a very small group of what he said were 9 SEG people to begin with to understand what he 10 did and how he did it. That's when I said to 11 Mr. Watson I would bring this recommendation to the 12 SEG, so I did. 13 MR. BREWTON: Thanks. 14 MR. DYSART: Stuart. 15 MR. STEVENS: Just a suggestion that might 16 make it smoother, maybe a two-step process. Let's 17 get folks together to talk about what Chuck 18 presented and provided to us and the significance 19 of it as related to the Savannah Harbor Project. 20 And if it seems to be real significant, maybe 21 we could have some technical review of the process 22 he's using the models on so forth, as a second 23 step. Would that make it simpler? 24 MR. SCHALLER: It may indeed. I think if we 25 get this little group assembled, we can work 19 1 2 through the details of how to accomplish this 3 mission once we do that. 4 MR. DYSART: I think you've got the feedback 5 you wanted from this group. There seems to be 6 support for pursuing and gathering this 7 information, so forth, is that right, around the 8 table? Okay. Okay. Is the presentation ready to 9 roll? 10 MR. SMITH: I think we're ready. 11 MR. DYSART: Who knows how to work the lights? 12 MR. SMITH: Good morning. I'm not quite sure 13 where to pick up, where we left off last time. I 14 know we certainly don't want to go over everything 15 we talked about last time. 16 I wanted to put these two slides up to recap 17 very quickly, kind of a quick summary of what we 18 talked about, as far as the area of concern. 19 The area of concern mainly is about right in 20 here from this Sta. 1 boring, which is very near 21 the Coast Guard Station -- Coast Guard Station 22 by Cockspur Island, and all the way out to about 23 this Sta. 3, all the way out to the end of 24 Tybee. 25 As you remember, the yellow bands are the 20 1 2 paleo channels that we found in the site survey, 3 and some of them are shown also on the section, and 4 this is a section of that general area of the focus 5 area we were talking about where everything rises 6 here, kind of mounds up, and brings the aquifer 7 closer to the channel. 8 These are -- we talked about these hydraulic 9 conductivity values in this miocene unit in the 10 confining material above the aquifer. 11 We're showing on here minus 54 mean low water 12 as project depth. Of course, there's some 13 difference now about how -- what that final depth 14 will be, but this is kind of a reference line to 15 show you where minus 54 is through here. 16 Of course, it jogs down a little bit when you 17 come in. This is minus 56. But that's kind of 18 where I'll leave that. I guess -- I guess we can 19 start with questions, if that's what we want to do. 20 MR. FARMER: You concluded there was not a 21 danger, based upon the velocity of the water going 22 down versus the velocity of the water traveling 23 horizontally -- something like that. 24 Is there a critical ratio of those two 25 velocities that make it significant one way or the 21 1 2 other? 3 MR. SMITH: Well, what we're talking about is 4 hydraulic conductivity, and we're talking about 5 hydraulic conductivity of this confining material, 6 which we said is on the order of like 10 to the 7 minus 5 -- 10 to the minus 3 to 10 to the minus 5 8 feet per day. That's a vertical hydraulic 9 conductivity. 10 The point I was trying to make, this hydraulic 11 conductivity is much less than the horizontal 12 hydraulic conductivity of the aquifer itself. 13 What you get is a flushing action of 14 horizontal hydraulic conductivity in the aquifer 15 that is much higher than the vertical leakage 16 through the confining material. 17 And the point I was trying to make was that 18 it's not that there won't be any change or any 19 effect, as far as leakage. 20 It will undoubtedly, when you start nicking 21 off the confining material, if everything else 22 remains, you will increase the leakage of this 23 material into the aquifer. What we're saying is we 24 feel like that leakage will not be enough to impact 25 the aquifer. 22 1 2 MR. DYSART: Fred Rich. 3 MR. RICH: I'm Fred Rich. Does your hydraulic 4 conductivity assume uniformity and homogeneity in 5 that unit? 6 MR. SMITH: What it is, Fred, in the 7 calculations we did, we just basically averaged the 8 numerous hydraulic conductivity it came up with. 9 In the confining material, that is the basic 10 assumption. 11 MR. RICH: Okay. 12 MR. SMITH: We took a number and used that 13 number. 14 MR. RICH: The reason I'm down here, Jim Henry 15 recommended -- Jim Henry and Patty McIntosh both 16 suggested I appear simply because the presence of 17 the fracture system we've been studying in the 18 coastal plain apparently has not been known, or 19 people were not aware of the fracture system. 20 I remember reading in the Savannah Morning 21 News, I think it was, after this last meeting the 22 reporter made a reference to cracks or fractures 23 that somebody in Statesboro was studying. 24 So just to put a face on the project, that's 25 something I've been working on for about four 23 1 2 years. And I think it's important to know, I think 3 it's very important to know that, in fact, that 4 miocene unit, and everything down to the eocene 5 seen and everything up to the shoreline sand that 6 compromise the core of Sapelo Island are fractured. 7 There are four fracture sets we've been able 8 to identify. You can find them all the way from 9 Berkley County, South Carolina down to Jesup, and 10 they extend over the entire coastal plain. 11 Joe Wilson with Law Engineering was out in the 12 field with me a couple of weeks ago to take a look 13 at that, just before Law prepared their report to, 14 I think it was the Geologic Survey -- 15 MR. SMITH: Bill McLemore. 16 MR. RICH: Yeah, Bill McLemore, and he filed a 17 report that acknowledged the presence of the 18 joints. The joints are not well known. For those 19 of you who don't know what joint are, they are 20 fracture systems that are generated by the 21 application of stress, either horizontally, or we 22 think probably vertically, as the earth's surface 23 changes shape. 24 So these fractures that are nearly vertical 25 propagate through all the units, and they're found 24 1 2 in all the units. 3 The only question that I think needs to be 4 addressed, as a result of the work that we've done 5 -- by we I mean the work I've done jointly with 6 Jerry Bartholemew of the University of South 7 Carolina -- is that these fracture systems exist. 8 There's no reason to believe they don't exist 9 under the Savannah River. They create a 10 heterogeneous substance rather than a 11 homogeneous substance. So any models that propose 12 to demonstrate how quickly vertical movement of 13 water would take place would have to accommodate 14 the presence of the fracture systems. 15 MR. SMITH: I should point out that again, in 16 the all the drilling we've done, we've really never 17 seen evidence of cores of those fractures. I will 18 say this, we've seen fairly high angle, what I 19 would call partings. 20 That is when you the handle the core, it will 21 part, or it has a plane of weakness. I've never 22 seen in the miocene material, that confining 23 material, I've never seen anything that was 24 stained or had any separation to it. 25 MR. RICH: Well, if you're familiar with the 25 1 2 mottling that's present in that Coosawhatchie stuff 3 up in that area, every road cut shows mottling -- 4 MR. SMITH: Right. 5 MR. RICH: -- and most of the mottling is due 6 to, turns out, the presence of fractures where 7 water has moved down through these units with 8 changes in PH, either caused a reducing or 9 oxidizing environment adjacent to the fracture so 10 you can see the fluids have migrated. 11 You would know what you are looking for if you 12 saw it. The number, the density of these fractures 13 is going to vary, depending the lithology, which 14 Joe points out in his report to Bill McLemore. 15 So depending upon the nature of the unit, 16 you're going to find that the fractures are very 17 widely spaced, maybe a meter apart, or maybe denser 18 packed, 3 to 4 in the space of 10 centimeters. 19 MR. SMITH: Another thing we talked about, 20 since you weren't here last time, we were trying to 21 point out the other factor that's along the line 22 you're talking about is along these paleo channels, 23 which certainly introduce other hydraulic 24 conductivities or different hydraulic 25 conductivities. 26 1 2 We're trying to factor that in, but the way we 3 factored it in was that we just tried to come up 4 with a permeability or a range of permeabilities 5 for confining material, and a range of hydraulic 6 conductivities for the in-filling material and 7 paleo channels. 8 And I'll be honest with you, when we first 9 started looking at the paleo channels, I really 10 expected to find some really sandy material, some 11 material that would have a fair hydraulic 12 conductivity. 13 But, in fact, we've found a lot of clay, silty 14 material. There are seams of sand in the 15 in-filling material, as you would expect, but 16 in general, it's more clay and silt. There are the 17 thicker sequences in the in-filling than sand 18 material. 19 MR. DYSART: Ben Brewton had a question, then 20 three over there, then Trip. 21 MR. BREWTON: I'm very pleased to hear the 22 gentleman over here talking because my question 23 is related to exactly the subject he's talking 24 about. It sounds like he's a lot more 25 knowledgeable than I am on this. A couple of 27 1 2 things come to mind I'd like to propose. At some 3 point today, Card, if you could go back over -- I 4 know Bill Farmer prefaced his remarks with the 5 study concluded. 6 With that in mind, if you could go back over 7 with what your study did conclude, and maybe didn't 8 conclude, as far as what conclusions can be 9 actually drawn from that. 10 What I'm hearing here, though, that relates to 11 my question is that it seems your conclusion may 12 have been based on the assumption that it was 13 homogeneous material, that Bill Farmer said the 14 ratio of those velocities were such that it 15 probably wouldn't be a problem. 16 What I'm wondering, though, I heard some 17 discussion from Dr. Henry and others at the last 18 meeting, the diameter of those borings and the 19 quantity and distribution of those borings may not 20 have been the adequate to conclude whether it was 21 or was not a homogeneous material. 22 The question I would pose for you, and perhaps 23 this gentleman over here actually working with it, 24 in order to make a judgment about whether there are 25 fractures there, and whether that is a homogeneous 28 1 2 or heterogeneous material there, what number of 3 borings, what diameter of borings, what kind of 4 distribution of those borings would we need, and 5 could you tell us what are the same parameters of 6 diameter distribution and quantity of borings were 7 done for this study? 8 MR. SMITH: Okay. Well, a couple of things on 9 that, I'll let Fred jump in there, since I'm a 10 geologist, we could never have enough borings. If 11 we had our way out there, we'd put one every five 12 feet out there. 13 Unfortunately, because of cost and time, we 14 can't do that; however, as we pointed out last 15 time, you can tell by the scale we have some huge 16 distances between the borings. 17 MR. BREWTON: For instance what? 18 MR. SMITH: Well, for instance the distance 19 between these, this is minus 3 plus 00 and minus 20 14, so that's the 11,000 feet, okay, a long way. 21 As we talked about last time, we tried to put 22 some of these borings, based on the aquifer, where 23 we needed some in-filling and some data. We had 24 some gaps in data in the previous work we'd done. 25 We used that a good bit to locate the borings. 29 1 2 The other thing is, Fred, what is the general 3 attitude of the things you're seeing -- fairly 4 high? 5 MR. RICH: They're very steep. They vary from 6 79 to 89 degrees. Most of them are between 85 and 7 89 degrees, so they're effectively vertical. 8 MR. SMITH: Which makes it awful tough to find 9 in boring. 10 MR. RICH: Yeah. And as I mentioned, or at 11 least alluded to, it would depend on the lithology. 12 The sandy units, the really sandy ones that we have 13 on the coastal plain might, in a road cut that's 40 14 feet long, you might find 4 joints. 15 In the more clay units you could find four -- 16 I know you can find four within a centimeter. So 17 it depends on the lithology. You could drill 100 18 holes and not find a single joint, if you were in 19 the lithology that failed to support the density of 20 joints that you could find otherwise. 21 And I think, frankly, it would be difficult to 22 find a joint in one of those cores because you 23 could drill between them or among them and not know 24 they were even there, unless you found just a tiny 25 bit of change in the coloration of say the iron 30 1 2 mineral, so that would be due to some previous 3 phase of leaching. 4 Let me say one more thing, Stuart leaned over 5 and said something, you might want to tell them who 6 you are because nobody knows you. 7 I'm a on the Geology Staff of Georgia 8 Southern. I was the chairman for 10 years. Now 9 I'm one of the regular faculty. So I've been in 10 this area for nearly 12 years. For the last four 11 years, I've been focusing a lot of effort on the 12 study of fracture system. So that's who I am. 13 You'd be lucky to find a joint, but I think 14 you could, but with that kind of spacing over a 15 distance of 11,000 feet, my goodness, it could be 16 anything in there, anything at all. 17 MR. DYSART: We have seven cards up. Let's 18 move on through. 19 MR. BREWTON: Could I get a follow-up to that? 20 MR. DYSART: Ben Brewton. 21 MR. BREWTON: The question that I had that I 22 didn't really hear the answer to was what sort of 23 sampling would you have to do to draw the 24 conclusion, and has that adequate amount of 25 sampling been done? I guess that's what the real 31 1 2 question is. 3 MR. SMITH: Well, the best thing I can say 4 about that, Ben, is we would need to talk to 5 Fred and the guys who are working on those things, 6 and see if we can devise a spacing that would be 7 statistically proper for trying to detect those 8 things. 9 Because they're high angle, it's really going 10 to be tough, you know, to know where to put your 11 borings. 12 MR. BREWTON: I'd like to follow this up some 13 more. There are some other questions. Take those 14 and then come back. 15 MR. DYSART: Let's take the seven cards that 16 are up. John. 17 MR. ROBINETTE: The Fish and Wildlife 18 Service is very concerned about the water use in 19 the Savannah River and what's happening to our 20 aquifer, all those things, and how that's going to 21 relate to wildlife and fisheries needs. 22 MR. PARSONS: Can speak up a little louder? 23 MR. ROBINETTE: I said the Fish and Wildlife 24 Service is very concerned about the water use in 25 the Savannah River, applications for inner basin 32 1 2 transfers, applications to draw the water out of 3 river to be used for other purposes. 4 The cone that's being sucked out around 5 Chatham County, and what kind of negative pressure 6 that's pulling on this thing, I'd like to know if 7 your study has looked the worst case scenario, 8 drought conditions, potential for inner basin 9 transfers, all these things that are impacting the 10 aquifer in a negative way, plus the fact do we know 11 what these fissure will do to vertically? 12 I'm sure it's going to speed it up to a 13 certain degree, but how much? If we get salt water 14 in that aquifer, you know, it's shot. That's our 15 drinking water source. 16 MR. SMITH: Well, as far as the impact on 17 vertical hydraulic conductivity that these joints 18 would offer is something that would have to be 19 studied and worked on to determine that. 20 MR. ROBINETTE: I'd recommend we know that 21 before we dig another spoonful out of that river. 22 I'm real -- we're very concerned about that. 23 MR. O'KELLEY: Could I interject here? 24 MR. DYSART: Mr. O'Kelley is recognized. He's 25 one of the people who has had his card up. When 33 1 2 somebody has something to specifically illuminate 3 something on a question, please feel free to 4 interject. Go ahead, sir. 5 MR. O'KELLEY: Fred, you mentioned the Law 6 report. I agree with you. The fractures, so 7 forth, any additional model that is done, that 8 certainly needs to be taken into consideration, but 9 it is my understanding from Dr. McLemore, who had 10 that report done, that Law concluded that they did 11 not think there would be any significant impact 12 from the fractures. Is that your understanding 13 or -- 14 MR. RICH: Well, with all due respect to the 15 people who did the work at Law, I think their 16 report came to no conclusion at all. 17 MR. O'KELLEY: Okay. Well, I had talked to 18 Dr. McLemore. 19 MR. SMITH: We haven't seen that report yet 20 MR. RICH: I've brought a copy with me that 21 Jim Henry provided. 22 MR. O'KELLEY: I do have a copy. I haven't 23 read it yet, to be real frank. I just received it, 24 but he did tell me that based on the preliminary 25 conclusions that Law did not think that. 34 1 2 I agree with what Fred said. This report was 3 based on the information we had at the time, and 4 other information is being developed, and certainly 5 as it's being developed that needs to be taken into 6 consideration. 7 I just wanted to clarify, the initial 8 conclusion, as I understand it from Dr. McLemore 9 was that it would not affect the problem that we 10 have here, the intrusion into the aquifer. 11 MR. RICH: If I may add one point. The 12 absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 13 MR. O'KELLEY: I agree. 14 MR. SMITH: Let me follow through with one 15 other thing you touched on, the draw down, the cone 16 of depression around Savannah. That is certainly 17 an important factor in what we're talking about. 18 The more draw down you have, the more 19 inclination for leakage through this confining 20 material. 21 That is the one of the very important things. 22 I showed a slide last time, I could go back to it 23 if we needed to, that just shows the contours for 24 the latest cone of depression, and how it expands 25 out around to the Tybee area. 35 1 2 If I remember right, the effect from that cone 3 of depression in this area we're talking about was 4 about a change of five feet, or a lowering of about 5 five feet. USGS has done some studies, and Rick 6 Krause is sitting back here. He is one of the 7 fellows that worked, I think fairly extensively on 8 some of models, where they looked at draw down. 9 That's one thing we pointed out last time 10 that's good, is that over the past 10 years, the 11 trend has been for that cone to lessen or the draw 12 down to lessen. 13 It's coming up which is good. If it would 14 stay that way it would be great, because the more 15 it comes up, the more it does not go down, the more 16 it helps this situation here, but it is certainly 17 a factor. It's a driving force for this thing 18 we're talking about. 19 MR. DYSART: Chris, I think you were next. 20 MR. SCHUBERTH: This is an academic question, 21 but I'd like to just hear the response to the 22 question. It has to do with the joints. Joints 23 develop generally after the sediments accumulate, 24 which means that they can be dated, in a manner of 25 speaking, color of mottling, so forth. 36 1 2 My question is, the earthquake of 1886 3 resulted in the joints to be developed at that 4 time, or did they preexist the earthquake of 1886? 5 And secondly, if another earthquake should 6 occur, and if you look any at regional map of the 7 United States, this little knot here in Coastal 8 Georgia is considered a high risk area; what would 9 happen to these joints? 10 MR. DYSART: Who were addressing that to? 11 MR. SCHUBERTH: Just in general. 12 MR. DYSART: Okay. 13 MR. SMITH: Fred? 14 MR. RICH: I could respond. 15 MR. SMITH: Please. 16 MR. RICH: We've got -- I hope a paper that 17 will be in a press bulletin of the Seismological 18 Society of America where we did an analysis of 19 joints that found in the walls of Ft. Dorchester 20 outside of Charleston, it was damaged by the 21 Charleston earthquake that Chris talked about. 22 The joints in the walls of the fort have 23 exactly the same attitudes, the same structure we 24 have in the rest of these joints. 25 So it's our -- Jerry Bartholemew's and my 37 1 2 opinion anyhow that the Charleston earthquake, the 3 fault that generated the earthquake and the 4 regional stress field that is generating the joints 5 is something that's been in place for a very long 6 time, and the Charleston earthquake may be just one 7 of the latest historic manifestations of the 8 deformation that's changing the Georgia and South 9 Carolina coastal plains. 10 MR. DYSART: Next, Stuart. 11 MR. STEVENS: Wow, yeah. I'm sitting here 12 trying to read the report as well. A couple of my 13 questions may be answered here, but I was going to 14 ask whether Card or Fred can answer the question 15 what the width of an average fracture might be, and 16 is the fracture literally an open -- an opening in 17 the rocks or sediment, or is it filled with 18 anything? 19 MR. SMITH: That's a very good. Fred. 20 MR. RICH: Okay. You get it all different 21 ways. Some of the fractures are -- well, they're 22 less than a millimeter wide, just enough width 23 where the water appears to have moved through them 24 in the past to change the chemistry of the minerals 25 within the fracture. 38 1 2 So you get a little thin clay coating, a gray 3 clay in a unit that would otherwise not be 4 particularly clay. Other fractures are fairly 5 wide. I can think of some along the Old River Road 6 up in Bulloch County that have sort of a compound 7 set of vertical phases that may add up to a 8 centimeter, maybe two centimeters width, with a 9 zone of alteration that might extend out away from 10 the fracture itself two to three centimeters on the 11 side. 12 So as you see things on the ground, on the 13 road cut, you see a band of material maybe three, 14 four inches wide that represents the hydrologic or 15 mineralogic alteration of materials along that 16 joint, presumably as water has moved along them. 17 Some of the joints are open enough that water 18 will run through them. In fact, on Burkhalter Road 19 south of Statesboro, there are joints that flow 20 during periods of high rain. 21 And mind you now, these are joints that are 22 only a meter, meter and a half, two meters below 23 the surface of the ground. These don't have a lot 24 of the confining pressure on them. 25 The joints are probably expanded as wide as 39 1 2 they ever will. Water runs out of them, it springs 3 out of these joints when the soil is saturated. 4 Many of the joints are tight. 5 The mineralogy, the mineral composition 6 varies from place to place which suggests to me 7 that the water moves the joints at different rates, 8 at different times, at different locations. 9 It's also true that up on the land surface, 10 trees take advantage of these joints as do ants, 11 and the tree roots will penetrate the joints 12 presumably, because it's the path of least 13 resistance, and also because presumably it hosts 14 water. 15 I presume that's why the ants burrow into 16 these things as well. The joints are open space 17 that organisms can take advantage of. 18 MR. STEVENS: Ben, as a follow-up, two things. 19 I'm looking at the report from Law Engineering & 20 Environmental. I would agree with Fred they make 21 the statement -- it says if there was an area of 22 intense fracturing where the fracture zone passes 23 through the multiple layers, the fractures locally 24 might have the scientific hydrologic influence. 25 In the next paragraph, they say look at the 40 1 2 draw down of the Floridan Aquifer of the Savannah 3 area. There's no indication of a similar draw down 4 in the surficial aquifer. They're saying there's 5 evidence there, so I think in conclusion the last 6 question I would ask, I guess, goes back to what 7 Ben brought up, do we need more cores, bigger 8 cores; what do we do to answer the question? It 9 seems a pretty significant question to answer. 10 MR. DYSART: Who are you addressing that 11 question to? 12 MR. STEVENS: I don't know. I guess these 13 two experts. 14 MR. SMITH: I don't think there's any doubt we 15 need to look at that. It definitely needs to be 16 looked at. 17 I'm looking forward to reading this report. I 18 haven't read it all. I heard it was out. We 19 definitely need to look at it, need to talk with 20 the fellows working on this for a good while and 21 see what we can come up with for a means of making 22 some determination on it. 23 MR. PARSONS: Keith Parson, what is the title 24 of that report? 25 MR. RICH: This report is from Law and is 41 1 2 directed to Dr. Bill McLemore. It's Report of 3 Evaluation and Potential Hydrologic Significance of 4 Fractures in Coastal Plain Sediments. Then it has 5 a Law project number. 6 MR. TOLLISON: Law did this for Georgia EPD? 7 MR. RICH: Yes, for the Georgia Geologic 8 Survey, yes. 9 MR. DYSART: We've got about seven cards up. 10 Patty is on the list. Did you have something to 11 relate? 12 MS. McINTOSH: I just wanted to respond to 13 that real quickly. Law Environmental or Law 14 Engineering has just been asked by EPD to do 15 further study, including looking at potential 16 recharge in this system. I had some further 17 questions, but I'll wait my turn. 18 MR. DYSART: Next card up I noticed was Trip. 19 MR. TOLLISON: Has USGS stated a position -- 20 not necessarily a position -- have they stated 21 whether or not they feel deepening the harbor will 22 mess up the aquifer? Have they released anything? 23 Does anybody know? 24 MR. SMITH: No, they haven't, to my knowledge. 25 MR. TOLLISON: Have they an opinion on it? 42 1 2 Have they done any studies? 3 MR. SMITH: To my knowledge, they have not 4 made a response to it. 5 MR. TOLLISON: They're the experts, I think, 6 is anybody here from USGS? 7 MR. SMITH: Former USGS. 8 MR. KRAUSE: I'm Rick Krause. By way of 9 introduction, I did spend 32 years with USGS, 10 25 years on the coast. USGS has not made an 11 opinion or statement as to the effects of the 12 harbor expansion on the leakage or contamination of 13 the Upper Floridan Aquifer. 14 MR. TOLLISON: Seems like this would follow 15 under the new program, Sound Science Initiative. 16 MR. SMITH: That's a good point. I think 17 that Rick would verify this, at the last meeting 18 down the Midway Sound Science Initiative, Patty 19 certainly knows about it, she was there, others in 20 this room also; it was discussed that USGS in the 21 present modeling that they are working on that they 22 would look at the channel deepening, as far as 23 its implementation in the model, to have a look 24 at the area we're talking dredging, and trying to 25 determine what the model would say about what we're 43 1 2 proposing on doing. 3 So that really needs to be done. I don't know 4 to what extent they will be able to go, as far as 5 the detail in the area. Hopefully, they will be 6 able to focus in on this area, because their model 7 is fairly regional with some fairly detailed areas. 8 Rick, you want to add to that? 9 MR. KRAUSE: Yes. The U.S. Geological Survey 10 will, in fact, be able to simulate the response of 11 harbor expansion. It won't be timely, as far as I 12 know, to this particular endeavor here. 13 They would need additional data collection 14 beyond that which was done by the Corps, and 15 whoever else put together the original report. 16 I'd like to say something about the 17 discussions we've had about the cores, and the fact 18 we've got 9 locations, and maybe 22 samples. 19 I think we can forget about collecting enough 20 data in terms of cores. I think the key is to go 21 to the field and conduct what we called in situ or 22 field tests of hydraulic conductivity, which 23 basically will give you those field parameters that 24 you are lacking of with those single two and a half 25 inch cores. 44 1 2 Again, you're never going to get enough cores 3 with the hydraulic conductivity parameters and such 4 to ever answer the question. You're really going 5 to have to address it in the field. 6 That's a pretty sophisticated aquifer test in 7 which you measure the aquifer and the confining 8 unit properties. The coring is really not the 9 answer. 10 I think that we probably should dismiss 11 worrying about going out and collecting twice as 12 many or doing twice as many cores. I don't think 13 that's money well spent at all. 14 Fred's discussion about the fractures is 15 well-posed. There are a lot of fractures in the 16 miocene. Whether they conduct water or not is a 17 function of the hydraulic head on either side of 18 them. 19 Of course, in the Statesboro area, there's not 20 that much head to drive that leakage. Down here, 21 as you get closer and closer to the cone of 22 depression, you do have that head difference 23 between the estuary, the river, the marsh, so 24 forth, the water table, and the Upper Floridan 25 Aquifer. Of course, the aquifer down here, that 45 1 2 head difference drives the water through those 3 fractures in a broad scale. 4 You're not going to measure that in an 5 isolated core across the areas. Those fractures 6 allow for the diffuse leakage that actually causes 7 the infiltration and recharge in those areas. 8 Without those, you wouldn't have enough water 9 pressure in the Floridan to even pump, which also 10 allows the upper leakage historically -- 11 geologically historically to allow diffuse upward 12 leakage to supply the water to fresh water ponds 13 and wetlands in the coastal areas. 14 MR. TOLLISON: Quick follow-up. Are these 15 tests conducted on other deepening projects 16 throughout the country, or is this like a unique 17 situation about the aquifer? Are they done in 18 Charleston, Norfolk, stuff like that, so that can 19 kind of guide us? 20 MR. SMITH: There are other studies done in 21 other ports. I'm not familiar with, you know, any 22 in particular -- any particular situation. But 23 anytime generally there is a concern for impact on 24 an aquifer, you can see these things generally 25 done. 46 1 2 MR. KRAUSE: follow-up on that, you don't 3 necessarily have to have the potential harbor 4 deepening. All you have to do is have a desire to 5 know what the leakage characteristics are in the 6 confining bed. It doesn't matter if you have a 7 landfill. You have got an aquifer of choice. 8 You want to know that hydraulic conductivity 9 is between the two. Like I said, you want to know 10 it there just as much as you want to know it up in 11 Charleston. So it's not that unique in terms of 12 along the coastal area where a channel harbor 13 deepening is being proposed. 14 MR. DYSART: Next card I saw was Judy 15 Jennings. 16 MS. JENNINGS: Started off with -- this has 17 been an excellent exercise in vocabulary. I've sat 18 through lots of words that I didn't get in that 19 context. Can you help me simply understand 20 lithology? 21 MR. RICH: Lithology -- rock-type. 22 MS. JENNINGS: Rock-type? 23 MR. RICH: Yeah, the mineral composition, 24 rock-type, so we have things like sand stones, silt 25 stones, clay stones. 47 1 2 MR. SCHUBERTH: My class on geology 101 begins 3 tonight at 6:00 o'clock. 4 MS. JENNINGS: But I have all I need to know. 5 MR. DYSART: These folks might require too 6 many prerequisites. 7 MS. JENNINGS: Field tests for conductivity is 8 what I heard you suggest instead of trying to go to 9 more and more core samples. 10 If you were to do that, what would be involved 11 in designing and implementing that, and what would 12 the time frame be -- would that be consistent? 13 MR. KRAUSE: Basically, what you would do is 14 to place wells in the aquifer and planning units 15 that are being stressed. 16 You start with the Upper Floridan Aquifer, you 17 would have a pumping well in that aquifer. You 18 would have an oxidation well in that aquifer. You 19 would have oxidation of confining layers. 20 Directly above you would have an oxidation well. 21 Elsewhere, where the water bearing soil is 22 within the miocene, in that sequence, and you would 23 pump the pump well, measure the response, do 24 the calculations with sophisticated ground water 25 floating place to determine hydraulic conductivity 48 1 2 both laterally and vertically. 3 You would have that then for the location of 4 the aquifer test. At least it would be a field 5 area of perhaps hundreds of feet, as opposed to a 6 single core. 7 If you wanted to definitively cover the river, 8 you would move up the river reach to do this at 9 every location. I would think you would want to 10 that at a location of worst case scenario, where is 11 the most likely place where leakage would occur, 12 either under the present day conditions or under 13 harbor deepening. 14 You would go to that location, run the field 15 test, then you would have some indication of flow 16 velocities, flow rates, volumes of flow down from 17 the river channel, down into the Upper Floridan 18 Aquifer, and then, of course, downgraded into the 19 Upper Floridan Aquifer as it moves across the cone 20 of depression. 21 Then you could quantify that by correlation of 22 the data that's already been collected, in terms of 23 hydraulic conductivity for the cores you already 24 have for the river reach itself, extrapolate that 25 information or those data, and get a flow for the 49 1 2 river to the aquifer and down to the cone of 3 depression. 4 MS. JENNINGS: What would a variable be and 5 how would you control for changes in potential? 6 MR. KRAUSE: You wouldn't need to because the 7 aquifer test would only be about 72 hours. 8 MS. JENNINGS: Would the test you described be 9 definitive of what's really available? 10 MR. KRAUSE: It would give you an order of 11 magnitude or more of conflux leakage at a down 12 field site, like 100 feet. Then again you can 13 extrapolate that up and down the river. 14 It would go a long way towards being able to 15 answer the question of whether the harbor expansion 16 would or would not impact the river. You would 17 quantify, well, can we live with X amount of water 18 moving into the Upper Floridan Aquifer, given the Y 19 amount is a factor of dissolutions, a factor Card 20 talked about earlier. You would decide whether 21 that's something that you can live with. 22 MS. JENNINGS: Time frame? 23 MR. KRAUSE: Throughout six months, off the 24 top of my head. 25 MR. SMITH: We have a pretty good location to 50 1 2 do what Rick was talking about right here at the 3 end of Tybee, which is very near the highest 4 portion of the aquifer right here. 5 There are already some wells. USGS already 6 has some wells there. We installed several 7 additional wells next to those wells, as part of 8 the work we were doing. 9 Clemson University actually did do some pump 10 testing there. I think there was some problems 11 about where the screens were, and where they 12 thought the screens were, but that is a good 13 location to do just what Rick's talking about. 14 MR. DYSART: David Kyler was next, as we try 15 to work our way through. David. 16 MR. KYLER: Thanks. Maybe I'm stating the 17 obvious here, but I don't think it hurts to go over 18 this time and again, when we go over the various 19 scientific analyzes that go into assessing this 20 project. 21 I think we would agree that most of the, if 22 not all the environmental factors that are 23 evaluated using science be it physical, biological, 24 chemical, whatever, are not exact sciences that 25 we're talking about. 51 1 2 The studies with technical expertise that 3 reaches conclusions that are probabilistic, meaning 4 they have some degree of uncertainty. Of course, 5 what we are talking about here is reducing 6 uncertainty by doing additional research, which 7 I'm all in favor of. 8 I do want to remind people even the best 9 information will leave us a certain degree of 10 uncertainty. We need to evaluate the risks in 11 terms of the worst case outcomes, and in case those 12 predictions are not adequate, and weigh it in those 13 terms. 14 MR. DYSART: Dan Parrott's card was next. 15 MR. PARROTT: I had my card for 20 minutes. I 16 had a question a while back for Fred and Card. My 17 understanding was that last month one of the tests 18 that was run was looking at the salinity within the 19 aquifer and the upper boundaries of the aquifer, 20 correct, looking at the salinity of the water of 21 the aquifer? 22 MR. SMITH: We had a well sample that we put 23 in by Pulaski and Tybee, as far as the water 24 quality parameters. The slides were part of that. 25 We showed slides last time. 52 1 2 MR. PARROTT: It had very low salinity in the 3 upper portions of the aquifer. Is there an 4 indication there are fractures in the area, or 5 the fractures themselves do not transmit water from 6 the river down into the aquifer? Is that the 7 indication, the fact you have not found a smoking 8 gun leaking into the aquifer? 9 Second question is, being off track here, what 10 is the impact of the deepening on the aquifer? 11 We're talking about a lot of uses of water. 12 What is the impact? If there's been no 13 smoking gun of salinity leaking into the aquifer, 14 what's the impact of the harbor expansion project 15 for either one? 16 MR. SMITH: Well, Dan, I don't think you're 17 going to be able to say that at two selected 18 locations, at Pulaski and Tybee where we have the 19 work quality data that we have some -- some good 20 data, some good chloride values, I don't think 21 you're going to be able to say from those two 22 points there's no impact from any potential 23 fracture. 24 To me, it's a good sign that what we found in 25 those wells and the already wells that were deeper 53 1 2 showed that there was a certain value in surficial 3 aquifer. Then you went lower in the confining 4 material, it was much less than when you first came 5 out the confining material into the aquifer, it was 6 very low. But as you increase in depth, of course, 7 it picked up. There are other reasons for that 8 when you find it going deeper. So -- 9 MR. PARROTT: How about if there was large 10 cracks, would you have expected salinity -- 11 MR. SMITH: Well -- 12 MR. PARROTT: -- on the order of three or four 13 inches is what I heard. 14 MR. SMITH: I would think you would see some 15 indications, but there again, I think the 16 relationship of where you're collecting your data 17 has a lot to do with it. 18 MR. RICH: The only thing I could add to that, 19 I haven't had any part of the salinity testing, so 20 I cannot address that, but it appears to me these 21 fractures are probably intermittently active, as 22 time goes by, they maybe more active than others, 23 at least as far as their conductibility of flow of 24 fluids. 25 I say that based upon the fact that many of 54 1 2 the fractures are geochemically zoned. You can see 3 this in the oxidation state of the minerals that 4 are present. 5 Some of the fractures are not zoned. So it 6 tells me that different fractures will activate and 7 maybe deactivate as time goes by. So I think my 8 intuition tells me you could expect these things to 9 turn on and turn off uniformly wherever they exist. 10 I would expect them to behave individually 11 depending upon the particular stress field that 12 exists in a region, depending upon the rate of 13 removal of overlying material, denudation by 14 erosion or mechanical means. 15 A question that comes to my mind, and one that 16 Jim Henry and I have simply puzzled over is what 17 would be the effect on, let's say, somnolent 18 fractures if an overlying confining pressure were 19 removed, either by dredging or by blading with 20 a bulldozer; could you reactive these things by 21 simply taking off a lithostatic load that tends to 22 keep them closed? 23 I have no idea. I couldn't answer that 24 question. It perhaps could be modeled. It's 25 probably one of those things you would find out 55 1 2 after you've done it. The genie escapes from the 3 bottle after you take the cork off, and I -- well, 4 you people are better judges of the wisdom of doing 5 that than I am. 6 MR. DYSART: The next -- Jack is next and 7 David Hair. Jack Phillips. 8 MR. JACK PHILLIPS: After listening to all 9 these discussions, I think there's something pretty 10 basic that's being missed here. I apologize if I 11 insult any of your intelligence. 12 Those of us that deal with numbers 10 minus 13 6, 10 minus 3, look at a map way out of scale like 14 this and don't really have a feel for how the 15 public may see this. 16 I want to use some things in the room to give 17 us some sense of scale of the things we're talking 18 about. Try to visual an area within these tables 19 might be the area on the map to your right here to 20 an aerial extent; downtown, up river, down here, 21 this end of the channel down here. 22 Take the orange power cord and pull one end to 23 other. Let that represent the river. You have got 24 five points down there where you have the old paleo 25 channels crossing the channel. 56 1 2 Pick anyone of those black cords and put them 3 at five points across the orange cord. Visualize 4 the area under the table as being the aquifer, and 5 it's about 1,000,000 gallons of water passing 6 passing one side to the other. 7 You have got to somebody standing down at each 8 one of these points where these paleo channels are. 9 For years, they have been dumping 200 gallons of 10 water into the river at that spot. Now they may 11 dump 220 gallons of water into that spot. 12 MR. SMITH: Into the aquifer? 13 MR. JACK PHILLIPS: That will get into the 14 aquifer, you've increased the flow by 10% only 15 at those locations where the paleo channels cross. 16 And in my mind, that pales in significance 17 based on the amount of horizontal flow that's 18 coming through the aquifer. Y'all need to decide 19 whether -- what magnitude of flow that is going to 20 be increased into the aquifer that is significant 21 to you, for whatever your purposes are. 22 But on the scale of what we're talking about, 23 it's just really very small. 24 MR. HAIR: What Trip was asking, is there any 25 historic information present on monitoring in Kings 57 1 2 Bay, the submarine base deepening that the Corps 3 would like to give us? 4 MR. O'KELLEY: USGS has done some wells down 5 there, have they not, Rick, at Kings Bay, deep 6 wells -- is there historical information available? 7 MR. KRAUSE: Yes, there is. The hydrologic 8 system is quite different there. There's probably 9 5, 600 feet of overburden, whereas there's a lot 10 less as you can see here. Yes, we do have wells 11 monitoring the Upper Floridan Aquifer. We don't 12 have any in the miocene sequence, but they do in 13 Nassau County, Florida right across the river. 14 There's been no impact at all, because of the 15 dredging at Kings Bay. But again, the hydrologic 16 head is a lot different, the thickness and the 17 confining base is a lot different. 18 MR. O'KELLEY: The channel itself is better 19 than a third rock throughout the length of it, and 20 it is very dense dolomite and limestone. So, you 21 know, like Rick says, the situation is entirely 22 different, but there is historical information 23 available. 24 MR. DYSART: Ben Brewton. 25 MR. BREWTON: The term about hydraulic head 58 1 2 keeps coming up here. I assume -- I'm assuming 3 there was some assumption or presumption in this 4 study about hydraulic head, or what Judy was 5 talking about, that your calculations were based 6 on. 7 Are your predictions based on -- have you 8 looked at various types of hydraulic head 9 relationships, increased or reduced hydraulic head, 10 or looking at it being constant with what it is in 11 the affected area? 12 MR. SMITH: The heads that we took into 13 consideration were basically the head of sea level 14 acting on the confining material. That stayed 15 fairly consistent. Of course, as you -- as we 16 know, what we saw in wells is when you go deeper, 17 the head from each successive unit is less. 18 So there's a downward vertical gradient, and 19 of course, that gradient is influenced greatly by 20 pumping in the cone of depression in Savannah. 21 What we assume was this constant head acting 22 on the confining material and material, even a 23 small amount of material above the confining 24 material, where the change was for us was removing 25 the material, which in effect has the effect of 59 1 2 increasing the head, when you remove some material. 3 MR. BREWTON: Further clarification. Based on 4 what I was hearing Rick saying, and also you 5 earlier, isn't that change of head down in the 6 Floridan, perhaps even the surficial, I think it's 7 mentioned in the report they were reading over 8 there, isn't that going to have some effect? 9 My question is were there different scenarios 10 considered, or did you use a constant for that? 11 MR. SMITH: We just, for the sake of your 12 question, we used a constant for that. We did not 13 -- I think what you may be getting at, are you 14 saying if the cone of depression increased 15 drastically? 16 MR. BREWTON: If it increased or decreased, 17 in other words what I'm asking, right now the EPD 18 interim strategy meeting leading to some final 19 strategy, the Sound Science Initiative development 20 of increasing population, so forth, there are a lot 21 of different scenarios being modeled to what water 22 use would be, withdrawals would be on the Floridan 23 in the future. 24 So in order to have a complete picture of what 25 -- what the implications of the deepening in this 60 1 2 particular situation might be, it seems like it 3 needs to based on or a different scenario needs to 4 be shown. It sounds like you only looked at one 5 scenario. 6 MR. SMITH: We have. The scenario we looked 7 at was one shot at a time in measuring water 8 levels, all these levels one incident at a time, 9 and basing the calculations on differing heads and 10 differing formations. 11 MS. JENNINGS: Thank you, Ben. I'm wondering 12 if I might ask for some help and suggestions in 13 getting the discussion back to SEG Harbor Deepening 14 forum. 15 For instance, I've asked about time frame. I 16 know that sound science is engaged in some of the 17 things. Part of what this body is supposed to 18 do is identify information that is relevant and 19 germane to harbor deepening. 20 Clearly, there's some questions about the 21 aquifer that appear to be relevant. We have 22 additional information on the table. We have 23 additional questions. Now, can we develop a 24 framework for addressing questions, either as a 25 recommendation of a study from SEG or a 61 1 2 recommendation that we coordinate with the Sound 3 Science Initiative. 4 Chris, I would love to take a class. If I had 5 time, I'd love to do all this. The fact is I 6 don't. But the answers need to be developed to 7 answer very specific questions at this table. 8 So can we work towards a framework, and gather 9 all this up, and tell us how to get the answers 10 that we need here, and under whose auspices we 11 conduct those investigations? I mean is it a 12 combination of Sound Science Initiative and/or GPA? 13 MR. DYSART: Let's finish. Good point. Let's 14 finish the cards that are up. I think, obviously, 15 this body has been doing all the listening with 16 questions, is what does this body do, is there any 17 action as opposed to simply learning? 18 MR. ROBINETTE: One thing that you said, Dan, 19 that's confusing to me, I'm not a geologist, I'm 20 not expert on the aquifer. 21 But you were talking about if you took 22 salinity measurements near the surface or upper 23 levels of the aquifer, that would prove that you 24 didn't have salt water intrusion, or you didn't 25 have a problem, there was no smoking gun? 62 1 2 MR. PARROTT: That was my question. If you 3 assumed there were cracks and that was causing some 4 transmission of salt water into the aquifer now -- 5 MR. ROBINETTE: If I wanted to know if there 6 was salt water in the aquifer now I'd be looking 7 on the bottom of it. Salt water is heavier than 8 the fresh water. 9 MR. PARROTT: It's coming from the top. 10 MR. ROBINETTE: Is that not right, am I way 11 off base? 12 MR. SMITH: That's right, but it gets into 13 kind of another situation. In that aquifer, it is 14 true. And Rick, correct me on this if I'm wrong, 15 it is true that there is increasing salinity as you 16 go deeper, much deeper in the aquifer. But it is 17 most likely from other sources, deeper sources, 18 what's called comate or unflushed ancient waters 19 that maybe upwelling and bringing that salinity 20 from deep instead of the surface. 21 MR. ROBINETTE: The other thing that I wanted 22 to bring up, isn't there other places along the 23 coast here that have problems, already have 24 problems with salt intrusion, like Hilton Head 25 Island and Brunswick? 63 1 2 MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. 3 MR. ROBINETTE: Are surrounded by this salt 4 water intrusion problem, it sort of drives home the 5 point how important it is. 6 MR. SMITH: Part of the Sound Science 7 Initiative, I guess, that is going on and has been 8 going on as we speak, to further the knowledge 9 about those things. You're talking about the 10 cooperation from the State of South Carolina, along 11 with Georgia and USGS is involved on doing some 12 further studies, particularly in the Hilton Head 13 area, and they have learned some very interesting 14 things. 15 MR. ROBINETTE: We've had some wells drilled 16 on some of our wetlands to get water. Most of the 17 time, we don't go into the Floridan Aquifer. 18 MR. REES: Can speak up, John, we can't hear 19 you. 20 MR. ROBINETTE: I say, we've had some wells 21 drilled to provide water for nesting birds at 22 certain times of the year. Like I said, I'm not 23 an expert on this. Talking to some of these folks 24 that put these wells in, one in particular up 25 around Hilton Head, has told me that he's put wells 64 1 2 in for housing developments, or for a home or 3 something like that, and he's talking about these 4 people using these wells, calling him, and they're 5 going salty overnight. You know, is that how rapid 6 this is? 7 MR. SMITH: My first question -- I want to say 8 this, first question is how deep are the wells, 9 what zone are the wells in? 10 There are a ton of wells around Savannah that 11 are shallow or surficial aquifer wells, all over 12 the place, as far as Wilmington Island, Skidaway 13 Island. They're everywhere, very shallow wells. 14 You can have that kind of situation with some 15 of those. It would depend, I'm assuming, where 16 they are drilling. I'm assuming they're drilling 17 fairly deep wells, it's the area where they're 18 placing the wells and how deep they're going. 19 MR. KRAUSE: The salt water intrusion that is 20 taking place along the coast is of a couple 21 varieties. 22 You're probably familiar with that in 23 Brunswick, and there the water, as Card pointed 24 out, the saltwater miocene is at 2,400 feet below 25 land surface. It's very, very saline. The 65 1 2 chloride concentration in that water is greater 3 than 30,000 milligrams per liter, which makes 4 it almost twice as salty as sea water. 5 That water intruded into Brunswick from below. 6 That's not the problem you have here. If there 7 were a potential for contamination or saltwater 8 intrusion of the aquifer owing to the harbor 9 expansion, you would look at the upper part of 10 the aquifer first. 11 If there is saltwater intrusion that is of a 12 regional nature, talking about Pinckney, possibly 13 Moss Creek, those areas, that's -- you're pretty 14 much at the upper end of the Floridan Aquifer flow 15 system, so just right at the edge of it. 16 You put a well in the Upper Floridan and you 17 pump it awhile, it will bring naturally occurring 18 sea water, more like moderate sea water goes into 19 that aquifer. 20 The north end of Hilton Head, as an example, 21 the saltwater depth is about 300 feet at the north 22 end of Hilton Head. The upper part of the Upper 23 Floridan is fresh there. It's like a wedge coming 24 in. 25 If you were to induce saltwater to appear 66 1 2 because of the Savannah harbor expansion, that 3 would first leak into the Upper Floridan, and you 4 would have a slight increase in the saline content 5 of the in the Upper Floridan Aquifer. You might be 6 able to observe that with observation wells. 7 MR. ROBINETTE: Okay. 8 MR. DYSART: Will. 9 MR. BERSON: I am struggling to get my arms 10 around some of discussion, so I appreciate 11 Mr. Phillips' characterization. Unfortunately, 12 some of things I've heard suggest that you sort of 13 characterized it, is it 200 or is it 220. 14 Some of things I've heard suggest we have 15 absolutely no idea, and won't have any idea until 16 we do the deepening, what -- in terms of pressure 17 what the change is, in terms of leakage actually 18 is. Have I missed the point? I'm looking for a 19 sanity check on the discussion so far. 20 MR. SMITH: I think, for instance, what Rick 21 was talking about,, was the pump test where you 22 would more or less determine in situ the hydraulic 23 conductivity at the place you were running the pump 24 test would go a long way toward putting more 25 realistic numbers on some of things. A 67 1 2 particularly great place to do that would be right 3 here at the end of Tybee, as we mentioned. So -- 4 MR. KRAUSE: I think I can clarify that. As 5 part of the aquifer test that I was explaining 6 earlier, you could have potentiometer, or a little 7 observation well in a location that would be just 8 below the present harbor depth or river depth. 9 Then you could have one another 10 feet down 10 or whatever the harbor deepening is, and measure 11 the response of both of those wells. 12 The difference in leakage is the hydraulic 13 conductivity in that zone that you will be soon 14 taking away by the dredging. In a way, you would 15 get at the problem. Of course, you're right. 16 Until you do it you're not going to know 17 definitively. You could go a long way toward 18 predicting with the right data. 19 MR. BERSON: That sort of interchange wouldn't 20 be a function of time? 21 MR. KRAUSE: You could put time into it. 22 There would be velocities to be determined, flow 23 rates, volumes, and that sort of thing. 24 It wouldn't be such that -- I wouldn't suspect 25 it would be such that saltwater intrusion would all 68 1 2 of sudden occur 25 years from now. I think the 3 chances are it would just induces additional 4 leakage. 5 I think Card has already concluded essentially 6 right now there's leakage right now. What you 7 would be doing is increasing leakage by stripping 8 away some of the confinements. 9 MR. SMITH: That's a very good point. We did 10 mention it last time. There's definite leakage 11 going on right now. What effect, for instance, 12 the paleo channels have a locally increase in 13 leakage. We really don't know the answer to that. 14 MR. STEVENS: I think Ben said you could jump 15 in if you have a comment on something that was 16 said. 17 Rick, based on what you just described, if you 18 dug that hole and you missed one of these fractures 19 that you were talking about earlier, would it still 20 be valid? 21 MR. KRAUSE: Yes. You don't have to -- 22 MR. DYSART: It is 10:30. We're going to have 23 a break. 24 (Short Break) 25 MR. DYSART: Okay. It's 10:45, and we'll 69 1 2 reconvene the meeting. You want to speak 3 immediately, Chris? You're on the list. I 4 recognize Chris. 5 MR. SCHUBERTH: Well, let me say that I very 6 much appreciate, from the SEG perspective, the 7 discussion that's taken place this morning in which 8 we're talking about a very hard question that's 9 based on geology, scientific information. 10 Clearly, there is a variety of opinions, and 11 so there should be. That's what good science is 12 all about. And we're looking to find a best 13 answer. 14 And Judy Jennings had mentioned earlier that 15 maybe something -- we need to come to some kind of 16 solution as to dealing with this question, because 17 we can discuss for hours joint systems, and 18 movement of water, and whether we're talking 19 homogeneous, or heterogeneous, on and on and on the 20 technical aspects of this. 21 I view this personally, again, from a 22 geological background, an issue that is as 23 important as what Dave Schaller will now maybe 24 now smile at, what I had called a big five very 25 early in our meetings. These were important issues 70 1 2 dissolved oxygen, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 3 Here we have an important issue dealing with 4 the interaction or -- the interaction between the 5 deepening and the aquifer, and all aspects about 6 the aquifer. 7 And perhaps a committee, like the MTRG, that 8 dealt with the dissolved oxygen question and the 9 other water quality question and has also been 10 meeting for 18 months should be set up to deal with 11 the aquifer question, and the impact on the 12 aquifer, if any, as a result of incremental 13 deepening. 14 MR. DYSART: I have -- we have a number of 15 names here. With that comment, Chris, I would like 16 to call on Larry Keegan. I recognize that Patty, 17 and David Schaller, and Fred Beason's names are 18 before his, but you have a comment, Larry, on this 19 subject that Chris just mentioned. 20 MR. KEEGAN: Thank you, Ben. I appreciate 21 Chris just bringing that up, because we've been 22 thinking very much along similar lines. We've 23 already done some preliminary, some conceptual 24 discussion between Card, myself, and other people 25 with the Corps of Engineers. And it's clear to us 71 1 2 that there is more work to be done beyond what we 3 did in the first year in light of the information 4 that's coming out here. 5 So we're looking to establish a way to deal 6 with this technically, pull together the 7 information that exists, and these various reports 8 you've heard mentioned. No doubt there are more. 9 Understand that the Sound Science Initiative, 10 which is a pretty wide-ranging modeling effort for 11 the aquifer behavior as a whole, and figure out how 12 to deal with this and make a sound evaluation in 13 light of harbor deepening, which is what we have to 14 do. 15 We're ready to do that, and we'll move ahead. 16 We're conceptually talking about probably bringing 17 in the other people who have done research, who 18 have knowledge in the area to work with us on that. 19 We just haven't talked in terms of a 20 committee, that's all. We've accepted and we need 21 to work on it. We've got answers to try and figure 22 out. 23 All of what I've heard today is very, very 24 helpful in terms of describing the things we have 25 to deal with. What's very hard, I think, is 72 1 2 gleaning an appreciation of how to figure out how 3 to deal with them. 4 We may never reach that in a body this big, 5 but we're certainly willing to try with the right 6 group of people, and come back and tell you as we 7 figure that out. 8 MR. DYSART: Do you have any specific 9 proposal, or timetable, or anything, or do you just 10 want discussion? 11 MR. KEEGAN: It's way too premature to have 12 much other than the conceptual view at this point. 13 MR. DYSART: I'm talking about the approach to 14 setting up the group and proceeding. 15 MR. KEEGAN: We haven't gone that far to write 16 it down, any particular proposal for review yet. 17 MR. DYSART: Let me recognize names that their 18 had cards up. Patty. 19 MS. McINTOSH: I had my question answered 20 during the break. 21 MR. DYSART: If it was particularly germane to 22 this body, would you care to ask it and have it 23 briefly summarized on the record? 24 MS. McINTOSH: It was very detailed, given the 25 discussion about trying to identify a broader 73 1 2 study. I just let it drop. 3 MR. DYSART: David Schaller had his card up a 4 while ago. 5 MR. SCHALLER: Pass -- pass. 6 MR. DYSART: He passes. Okay. Fred Beason. 7 MR. BEASON: Pass. 8 MR. DYSART: Boy, I'll tell you, we're on a 9 roll. Ben Brewton. 10 MR. BREWTON: Judy may have had hers before 11 mine. 12 MS. JENNINGS: I'm accused of having such a 13 big mouth, I've heard a commitment towards a 14 conceptual approach. Do we want to put more -- I 15 mean do we want to put some more black and white to 16 that? 17 How much more do we have to know? Realize, we 18 need a mechanism for answering these questions as 19 relates to the harbor deepening. 20 MR. DYSART: Larry, you have a response to 21 that? 22 MR. KEEGAN: I really don't think we need to 23 know anymore to know that we need to respond to 24 this. I believe we've seconded that already, Judy. 25 I think the hard part is what we have not worked 74 1 2 out, figured out exactly how we can develop the 3 information we need to deal with it. We just don't 4 know what the answer is yet to be put together. 5 MS. JENNINGS: I think this is the perfect 6 body to give you input on that. 7 MR. DYSART: Ben Brewton. 8 MR. BREWTON: I have a couple of questions 9 relating to science issues, relating to a process 10 suggestion. I'd like to comment on that. I heard 11 Chris Schuberth and Larry. It's good to hear GPA 12 has made the acknowledgement and commitment to this 13 issue does need to be looked at in a little more 14 detail. I'm glad to hear that, Larry. 15 I would concur with Judy and Chris that we 16 need to have some methodology to doing that. I 17 think that needs to come from this group first. I 18 think it's incumbent upon the SEG to develop the 19 questions that need to be answered, and then come 20 back to this group, as the other committees have 21 done for endorsement by the group, and then as a 22 group for the GPA to get that work done -- whatever 23 suggestions we have. 24 I'd be glad to talk about that right now, I 25 guess, before I continue that or ask my other 75 1 2 question. Do we want to finish the questions as 3 far as substantive questions while we've got these 4 folks here, then talk about this, or do we want to 5 stop this and decide that right now? Doesn't 6 matter to me. 7 MR. DYSART: I think that's a good question. 8 I think the question before this body, are there 9 other things you wish to raise and identify and 10 talk about and pursue, or has there been enough 11 raised to make the point that some kind of an 12 investigation or study needs to be done, and 13 proceed in that direction. 14 Do you need -- how much more discussion do you 15 want to have detailed? 16 MS. JENNINGS: Can we approach it much as 17 David brought up with Chuck Watson? I mean, it's 18 going to be hard to find -- it's going to be hard 19 to scope this in this body. So what I'm after is 20 a process for scoping, in terms of -- 21 MR. DYSART: Go ahead. 22 MR. BREWTON: What I would suggest, before we 23 talk about scoping and finding, so forth, let's 24 decide instantly right here whether we're going to 25 have more discussions and questions and answers 76 1 2 about the presentation before we do that, or 3 whether we're going to end the question and answer 4 and discussion part and get into that right now. I 5 do have one more question I want to get in either 6 way. 7 MR. DYSART: I'd say if there are questions -- 8 from the meeting last time, it was made clear to me 9 that there were many people that had questions that 10 they wanted to ask the assembled group of experts. 11 I do not want to leave this meeting today with 12 people saying, I didn't get a chance to ask all my 13 questions. 14 MR. BREWTON: We can agree to do that and also 15 agree we're going to cover this thing Chris and 16 Judy brought up. That would satisfy me. 17 MR. DYSART: In five minutes we're going to 18 have our 11:00 o'clock and see how much more time 19 we're going to put on this. 20 MR. BREWTON: Thank you. I guess I have some 21 questions and comments to go together. One is 22 listening to the very, very good discussion today. 23 I'm grateful to people like Fred Rich and Rick 24 Krause to have taken the time to come here and be 25 with us this morning, and provide us with some real 77 1 2 professional, technical, scientific insight into 3 this. 4 Something has become apparent to me here is 5 that there seems to be, as one would expect in this 6 group, a couple of different philosophies coming 7 out. 8 I'm hearing from the Corps of Engineers 9 contingent here down here on the right, and 10 granted I guess that's their job as engineers, 11 things about well, let's move ahead, let's 12 basically build this project, because we haven't 13 found a problem here and we haven't found a problem 14 there. And I listen to Dave Kyler, on the other 15 hand, that was the sum emphasis, Dan. 16 I heard Dave Kyler very eloquently tell us 17 about how things aren't always certain and need to 18 have some understanding and appreciation for the 19 unknown. 20 I guess the most profound think I heard here 21 today came from Fred Rich when he said the absence 22 of evidence is not evidence of absence. And 23 shortly after that, I heard the folks from the 24 Corps basically telling us that well, isn't it true 25 there was an absence of evidence there, and based 78 1 2 on that absence of evidence, and this little tiny 3 orange cord going across the floor, this is 4 probably insignificant. 5 I think one of the problems that a lot of us 6 have had with the way this project proceeded, in 7 the early EIS, and proceeded to date, in some way, 8 is the reoccurrence of things like -- words like 9 insignificant. 10 That's become a sore point at various times. 11 I think, with all appreciation for the 12 simplification in trying to show the enormity of 13 the scale of the aquifer, the river, the size of 14 these specific points, I think all of that is based 15 on assumptions and presumptions that we are hearing 16 today from Dr. Rich and Rick Krause with his 32 17 years with USGS experience are just not conclusive 18 or valid assumptions. 19 And it bothers me to go forward using these 20 assumptions and presumptions, as if they were a 21 fact. 22 And with that I would say that I think what we 23 need to look at also, when we consider the possible 24 margin of error or uncertainty, when we consider 25 the absence of evidence, not evidence of absence, 79 1 2 that our first most important duty here ought to be 3 able to -- ought to be to recognize the protection 4 of the aquifer is economically, environmentally, 5 and every other way, a much more pressing concern 6 than the deepening of the harbor. 7 We ought to adopt an attitude here that what 8 we want to do is preserve and protect that aquifer. 9 Then, if the harbor can be deepened without 10 endangering that in any way, and is economically 11 viable and beneficial, that's great. 12 But if we adopt the attitude and approach that 13 we've got to deepen this harbor, and because a 14 couple of holes we drilled don't show evidence, 15 conclusive evidence that there is a problem, let's 16 go ahead and forget it, I think these two 17 philosophies are going to get us in trouble. 18 We've got to have an approach here that we're 19 going to look at the science and decide what we 20 need to do to protect the aquifer first. 21 So I hope if we move into the phase of 22 deciding how the committee is structured, how these 23 studies are structured, that they are here with the 24 assumption and presumption that we're looking for 25 the science to tell us what happens to the aquifer, 80 1 2 and not looking for a lack of science to justify 3 the deepening. Thank you. 4 MR. DYSART: I interpret that as a question of 5 the Corps. Since we have not gotten into 6 discussion of the committee, so forth, that was the 7 question directed presumably to the Corps. 8 MR. SCHALLER: Didn't sound like a question. 9 MR. PLACHY: First off, Ben, you incorrectly 10 mischaracterized statements that were made. I 11 believe the transcript of record will be very clear 12 what our geologists and folks from the geology 13 section have said. 14 They did not say there's nothing there so 15 let's proceed the project. The words proceed 16 with the project never came out of anybody's mouth, 17 number one. 18 Number two, our mission here isn't to push the 19 project, which you're implying. That's not what 20 we're doing. Number three, we have given you the 21 information we know today about the geology and 22 the effect of the deepening, as we understand it on 23 the aquifer. 24 There's been a lot of discussion today about 25 all these things dealing with the aquifer. What we 81 1 2 have to keep our minds on is what effect does the 3 deepening have on that aquifer, not cracks 4 someplace in, you know, Millsville, South Carolina. 5 That's not what here for. What we're here for 6 is to find out how deepening the channel will 7 affect the miocene layer, the transmission of salt 8 water, if that is indeed the case within the 9 aquifer. 10 And what basically is being said by Card this 11 morning is yes, we need to take a look at it, what 12 the effects would be if there are cracks in the 13 miocene layer, and what the transmission of salt 14 water into the aquifer would do. 15 An analogy I would just throw out is to make 16 it very simplistic, if you have a pipe running 17 through the aquifer right now that's cracked, water 18 is flowing down through it, you cut off the top 19 three inch of pipe with the deepening, did you 20 change the current situation. 21 That's we have to find out, not whether or 22 not it's already leaking. That has nothing to do 23 with the harbor deepening. If it's already 24 leaking, that's the current situation. 25 The mission of this body is to find out what 82 1 2 the deepening would do to the aquifer. So I think 3 we're kind of missing the point here a little bit. 4 We can study a lot of things. What our 5 mission is to do is to find out what need to do to 6 determine what the impacts of deepening are, in 7 this particular instance, on the aquifer. 8 MR. BREWTON: May I respond to that? 9 MR. DYSART: Anybody else with the Corps wish 10 to respond to Ben's question? 11 MR. O'KELLEY: I think you very well-phrased 12 my thoughts on it. As I told Fred, we certainly 13 will take any information, any new information we 14 have and consider it in any future study that you 15 do. 16 The study that was done was based on the 17 information available at the time, and the scope of 18 what we felt needed to be done. 19 New information is being developed everyday. 20 We're involved, along with the USGS, and the state, 21 in doing further investigations for the state, 22 which will have some bearing on this. 23 So there is new information coming out, and 24 there certainly -- any of that that has any bearing 25 on this will be considered and should be 83 1 2 considered. 3 And I agree with what Doug has said. Nobody 4 at this end of the table said we ought to jump 5 right on this thing and move on to deepen the 6 harbor. 7 MR. DYSART: Dan, did you have anything? 8 MR. PARROTT: I get the sense you were 9 directing that comment towards me in asking the 10 question. I proposed to Card and people at the 11 last meeting, if there was no evidence of 12 saltwater, therefore, why you do you assume there's 13 no cracks. That was a technical issue. 14 I take exception to the fact you characterized 15 it, we don't need to dredge -- we don't need to do 16 more study. Card recommended, yeah, there's things 17 you can look at. 18 I was trying to capture the idea we may have 19 already pieces of the puzzle already in our hands 20 that would help characterize what the new problem 21 is, if there's a new problem. 22 You made a giant leap of faith, leap somewhere 23 into assuming we were trying to sideline this. I'd 24 like to get the record corrected, as far as the 25 word insignificant comes about. 84 1 2 I was talking about others. Even if the 3 studies were off by a factor of 100, the question 4 is is it still 220 gallons of water per day coming 5 through now going to be 2,000, or 20,000, and is 6 that insignificant compared to 2,000,000 gallons of 7 water. 8 Literally, that's the question. Even it's off 9 by a large factor, is that significant. That's the 10 question we're proposing in an analogy about what 11 we're trying to demonstrate. 12 MR. BREWTON: Well, thank you for those 13 responses. Let me say this, first of all, I may 14 have -- choice of words there hit a sore spot. I 15 didn't mean to hit it. It was a sore spot hit with 16 me. Dan, I will acknowledge the way you phrased 17 the question basically seemed like, well, we didn't 18 find anything so couldn't we assume pretty much 19 because we didn't find it, it's not a problem 20 there. 21 I may be paraphrasing that, but what I was 22 talking about was more than details, was the 23 philosophy behind that. I listened as Doug 24 responded to me. I understand, Doug, why you said 25 what you did. 85 1 2 I want to try to let you know how that is very 3 consistent with what I was presenting; that is, you 4 were saying we looked at this, we're looking at 5 this current situation, and how the harbor affects 6 this current situation. And as was acknowledged 7 earlier by Card, I think, this is -- I recognize 8 the limitations of the study at the time, what was 9 known. 10 But basically, we're looking at a single point 11 in time, a single scenario, under certain 12 assumptions. My point is here today, we've heard, 13 I think, very clearly from Rick, Fred and others, 14 that some of those assumptions are pretty narrow, 15 in fact, based on today's knowledge may not even be 16 completely correct. 17 Secondly, the point that I made was there are 18 dozens of these pumping scenarios being looked at 19 by USGS and Georgia EPD on the Floridan Aquifer. 20 Therefore, to consider the effect of the 21 deepening only on the leakage situation as it 22 exists at the present time, under the present 23 pumping scenario, and under the present head 24 relationships does not tell us whether there could 25 be a problem in the future. 86 1 2 Now, that is something, the question is not 3 just will deepening the harbor affect that leakage 4 right now, but would it affect the leakage under 5 varying scenarios of pumping out of the Floridan 6 Aquifer. 7 So it seems to me that I guess what I was 8 trying to ask as a group, is the assumption that 9 a single study, single point in time on now dated 10 information is used to generalize a conclusion that 11 the absence of evidence is indeed evidence of 12 absence. 13 I think we need to be very careful. If I've 14 offended any guys in the Corps, I need to 15 apologize. 16 MR. PLACHY: Let's say you used other 17 scenarios, let's come up with 12 other scenarios 18 that may occur with the aquifer and apply the same 19 logical vertical transmission through the 20 layers, different pump heads, everything. 21 We can do all that. That's what this body 22 basically is here for, to come up with what would 23 you like to do to satisfy your question. 24 MR. BREWTON: Haven't we had some discussion 25 here today that the actual choice, the methodology, 87 1 2 may not be the best methodology for determining the 3 answer to the question. 4 MR. PARROTT: There's -- what you actually 5 said was level of confidence in the information we 6 had. 7 MR. DYSART: Card, you didn't have a chance to 8 respond to Ben's question initially from the Corps. 9 Do you have any answers? 10 MR. SMITH: Let me respond to part of that 11 and what Ben just said. Ben, I think my thinking 12 has been, in working on this project and certainly 13 writing the report, that it seems to me fairly safe 14 to assume, and I may be wrong, but it seems fairly 15 safe to assume that the current emphasis by EPD on 16 managing, better managing the withdrawals from the 17 Floridan Aquifer, for instance, the pumping in the 18 Savannah River and the huge cone of depression we 19 have, one thing is evident in the past 10 years, 20 the water level has risen. So there's been some 21 impact. 22 I can't say myself exactly how much influence 23 the management policy has had on that. It seems 24 that it has had some effect. And it seems the 25 trend is even less of a withdrawal or better 88 1 2 management such that that water level will continue 3 to rise at some point. 4 At some point, it's going to have to stop 5 because in the management of it you're going to 6 have to take certain amounts of water. There is 7 a point I'm sure that that's going to be it. It's 8 not going to come any higher. That may be an 9 oversimplistic way of looking at it, but -- 10 MR. BREWTON: Follow-up, Card, on that. From 11 what we're hearing, what you are saying seems like 12 that the harbor deepening, even if it is borrow 13 the word insignificant impact under the current 14 scenario, if it would change under other scenarios 15 aren't we, in effect, limiting the options EPD may 16 have available by not considering that? 17 That is, if we move ahead with the deepening 18 and it doesn't affect the current pumping scenario 19 but it could affect one of the other ones, then we 20 would limiting their options of choosing another 21 scenario. 22 MR. SMITH: I don't think you can say that. 23 Who is going to stand up here and guarantee that 24 that water level is going to stay at a certain 25 point and not go below a certain point? 89 1 2 I certainly can't do that. Of course, that's 3 not the only factor to be considered. As we've all 4 said today, it is a very important factor. The 5 draw down around Savannah has a very important role 6 in what we're talking about. 7 MR. DYSART: Bob and Dan. 8 MR. O'KELLEY: Ben, you mentioned too some 9 things that were mentioned mainly by Rick, about 10 things that could be done, another way of doing a 11 pump test, that sort of thing. 12 We're not against that. I think you heard 13 Card suggest it would be worthwhile considering. 14 There were pump tests done in that area by Clemson. 15 It turns out there are some problems with that. 16 At the time we were doing this study that was 17 not readily clear. We assumed some of that might 18 be something we would be able to factor into this 19 study, at least initially. 20 There is a problem with that, and to clarify 21 that, there could be some additional pump tests 22 done there that would clarify and add to what we've 23 talked about here. 24 This is just part of a steppingstone process 25 here. We're not against, at least the Corps is not 90 1 2 against doing what engineers factor in as to 3 additional information, but at the same time, I 4 think you have to be aware, it's been mentioned, 5 that the purpose of this is not to do a study of 6 the aquifer, but to look at the effects the 7 dredging is going to have on potential saltwater 8 intrusion. 9 That, in my understanding, is what this body 10 is about, not to look at the overall study. That's 11 something that should be done by USGS and the 12 state, so forth, but that's my opinion, as I 13 understand this body. 14 MR. DYSART: Dan Parrott. 15 MR. PARROTT: I'd like to suggest this whole 16 issue be further looked at, in terms of a 17 sensitivity analysis, some things we do in the 18 Corps is to look at how sensitive are the 19 assumptions to the results. 20 That way, if we make a gross error or changes 21 in our assumptions, does it have a real effect on 22 the answer, and be sure are we swatting at gnats 23 here is the question we need to verify. A good, 24 scientific method is to do a sensitivity 25 analysis and have that part of the results. 91 1 2 MR. BREWTON: That sounds like an excellent 3 idea, Dan. I thought at first you were talking 4 about our emotional sensitivity. 5 MR. DYSART: Okay. We have three more cards 6 up. David's has been up a long time. Bill and 7 then Judy. Does this relate to science or 8 discussion of the philosophy, and going forward 9 with the committee and so forth. David. 10 MR. SCHALLER: Actually, my remarks may not be 11 timely. They have to do with improvements. There 12 isn't anyone in this room, in my belief, that isn't 13 concerned about the impacts of the proposed 14 deepening project on the aquifer, and on any other 15 issue that relates to the deepening. 16 To suggest that we're just so single-minded 17 with respect to doing the deepening, without regard 18 for any of its impacts is a little bit dramatic. 19 We are concerned. We will do more work as 20 required, again, as it's recommended by this body. 21 MR. DYSART: Bill, Judy, I don't know which 22 one came first. 23 MR. FARMER: I would like to ask the body to 24 have a vote of consensus to establish a committee 25 to -- and call it the aquifer committee -- to take 92 1 2 all these issues and thoughts and study them, and 3 fulfill the mission of the SEG, which is basically 4 to recommend studies for the GPA or the Corps to do 5 or whatever. 6 So I would pose the question that we establish 7 an aquifer committee, and have Chris Schuberth be 8 the chairman of it, and have all members of that 9 committee be established either by volunteers 10 coming to Chris wanting to be on the committee, or 11 to have Chris solicit people to participate in that 12 committee. 13 MR. DYSART: Discussion? You have a comment 14 on something separate -- I'll recognize you before 15 we go into that. 16 MS. JENNINGS: Appreciate that, Ben. 17 Definitely, Bill that was 90% of what I wanted to 18 get at. I make the comment that I don't think this 19 is any different from any other topic we've taken 20 up. 21 I'll echo what David said, I'm not aware this 22 body in any way endorsed or recommended, and 23 including GPA's presence has endorsed or 24 recommended the harbor deepening project. Not this 25 body, it hasn't -- we're identifying studies. 93 1 2 MR. DYSART: That is consistent with the 3 mission. That's been on the table since the 4 beginning, yes. 5 MS. JENNINGS: I want take that a little bit 6 further. Ben is right. When you get down to when 7 all the stuff is on the table, then the broad 8 public policy decisions have to be made. 9 I'm a little leery if we mix broad public 10 policy decisions with science. It kind of segments 11 up the study with a foregone conclusion, and it 12 encourages us to look at the study's pure science 13 when that's on the table, and go about the business 14 of engaging the policy decision makers. But 90% of 15 my comment is towards what Bill suggested. 16 MR. DYSART: Discussion on Bill's suggestion? 17 MR. BREWTON: I would concur or second Bill's 18 suggestion. I didn't see Chris Schuberth nod 19 either way. Chris would be the person to head that 20 committee, if he will accept his drafting by Bill 21 Farmer. 22 I think this is an important enough thing, and 23 I think we need to invite these experts who are 24 able to attend the first meeting of that to help 25 us define some questions. I'll volunteer our 94 1 2 Coastal Environmental Organization to host the 3 location for food, refreshments, if we want to have 4 a lunch meeting, whatever, for the first meeting of 5 the committee, if we decide to establish it. 6 MR. DYSART: Chris, comment. 7 MR. SCHUBERTH: I'll put on my serious face. 8 I'll say that I feel it's an honor to be suggested 9 to chair a group of individuals who I hold in very 10 high regard to the process; also, that it's an area 11 that I find intrinsically interesting. 12 I just hope Card is going to say something 13 about those cores that are on his desk, because if 14 he doesn't, I'll make sure that publicly announces 15 why they're there. 16 This is kind of what we're all about. It was 17 nice to hear Card say yesterday -- at the last 18 meeting -- some aspect about a cross-section that 19 gets geologists excited. 20 So in this sense, I would be happy to chair 21 the committee. And again, I feel it's a privilege 22 and honor to do so, because I realize the 23 seriousness of this process. And I agree with 24 everything that's been said on the table. No one 25 has drawn any conclusions and we're trying to find 95 1 2 -- we're trying to find answers. 3 MR. DYSART: Is there anyone who could not 4 live with Bill Farmer's suggestion or proposal. 5 Then we have an SEG consensus reached. That's 6 quite a campaign speech, Chris. Thank you. 7 Are there further questions on this subject, 8 or of the distinguished experts that we have with 9 us today? 10 MR. STEVENS: I'm going to agree with Chris. 11 I want to hear about the core samples. 12 MR. SMITH: Those were to bait guys like 13 y'all. 14 MR. BREWTON: Anything to do with the 15 emergency situation? 16 MR. SMITH: I just wanted to bring those cores 17 in last time. I brought those in for a quick show 18 and tell. When we finish, if you come by and look 19 at them, those folks who would like to see what 20 the material in the Floridan Aquifer looks like, we 21 talk about them all the time. 22 A lot of folks don't get a feel for limestone 23 or whatever it is looks like, and also you have on 24 top of it the greyish green material is some of the 25 confining material. But I have to qualify what's 96 1 2 laying there because this is extremely dry from 3 what it is in its natural state, particularly in 4 regard to the confining material. 5 When you first core it, it's very saturated, 6 it's wet, it comes out of the core barrel. It's 7 very much more clay-like than what you would see 8 here. 9 When we finish up, do come by and look at it 10 if you have an interest in seeing it. I have it 11 laid out here with the confining material on the 12 top. That's basically how you would find it when 13 it is cored. That material is in direct contact 14 with the limestone. 15 As Chris said, to a geologist that's where the 16 fun is. That's very interesting. When you go out 17 there, you core this material, when you core 8 or 18 10 of these borings, you just start seeing the same 19 thing over and over again, at different elevations 20 maybe. 21 It's certainly not -- the word homogeneous has 22 been brought up before. It's not perfectly 23 homogeneous, not anywhere near it. It varies. The 24 material varies. The confining material varies. 25 The limestone varies. 97 1 2 It's all interesting when you are out there. 3 I can tell you everytime we make a core run, we 4 all eagerly await seeing what is coming out of the 5 core barrel. Pretty exciting stuff. 6 MR. DYSART: Morgan Rees. 7 MR. REES: I just have a process question, 8 maybe of Chris. How are we to know who is going to 9 participate, and when the meeting is going to be, 10 and that sort of administrative thing? 11 MR. SCHUBERTH: Well, I hadn't -- it just came 12 up so I'm not sure. I have some outstanding role 13 models that I can go to, people like Bill Farmer 14 and others who are chairing committees that I can 15 get guidance on. 16 I'm kind of on a learning curve. I would 17 suspect we would probably try to determine who the 18 interested parties are. I will probably 19 contact some individuals like Rick and Fred and 20 others, and go from there. 21 MR. REES: Thank you. 22 MR. TOLLISON: Who's on the committee? 23 MS. McINTOSH: You can volunteer. 24 MR. DYSART: I presume that some will be 25 contacted by the alleged chair and other people who 98 1 2 are extremely interested will be letting you know. 3 MR. SCHUBERTH: Let me say that as a startup 4 to just contact me by e-mail that you are 5 interested, and then I'll see what comes in. 6 MR. DYSART: Let me suggest that we give a 7 round of applause to these folks who have served 8 as experts up there, experts down in this corner. 9 And I'm talking about up there. I'm talking about 10 this has been, I think, a very good presentation 11 discussion, give and take. And I think it 12 typifies, hopefully, what this body is about in 13 trying to illuminate things and move things 14 forward. Thank you very much. 15 Okay. It's 11:23. We have wound up within 16 23 minutes of where we hoped to be at. The morning 17 has gone very well. 18 Next item on the agenda -- Dan Parrott may say 19 he's already taken care of this, this is one of 20 the things that kind of was swept into winding up 21 last time, in lieu of going till dark. Would you 22 like to follow-up on that matter? 23 MR. PARROTT: The issue, about three months 24 ago, came about by Sam Drake, the fact we dredge 25 deeper than 42 feet. 99 1 2 I would like to explain the Corps of Engineers 3 nomenclature and process is we do have an 4 authorized 40 foot deep project. That's a project 5 datum. That's the starting point. 6 That project was authorized in '92. It was 7 deepened from '92 to '94. What we have on this 8 drawing -- looks good. When we say project depth 9 of 42 feet, that means in the inner harbor from the 10 mouth of the jetties upstream, Station 103 through 11 500, which is upstream to Kings Island Turning 12 Basin. 13 By a 42 foot project, it also means that the 14 channel seaward of the jetties to minus 60,000 feet 15 offshore is minus 42 feet, a difference of 2 feet 16 for safe handling of ships, waves rocking back and 17 forth requires additional safety zone. So when we 18 say a 42 foot project, we also mean 44 foot on the 19 offshore bar and 42 foot in the inner harbor. 20 This process is updated everytime we do a 21 deepening. We assess the role and the capability 22 of ships at the additional two foot of safety 23 clearance still necessary. 24 In addition to this, we have authority for 25 what's called advance maintenance. You can imagine 100 1 2 if you only dredge down to 42 feet, as soon as you 3 finish a dredge, there's going to be shoaling 4 taking place in your project depth, and ships 5 cannot pass. 6 So we are authorized under the current law to 7 dredge two, four, as many as six feet deeper in 8 certain areas of high shoaling of the Savannah 9 Harbor. 10 The purposes of this shoaling pattern is to 11 let this -- if we dredge deeper, we're allowing it 12 to shoal in quicker and it allows us time to get a 13 contractor onboard and knock the shoals before 14 it interferes with the 42 foot project depth or the 15 44 offshore project depth. 16 Another reason why we have to have it, we have 17 the environmental fish windows in the upper harbor 18 that prevent us from dredging three, four months at 19 a time. 20 If we have a shoal appearing, we have to some 21 way to give us adequate time for us to wait for 22 that dredging window to be completed, so we can 23 start dredging in the summertime. This map here 24 shows what our authorized project depths are. 25 Where it's yellow, is where we have the advanced 101 1 2 maintenance. We're allowed to go out there and 3 dredge. We do maintain to the bottom of this line 4 here in a stair step fashion. We have a two foot, 5 a two foot, and a four foot advanced maintenance. 6 So we start say at a 40 foot project depth. 7 That doesn't mean 42. It can mean a variety of 8 things. 42 is a starting point. Conversely, by 9 extension, we're talking about a 48 foot project 10 what we have modeled in our engineering models is 11 this entire line here will be decreased by 6 feet. 12 It would be a template moving down. Notice 13 this black squiggly line right here, this is the 14 seismograph. This is the result of our monthly 15 survey, looking at where the harbor is shoaling. 16 Here you see by this peak right here we do 17 have a shoal that appeared, interferes here with 18 both the advanced maintenance and the 42 foot 19 project, and this was a primary area to dredge. 20 Anywhere this black line -- this black 21 squiggly line exceeds this line is an area we 22 dredge in the next contract. We have approximately 23 two dredging contracts per year ongoing. Any 24 questions? Stuart. 25 MR. STEVENS: And this may be a better 102 1 2 question for Larry rather than Dan, but in the 3 models that are being done to predict the impacts, 4 are you modeling 42 feet -- are you -- I mean to 5 48, or are you modeling to 50 or 54? What are the 6 numbers that will be used in the models? 7 MR. DYSART: Larry. 8 MR. KEEGAN: Turn my card up. As you can 9 tell, we're not -- we don't have a final answer. 10 MR. STEVENS: Okay. 11 MR. KEEGAN: The reason we don't have a final 12 answer was that in the first go round, tier one, we 13 included advanced maintenance. Other discussion is 14 whether or not we will automatically continue to 15 preserve the advanced maintenance features, and in 16 essence, move that entire cross-section deeper by 17 whatever alternative we're talking. 18 There's some division of opinion whether we 19 should or shouldn't do that. I think right now 20 we're leaning towards this has got to go through 21 MTRG as well. 22 We're leaning towards not modeling advanced 23 maintenance, as though it were just moved down 24 because we think that's most likely a separate 25 decision whether or not it's needed. 103 1 2 If that helps answer your question, we just 3 don't know for the deepening project if we have 4 to preserve those features or not yet. As a 5 result, we're not quite sure what we're going to 6 model. Does that answer your question, Stuart? 7 MR. STEVENS: Yes. Thank you. 8 MR. PARROTT: I can guarantee it will be 9 something thoroughly discussed through the Corps 10 and GPA on the proposed project. The location of 11 these stair steps, where that is has been largely 12 historic. 13 Some of those are pre-tide gate being removed. 14 The shoaling patterns have shifted, and we are 15 trying to accommodate that by looking where the 16 shoaling patterns are. 17 Playing into that is if the shoaling patterns 18 have changed, you really need to maintain this to 19 six foot. That's an issue -- that's my spin on 20 that same issue. Any questions? Yes. 21 MS. McKEE: Gwen McKee, Georgia Wildlife 22 Federation. Just to clarify, what is the top 23 number that you would do advanced maintenance 24 dredging for under the proposed harbor 25 deepening? What's the most amount you would 104 1 2 dredge? You're talking about, 52, 54 feet that 3 would be required. 4 MR. PARROTT: 48 plus 4 -- yeah, 48 plus 4. 5 MS. McKEE: You said it could be two, four, 6 or six feet is what I heard. 7 MR. PARROTT: If you look right here, there's 8 a small little reach, a couple thousand feet, where 9 we do advanced maintenance at six feet. 10 MS. McKEE: Six feet though is the additional 11 factor. 12 MR. PARROTT: We maintain the location and the 13 depth of the advanced maintenance. With the new 14 project, it will be an additional six feet. 15 MS. McKEE: Is any scenario where you would 16 have to go more than that? 17 MR. PARROTT: No. Well -- 18 MR. JACK PHILLIPS: Dan, we've got the two 19 foot allowable over depth. 20 MS. McKEE: What is that, I didn't hear that? 21 MR. PARROTT: What is called an allowable over 22 depth. 23 MS. McKee: What is that? 24 MR. PARROTT: I'll segue into that. Larry, do 25 you have a comment to interject? 105 1 2 MR. KEEGAN: Yeah, I do. It dawned on me I 3 may not have expressed myself completely. One of 4 the things I want to add, we hope to be able to 5 decide about what the deepening project would do 6 with preserving the sedimentation. 7 We think we have a responsibility and plan to 8 try to predict, once this channel is deepened to 9 some depth, whatever that may be, what will happen 10 to the deposition pattern of sediments in the 11 harbor. 12 That, I think, is going to have to enter into 13 the discussion and the decisions about what to do 14 with regard to advanced maintenance. We just don't 15 know what's going to happen. 16 So in my head is we may wind up modeling a 17 channel without advanced maintenance, figuring out 18 what a depth is for a lot of other considerations, 19 then look at what that does to sedimentation, and 20 have to go visit the issue of advanced maintenance 21 as a result of that. I don't know of a way to do 22 those things fairly. 23 MR. DYSART: Do we have any comments or 24 questions concerning what's presented so far? 25 MR. PARROTT: Before I move on to the next 106 1 2 slide. 3 MR. DYSART: Ben Brewton. 4 MR. BREWTON: Couple of questions, so six feet 5 in -- up to six feet advanced maintenance. 6 MR. PARROTT: Right. 7 MR. BREWTON: Two feet allowable over depth, 8 are there tolerances for other things? 9 MR. PARROTT: Brunswick Harbor has rock 10 tolerances. We don't have that here. 11 MR. BREWTON: Could you possibly have that 12 here when you go deeper? 13 MR. PARROTT: No. Borings have indicated no 14 rock of any nature. My understanding is it 15 requires rock. 16 MR. BREWTON: For the entire length? 17 MR. PARROTT: Yeah. 18 MR. BREWTON: So if some were found, it could 19 easily go deeper, so you're talking about 48 plus 20 6 feet. I posed the question last month, I forget 21 the exact questions and exact response, essentially 22 I asked Card or Dr. Henry did this earlier study on 23 the effect on the aquifer, if that -- if the 24 different channel depths you were looking at were 25 the actual channel depth, or the actual authorized 107 1 2 project depth, or were you looking at the actual 3 depth that the channel might be dredged to or dug 4 to, considering all these other things. I think 5 Card said his study didn't really look at that. 6 MR. SMITH: We looked at 54, 54 feet in that 7 area of off Tybee. 8 MR. BREWTON: You went up to 54 feet in what 9 length of the channel? 10 MR. SMITH: It was on that slide I had -- 11 should be on here. 12 MR. PARROTT: This is the area near 05, the 13 area in the study at Tybee is around the Station 14 zero point, so in this area right here. At that 15 area we do have a two foot allowable over depth, 16 two foot advanced maintenance. 17 We looked at the basic parameter for Card's 18 study was looking at a 50 foot deep project, 50 19 plus 2, plus 2 -- 54 feet. We looked, assuming it 20 was dredged down the 54 feet, it's 2 foot beyond 21 the minus 48 foot. 22 MR. BREWTON: Okay. You could go, according 23 to what you're saying, up to 56 feet, right? 24 MR. PARROTT: That only is the area here 25 located in the downtown area where the aquifer 108 1 2 right now --- 3 MR. BREWTON: You don't think there's a 4 potential problem? 5 MR. PARROTT: No. The aquifer gets closest 6 to this area right here. That will be the area of 7 study. The project at that area became of concern 8 and that's what we studied. 9 MR. BREWTON: Thank you for that answer. I'm 10 a little concerned from I heard from Larry and GPA 11 and ATM is the fact that there's some debate 12 whether you should look at 48 feet or at 54 feet. 13 I think we've got to look at this thing in the 14 implications of the worst case scenario. 15 MR. PARROTT: I think you misunderstood Larry. 16 The way I understood Larry's comment was to look at 17 the harbor at a flat depth, look at what the 18 shoaling patterns will do, look at the size of the 19 shoaling patterns, look at advanced maintenance. 20 He said it was an interim process. 21 MR. BREWTON: I'm sure there's a possibility 22 that some of these shoaling points could change 23 with a new depth. Some could be worse, some could 24 be better. Some may be different. 25 The point is, I think every study that is done 109 1 2 by GPA, Lockwood Greene, by ATM, by the Corps, 3 anything SEG looks at, any studies done by the 4 sanction of SEG, we've got to look at what the 5 actual, real world worst case depth and potential 6 for problems is going to be. 7 I think anything less than that is clearly and 8 simply inadequate. That's got to be the case in 9 every case. 10 MR. PARROTT: You're stating the obvious. 11 MR. BREWTON: Well, it did -- 12 MR. PARROTT: No. The previous study, we went 13 beyond the worst case analysis 50 foot, plus 4 more 14 feet. 15 MR. BREWTON: What I heard from over here 16 earlier, apparently it wasn't quite so obvious. 17 I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm glad that's the 18 Corps' position. 19 MR. PARROTT: You understand the process of 20 going through and part of the discussion is looking 21 at results. We'll look closely at possible impacts 22 initially. We understand the process -- 23 MR. BREWTON: I'm sorry. 24 MR. PARROTT: We understand the process. We 25 have not seen the results yet. We can't give 110 1 2 credence to it because we haven't seen the results 3 yet. 4 MR. DYSART: Morgan Rees 5 MR. REES: Thank you. I would like to 6 reassure Ben, again as we've reassured him any 7 number of times in the past, and he seems to lack 8 the ability to be reassured, that's precisely what 9 we're doing. 10 We're looking at the worst case scenario. 11 We're looking at the concerns of the SEG. I think 12 if people carefully go through the record of every 13 transcript of this group, since we started meeting, 14 you will see that in fact, GPA and the Corps have 15 incorporated everything that anybody has been 16 concerned about. 17 MR. BREWTON: Morgan, thank for that personal 18 reassurance. 19 MR. REES: You're welcome. 20 MR. BREWTON: I'm going to look to you to 21 continue that. I can assure you I will require 22 continued reassurance, particularly when I hear 23 conversations such as I heard earlier, things do 24 seem to be obvious. Things we all agreed upon 25 periodically come up, well, we're considering this, 111 1 2 we're not sure, yes, no, maybe. 3 You know, if you want to get into a personal 4 debate with me, I'll be glad to talk with you 5 afterward, or if you want to do right now, we can 6 do it right now. 7 I don't think it's worth taking the group's 8 time. I'm sorry you feel that I can't be 9 reassured. Perhaps you should look for a way to 10 go about reassuring those who are asking the 11 questions. 12 MR. REES: If I may go on briefly, none of us 13 around this corner of the table heard the 14 presentation in the way that you did. That's all. 15 We thought that it was clear there would be an 16 orderly process of decision-making to take into 17 consideration those things you're concerned about. 18 So you heard it differently. Maybe again, as 19 we have in the past, we're talking about semantics, 20 not substance. We can work through that. 21 MR. DYSART: Will had his card up for a while, 22 then we'll proceed with letting the presenters 23 continue their presentation, unless there are more 24 scientific questions about the scientific 25 presentation. Will. 112 1 2 MR. BERSON: I'm beginning to feel like I'm 3 watching a tennis match. Each time I see somebody 4 else answer a question, I'm pretty sure I 5 understand what they're saying. 6 Then another person asks something else and 7 I'm pretty sure I don't understand what was just 8 said. Make I make a suggestion about this 9 overdraft question, maybe we can get together 10 afterwards and talk about this off-line. 11 Because, I guess, my bottom line here is I 12 want the model to represent the actual project, and 13 as long I have some assure about that, I feel 14 better. I don't think it's worth taking this time 15 to go over that ground. 16 MR. DYSART: Dan, would you like to continue? 17 Rob. 18 MR. MIKELL: What's the deepest point in the 19 Savannah Harbor channel now? 20 MR. PARROTT: I would say the -- well, I have 21 to correct myself. There is a mean area of 22 advanced maintenance that's eight feet deeper 23 within Kings Island Turning Basin. 24 MR. MIKELL: What is it? 25 MR. PARROTT: Eight feet beyond the project 113 1 2 depth, 42 and 8, 50 feet, 2 and 2, 54 feet. 3 MR. MIKELL: Is that an authorized depth? 4 MR. PARROTT: It is authorized under our 5 maintenance program, yes. 6 MR. MIKELL: When you do the annual surveys of 7 the channel, is it always below the authorized 8 depth, or is it -- sometimes do the dredging 9 contractors actually make it deeper. 10 MR. PARROTT: This gets into the idea of 11 advanced about an allowable over depth. 12 MR. MIKELL: The reason I'm asking my question 13 is I had the opportunity to see dredging surveys 14 that were completed, and afterwards I'm always 15 amazed at how they don't always follow the 16 authorized channel. 17 MR. PARROTT: There's several -- 18 MR. MIKELL: You pay the dredging contractor 19 by a certain depth below. I think you're 20 misleading everybody when you say that, you know, 21 it's going to be dredged to this depth -- 22 MR. PARROTT: No. 23 MR. MIKELL: -- because you know it's not an 24 exact science. 25 MR. PARROTT: Exactly my point. It's not 114 1 2 an exact science. If we call on a contractor 3 and the contractor is to dig to the bottom of the 4 yellow block, essentially no matter what the yellow 5 block looks like. We also pay the contractor for 6 what we call two foot over depth. 7 Look down here. You'll notice the cover head. 8 The suction point of a cover head is about two feet 9 above the bottom of the blades. That allows the 10 contractor to make sure he gets the advanced 11 maintenance. 12 This line here that's wiggly all the way 13 across, we'll pay the contractor up to two feet 14 below that by Corps policy. Anything below that 15 we'll not pay him. 16 Contractors are very cost conscious. It costs 17 $50,000 a day to operate. They're not going to 18 dredge anywhere they're not getting paid. There's 19 no incentive to dig any deeper, somewhere in this 20 blue block. 21 MR. MIKELL: It does happen. 22 MR. PARROTT: It does happen. There's no 23 incentive. 24 MR. MIKELL: Modeling the worst case scenario, 25 we better put fudge factors in, put some insurance 115 1 2 in there, because the real depth of the channel 3 could be, you know, could be 60 feet. 4 MR. PARROTT: If you look at the black line, 5 there are many areas of the channel that are much 6 deeper than authorized, even the advanced 7 maintenance depths, we don't dredge in those areas. 8 MR. BREWTON: Clarification, Dan. Originally 9 it was four feet advanced maintenance. Then I 10 heard six feet. Right then you referred to eight 11 feet? 12 MR. PARROTT: I corrected myself. There is 13 one area, not within the channel, at Kings Island 14 Turning Basin. It's eight feet deeper. The reason 15 why is it shoals quickly. 16 MR. BREWTON: I understand, but that's eight 17 feet and then two feet allowable over depth on top 18 of that? 19 MR. PARROTT: That's right. 20 MR. BREWTON: So it's actually 10 feet -- 21 MR. PARROTT: That's right. 22 MR. BREWTON: -- in that area, so we're 23 actually talking about authorized depth minus 10 24 feet. 25 MR. PARROTT: I wouldn't call that authorized. 116 1 2 The small two foot is not part of the authorized 3 depth. Authorized depth is the bottom of the 4 advanced maintenance. 5 It's all a matter of terminology. We're 6 paying the contractor to dredge into the bottom two 7 feet, but no more than the two feet. 8 MR. BREWTON: I think the matter that it's all 9 a matter of terminology is what Rob was just 10 referring to, you know. We're throwing out these 11 numbers and the numbers keep changing. 12 Morgan, if you wonder why I need reassurance 13 sometimes, today if you go back and look at this 14 transcript, there was discussion about four feet 15 advanced maintenance. 16 Then after some questions, I think from Gwen 17 McKee, then it was acknowledged it actually could 18 be up to two feet of advanced maintenance, and 19 several of us prefaced our remarks, our discussion 20 based on six feet of advanced maintenance. 21 Nothing was mentioned about eight feet. Now 22 we hear there's a spot where there's eight feet of 23 advanced maintenance, and on top of that another 24 two feet of over dredging. 25 I know, with all that you work with, these 117 1 2 figures may get confused. They're certainly 3 confusing to some of us. I think Rob said it very 4 well. We want to know what is the bottom line, the 5 deepest part considering all allowances, 6 tolerances, dredging mistakes, errors, and so 7 forth, that that channel can be dredged to, and in 8 turn we want to see all the studies are done using 9 that deepest depth for -- 10 MR. PARROTT: Not uniformly -- not uniformly. 11 The point I'm making is the eight foot advanced 12 maintenance is only one reach, one reach of the 13 channel. 14 MR. BREWTON: I understand that. I understand 15 that. 16 MR. PARROTT: You asked the lowest authorized 17 depth. I told you Kings Island Turning Basin is 18 the lowest authorized depth. We also pay two feet. 19 We have no guarantee that the contractor has 20 dredged into that two feet. He may, and didn't get 21 paid for it if he does, because of the vagarious 22 and inaccuracies in the drilling process. 23 MR. BREWTON: Let me ask you this, curious 24 question there Rob said, you said the contractor is 25 paid to go to a certain depth. If goes over that 118 1 2 depth, he doesn't get paid for the extra depth. 3 MR. PARROTT: That's correct. 4 MR. BREWTON: Does he get penalized for not 5 stopping to correct that? 6 MR. PARROTT: Through his own pocket. It's 7 costing him $50,000 a day to operate. Why is he 8 going to be dredging below what has to? 9 MR. BREWTON: Well, if you go over, then 10 you're at least sure of getting paid 100% while you 11 were out there. 12 MR. PARROTT: That's the point of the 13 allowable over depth allowing you to go into the 14 bottom two feet to make sure we do have 100% 15 coverage of the authorized depth, and it's for 16 that purpose. 17 MR. DYSART: Gwen, Judy, Rob, Stuart. 18 MS. McKEE: Ben's not the only one that needs 19 reassurance around this table. I guess what I want 20 to understand, in the language that the Corps has 21 that might go to the maintenance dredging, as far 22 as that being overall, all encompassing the 23 project, do you specifically allocate certain spots 24 in the river up to the 10 feet depths and it is 25 always that, or if something is emerging, do you 119 1 2 have the latitude, at any point on the river, to go 3 deeper, and how is that language written, because I 4 want to be -- 5 MR. PARROTT: I'll give you a copy of the 6 plans and specifications, if you like. Basically, 7 we segment into the reaches of the harbor, what 8 makes sense in terms of what the contractor can do 9 in a reasonable amount of time, every step 10 allowable. 11 Before the survey, we identify where the 12 dredge has to dredge to, based on the bottom of 13 this line right here. We tell them how much is to 14 be dredged, cubic yardage. That's the contract we 15 issue to them. 16 MS. McKEE: That's all done ahead of time 17 before the dredging is done? 18 MR. PARROTT: Yes. 19 MS. McKEE: It's something I can go see, if I 20 wanted to, it's something that's tide to the 21 authorized funding, and -- 22 MR. PARROTT: It's an interim -- it's an 23 interim process. We ask for money 18 months in 24 advance. We budget the money. We get the money in 25 and allocate to the different dredging activity. 120 1 2 We advertise and award contracts. Sometimes 3 the bids are high. Sometimes the bids are low. We 4 move money around. If there's any money left 5 over, we turn it back to the Congress. 6 MS. McKEE: What happens when the oh my god 7 thing happens, you know, we've hit the aquifer; who 8 is responsible for that -- who takes responsibility 9 ultimately if a mistake is made and we really have 10 a major problem? 11 Is it the Corps fault, is it GPA's fault, is 12 it the federal government's fault, is it Jack 13 Kingston fault, who holds the blame? 14 MR. PARROTT: You're talking about a very 15 large issue in terms of liability. If the 16 contractor is acting within the bounds of the 17 contract -- I'm not at all -- 18 MS. McKEE: Is it the dredge's fault? 19 MR. PARROTT: It depends on what happens. 20 If the dredging contractor follows our 21 specifications to the letter and encounters a 22 problem like an unknown pipeline, we should have 23 known, that's one set of circumstances. 24 MR. TOLLISON: It's the Corps' fault. 25 MR. PARROTT: Practically speaking, it's 121 1 2 always the Corps' fault. No. If the contractor 3 goes beyond the minimum requirements and did 4 something to somebody's personal property, it then 5 becomes the contractor's responsibility. 6 If it's the harbor deepening project where we 7 have a PCA, the PCA says they hold us harmless for 8 all damages not the fault of the contractor. 9 There's different scenarios, different liabilities. 10 I'm not a lawyer -- 11 MR. SCHUBERTH: Someone's going to ask what's 12 a PCA? 13 MR. PARROTT: Private cooperation agreement. 14 It is a binding contract between the local sponsor, 15 and the federal government that designates who is 16 responsible, who pays for what, how it is executed, 17 who is in charge. 18 Anything else I can add, Marty? I've done 19 about a dozen of them. He's done about 300 of 20 them. 21 It is the binding contract. It let's us 22 receive the money from the sponsor to do local 23 projects. 24 MR. DYSART: Judy. 25 MS. JENNINGS: These are all good questions. 122 1 2 I'll make the comment they are questions that Teri 3 and I already heard a year ago. In terms of the 4 answer changing, I'm not aware that any answer 5 has changed. There are the same answers I heard a 6 year and a half ago. 7 MR. PARROTT: It's all according to the 8 question you ask. -- The answer you get is 9 according to the question you ask. You may think 10 it's the same question, but actually there's subtle 11 differences. It's taken me 15 years to learn that. 12 MS. JENNINGS: I do appreciate that. It might 13 seem a little hard to grasp. There's a lot of 14 numbers. You do have an e-mail in direct response 15 to very direct questions. 16 I think there are probably some detailed 17 questions about dredging. I'll just reference back 18 to the process, which is we do have a Dredging 19 Committee that Fred Beason is chairing. 20 I've attended those meetings. It's a good 21 forum for discussions of this type. I attended 22 a DOT Dredging Committee yesterday that John 23 Phillips chaired -- where is John? I thought he 24 made a generous offer. You might want to repeat 25 it here, John, as to taking people out and showing 123 1 2 them. 3 MR. BREWTON: He already did. Judy, put me on 4 the e-mail forwarding list so I could benefit from 5 the written memos. 6 MS. JENNINGS: Be glad to, Ben. I have them 7 all. 8 MR. PARROTT: I'd like to point out the reason 9 why we do advanced maintenance is because it's 10 cost-efffective, and we've received all the 11 environmental approvals to do the work, because to 12 go out there and keep a dredge going year round, 13 it's not cost-effective. 14 So we allow for the process which is to get 15 the paperwork, dredge deeper to allow that shoal 16 never to interfere with the safe harbor under keel 17 clearance. 18 MR. DYSART: Stuart, you've had your card up a 19 while. 20 MR. STEVENS: It may be a little bit different 21 twist on this concept. If I'm understanding 22 correctly, Dan, it's a minimum of 4 and up to 10 23 feet at the turning basin, you said, 2 plus that 24 the contractor might go to? 25 MR. PARROTT: Yeah. 124 1 2 MR. STEVENS: It's a minimum for 10 feet in 3 one particular location. Was that considered in 4 the formula when you predicted the life spans of 5 the disposal areas? 6 MR. PARROTT: Yes. 7 MR. STEVENS: Okay. Thank you. 8 MR. PARROTT: One thing we found since the 9 last deepening, the total quantity of material 10 being dredged had not really changed pre-tide gate, 11 post '94 deepening. 12 What has changed is the location of those 13 shoals. We expected with the tide gate in 14 operation it was all downstream by the bight. 15 Now it's mostly the city front area. 16 MR. STEVENS: Well, the maintenance is 17 certainly understandable. I was thinking about 18 the additional dredging. That's a lot of material, 19 4 plus 10 in some places. That was taken into 20 account? 21 MR. PARROTT: The '94 deepening, the template 22 went down four feet. We assumed at that time, 23 because it was the best assumption we could make, 24 the sedimentation pattern was not going to change 25 that much. One of the things we have encountered 125 1 2 is the sedimentation pattern has changed. 3 MR. DYSART: We're going to have to take 4 break. Five minutes. 5 (Short Break) 6 MR. DYSART: Okay. At 12:00 noon we're 7 reconvening the meeting. If everybody would please 8 take a seat, we'll continue. Dan, are we through 9 with the presentation. 10 MR. PARROTT: I'm receiving questions -- 11 anymore questions? 12 MR. DYSART: Are there additional questions 13 about dredging, over dredging, so forth, do we need 14 to get more numbers on that? 15 MR. FARMER: Give it all to Chris Schuberth. 16 MR. BEASON: Being -- Fred Beason. As the 17 Dredging Committee Chair, may I make a statement? 18 MR. DYSART: You may. 19 MR. BEASON: I wanted to tell the group that 20 Dredging Committee had spoken with the GPA, and 21 with Larry. For Ben's information, we understand 22 the need for the program to look at the floor in 23 the river. For lack of a better number, let's say 24 48 feet. 25 Then the second phase of that, the model will 126 1 2 forecast where shoaling will occur, and from there 3 the advanced maintenance proposed area would be 4 needed. 5 We, as the Dredging Committee, are waiting for 6 that information, so we can look at the dredging 7 and disposal sites. We expect that to come out 8 a two part answer. 9 MR. BREWTON: I guess the question, Fred, that 10 makes perfect logical sense. Once you do the 11 modeling, you determine the shoaling points, you 12 determine the amount of advanced maintenance, et 13 cetera, needed at that point. 14 Then basically you have a new depth. We need 15 to have a new depth profile plugged back into all 16 the other projections due to the aquifer. 17 MR. DYSART: Larry. 18 MR. BEASON: That's my understanding of the 19 results. 20 MR. KEEGAN: We'll do what you described, Ben, 21 that's exactly the sequence that we intend. I was 22 just trying to make a point that the discussion and 23 the decision of how much, if any, advanced 24 maintenance that would go into that profile is 25 still open. 127 1 2 We don't know the need for it yet, and if it's 3 an economic need, it's not a vessel safety need, 4 it's how much of an annual cost do we have to deal 5 with, we don't know which way that's going to go. 6 MR. BREWTON: The point is, that is 7 determined, those actual numbers will be plugged 8 back into all the predictions? 9 MR. KEEGAN: Absolutely, absolutely yes. 10 Whatever turns up, that's what we work with. 11 MR. BEASON: Let me add, Ben, the concept is 12 also every yard of material moved for new 13 construction will be placed in the upland disposal 14 sites, one to one, so that the long-time impact on 15 the disposal sites will be even and based on where 16 the sediment is going to start to fall out. 17 We, as the Dredging Committee, will come back 18 and talk about the future life and location of 19 upland disposal sites. That's a piece of what 20 Larry and his team is looking at. You can't get 21 that completed until you get phase one done -- 22 phase two -- to have enough data to make a 23 decision. 24 MR. DYSART: This gentleman, Bob Cooey. 25 MR. COOEY: My name is Bob Cooey, Moran 128 1 2 Tugboats. I'm also a docking pilot in the Port of 3 Savannah. We're a pilot group who handles the 4 ships close quarters in shallow water. 5 MR. DYSART: If we can have the conversation 6 knocked off in the back. Everybody listen. 7 MR. COOEY: I'm a docking pilot in the Port of 8 Savannah. I'm with a group of pilots who operate 9 and handle ships close quarters in shallow water. 10 My major concern is the under keel clearance 11 guidelines set up by the Coast Guard and the safety 12 of the vessel. We keep a really close eye on the 13 turning basin and the river itself for the under 14 keel clearance guidelines. 15 The turning basin loses a lot of water in the 16 course of a month. My question is, how much water 17 have you lost? You lose an enormous amount of 18 water in a 30 day period. That comprises -- that 19 comprises the port because the vessel is close to 20 the bottom. I realize there's over dredging at 21 Kings Island of 10 feet because it loses so much 22 water in 30 days. 23 MR. PARROTT: That's right. 24 MR. COOEY: You do the math -- 25 MR. PARROTT: Plus the upstream fields cut 129 1 2 from March to June, that shoaling that occurs 3 during that time, we can't do anything 4 environmentally with it. 5 MR. COOEY: That comprises the handling of the 6 vessels. We're the guys that take that vessel to 7 the sea. We know the depth of the water, where 8 it's deepest. We have to keep that vessel in that 9 deepest part of the water. 10 Then you have the consideration of winds, 11 tides, the current of the Savannah River and the 12 equipment to turn those vessels and dock the, make 13 sure we can do it without compromising the vessel. 14 If they don't over dredge like they do -- but 15 it goes back to the question, how much water did 16 you lose in the turning basin in a month? I see a 17 couple feet, and that 10 feet really is diminished 18 quickly. 19 MR. DYSART: Okay. We have three cards up. 20 Is this for Dan? 21 MR. SCHUBERTH: This is a question of total 22 ignorance -- total ignorance. 23 MR. DYSART: Okay. 24 MR. SCHUBERTH: When you say you lose an 25 enormous amount of water, I hear Ross Perot, a 130 1 2 great sucking sound. Water, going as rivers go, I 3 don't know were you lose the water. 4 MR. COOEY: You handle a 1,000 foot vessel 5 drawing 38 feet -- close to the bottom it runs 6 around -- it's very difficult without the 7 assistance of tugboats. We assume on the chart -- 8 we get monthly charts which are 5, 10 days old by 9 the time we get them. It tells us we have 40 feet 10 of water there. 11 We have an under keel clearance of a foot we 12 have to have. Okay. Yeah, we can do it at a 13 specific time of the day, at a specific tide, with 14 a specific amount of equipment. 15 We can turn that ship and dock that ship. 16 When we get up there, all of a sudden the ship 17 doesn't want to turn because in that last 10 days 18 the current changed in some manner, whether we had 19 extra rain, something that filled that turning 20 basin in by two feet, we're on the bottom. 21 I got to see this guy with a license. I don't 22 want to do that. I don't want to comprise the 23 safety of a vessel. 24 In essence, we're operating under the 25 assumption that all this information is correct and 131 1 2 nothing has changed, but obviously everything 3 changes everyday. 4 MR. SCHUBERTH: When you say losing water 5 because of tidal conditions and the flow of the 6 river, I mean up -- 7 MR. SMITH: He's losing depth. 8 MR. DYSART: Let me check something here. We 9 have 50 minutes to complete this item, and then go 10 through all the committee reports, and hear the 11 Fish and Wildlife Service. Probably, I would ask 12 this body are we ready to move on, do you want to 13 kind of let things keep popping up? 14 MR. PARROTT: I want to point out, in closing, 15 I have some extra drawings of the annual survey, 16 the 1999 survey and extra drawings showing advanced 17 maintenance locations, project depths. People can 18 take these and enjoy them. Keith. 19 MR. PARSONS: I just want to clarify one 20 statement Dan said. You're restricted on doing 21 certain kinds of dredging because of an 22 environmental window at certain times of the year, 23 that is true, restrictions on the dredging 24 mechanism, but it does allow for an emergency 25 during the window to allow the larger ships to come 132 1 2 in and move around the port safely. So -- 3 MR. PARROTT: I agree. I neglected -- we have 4 a good working relationship on an as needed 5 emergency basis. 6 MR. PARSONS: We can get around some of those 7 issues when a ship's safety is an issue. 8 MR. DYSART: Carl, did you have question? 9 MR. HALL: Question, Carl Hall, DNR. I wanted 10 to remind the group the restriction is mid March 11 through May, not March through June. For whatever 12 it's worth, that's all I had. 13 MR. PARROTT: I paraphrased. For simple 14 activity, it's May 31st -- pretty close to June. 15 MR. HALL: It's not four months. 16 MR. PARROTT: How many people would like the 17 chief's report? We have copies here for you people 18 also to take away with you. 19 MR. BREWTON: I request a chief's report. I 20 said something earlier and I was corrected by the 21 guys at the Corps. They really weren't a proponent 22 or pushing the project. Of course, in fact, the 23 chief's report recommended the project be 24 authorized. 25 MR. PARROTT: Recommended authorized 133 1 2 conditional. 3 MR. BREWTON: Right, certain conditions. 4 MR. PARROTT: Certain conditions are normal in 5 terms of having the Department of the Interior and 6 the EPA. 7 MR. BREWTON: Right. I understand those 8 conditions. Doesn't that put it actually in the 9 posture of the Corps having the recommendation for 10 authorization of the project, approval of the 11 project, working on the project that is authorized; 12 was it really incorrect what I said? 13 MR. PARROTT: What's that? 14 MR. BREWTON: That the Corps. 15 MR. PARROTT: Recommended for authorization is 16 one step along the way. 17 MR. BREWTON: Right. 18 MR. PARROTT: It is not approval of the 19 project. 20 MR. BREWTON: I'll talk with you privately. 21 Maybe I don't understand. 22 MR. PARROTT: I understand. 23 MR. DYSART: Perhaps we need to have a 24 semantics committee. Are we finished -- 25 MR. SCHALLER: No. I want to add to the 134 1 2 confusion. There is no project until there is a 3 project that is permitable, authorized, approved, 4 and what have you, to support the studies. 5 Congress mandated that -- 6 MR. DYSART: Okay. Are we through with Dan 7 Parrott's item? Okay. We have 45 minutes to 8 continue. Next item on the approved agenda is the 9 GPA overview presentation. 10 MR. REES: No, it isn't. There's a subitem. 11 I don't know why it's included under -- but it was 12 Bo's presentation that was asked for some months 13 ago -- the model. 14 MR. DYSART: Including Bo Ellis' refresher on 15 the model with an emphasis or questions from April, 16 this was the requested by Ben Brewton. Next 17 subitem is Bo's presentation, the refresher. 18 MR. ELLIS: All right. All right. I'll try 19 to make this relatively quick. The request several 20 months ago was to refresh the SEG on the plans for 21 development of the model, which would include the 22 calibration of the model, and then some future 23 application. 24 Right now, we're in the calibration phase of 25 our modeling program. Last August I gave a 135 1 2 presentation showing how the model works, what we 3 think about when we're selecting a model, why it's 4 important to select certain characteristics or 5 consider certain characteristics in selecting a 6 model, and how we plan to put it together for this 7 project. 8 I'm going to basically give you the same 9 presentation I gave last August, go through it very 10 quickly. If there are any questions, we can answer 11 those at the end. 12 A model is not a perfect replica of the 13 system, it is a representation of the system. And 14 as you've been beginning to hear discussion about 15 other models, and this model; it is a mathematical 16 representation of the physical, chemical, and 17 biological processes, that are important to look at 18 for this project, when we're looking at the 19 relative effects, the changes caused by a deepening 20 project. 21 We have two basic reasons that we need models. 22 One is to predict future conditions. It allows us 23 to test the outcome of conditions that haven't 24 occurred yet. There's no way we can go out and 25 measure right now what would happen if we deepen 136 1 2 the channel by four or six feet. 3 The model also allows us to fill in the 4 blanks, even though we may have good data under a 5 certain condition at a couple miles apart, in the 6 dynamic system like this, a lot of times you want 7 to know what is happening in between those points. 8 If you are accurate at your points where you 9 have your data, then you can apply the model, and 10 fill in the gaps of your information, and feel 11 reasonably sure that you have predicted a point in 12 between those areas that is accurate. 13 Types of models, very, very quickly. We are 14 dealing with a numerical model. It's a 15 mathematical representation of the physical, 16 chemical, biological processes. There are other 17 models that I'm sure you're familiar with. 18 Types of systems that we routinely model, as a 19 water resources firm, you know, other systems are 20 modeled, but rivers, lakes, estuaries, where you 21 have a freshwater flow coming into a tidal -- 22 tidally influenced system, bays and uplands. 23 Each system has unique characteristics and 24 must be considered relative to that particular 25 system. This is a hydrologic cycle. This is the 137 1 2 water shed, you have the rain, the uplands, the 3 runoff into the river, the river's flowing down 4 to the estuary. 5 The estuary is where the freshwater and the 6 tidal influence from the ocean come together, and 7 you have your extensive marsh areas because of that 8 -- of that tidal range. You also have the ocean 9 that you can model and coastal embankments. 10 This is very basic, I think, for all of you. 11 You've heard this before. Models do provide useful 12 information. You wouldn't fly an airplane if you 13 didn't trust models. That's how we know they're 14 going to fly before we actually put them in the 15 air; space shuttles, missiles, even sewer systems, 16 water systems, the behavior of water is very 17 commonly modeled for different types of systems. 18 It is important before you select your model 19 to stand back and ask yourself, what do you want 20 this model to accomplish, what are the goals, and 21 in this particular instance, what are the effects 22 of a harbor deepening that we want to be able to 23 model, we want to be able to project in some 24 future condition. 25 Currents, and water levels, and sedimentation 138 1 2 patterns, like we've been discussing today, the 3 currents are important and they do change when you 4 change the cross-sectional area of the channel. 5 Water levels are important. We've discussed that 6 in the SEG. Today we've talked about 7 sedimentation. 8 Salinity conditions within the tidal 9 freshwater marsh and striped bass spawning areas, 10 the salinity wedge as it moves up and down the 11 river, and salinity impacts to some of the 12 adjoining areas, shallower areas, outside of the 13 main navigation channel. 14 Chloride levels at the City of Savannah's 15 water intake, further up above I-95 on Abercorn 16 Creek, and dissolved oxygen levels throughout the 17 harbor, these are the primary effects that we're 18 concerning about in looking at the deepening 19 project. 20 What characteristics are important that we 21 need to capture in our model? There are many 22 different models. There are other types of models 23 that we could apply to Savannah Harbor. 24 These are some of the things that we felt were 25 particularly important in including in any type of 139 1 2 model package selected for Savannah Harbor. The 3 tidal dynamics, very, very important. We have one 4 of the largest tidal ranges on the East Coast, 5 about eight feet, seven, eight feet, the phasing 6 of that tidal wave, the amplitude of that tidal 7 wave is very, very important in looking at those 8 effects we just discussed in the last slide. 9 Grids must fit the shoreline. If you can look 10 at the system, the lighter blue up here, you can 11 see this is the navigation channel right here, the 12 main river, the front river, this is downtown area 13 right in here. 14 It's very, curved. It's not straight 15 segments, and you want a model that fits the 16 shoreline, fits those curves, and is able to 17 reflect the accurate currents and flows through 18 those bins. 19 Three dimensional is very important, for one 20 the salinity wedge is influenced by depth. You 21 have different salinity conditions at the top of 22 the river than you do at the bottom of the river. 23 And it's very important to consider the three 24 dimensional aspects of that. 25 The depth variations in the system, we 140 1 2 have the deepened navigation channel as it is now. 3 We have shallow marsh areas that flood that 4 represent a large volume of water, but they're not 5 very deep, and they behave very differently than 6 the deeper parts of the channel. Those type of 7 things important when considering what type of 8 model to use. 9 Very important to consider the density driven 10 salt wedge in looking at salinity impacts, 11 chlorides and dissolved oxygen. The salt wedge 12 behaves differently in the Savannah Harbor based on 13 neep and spring tide conditions. It behaves 14 differently based on the freshwater flow conditions 15 coming from Thurman Dam. 16 You actually can have a situation where the 17 salt wedge is moving into the estuary and flows at 18 the top or moving out. And being able to predict 19 that accurately, represent that in the system, is 20 important. 21 Marsh flooding volumes, like I said, even 22 though the marsh area is very shallow, much 23 shallower than the deeper channel, it does 24 represent a large volume of water. If you don't 25 include that, then you're going to miss your 141 1 2 prediction of flows. 3 What models are presently being developed for 4 the Savannah River? Right now we're in that 5 calibration phase. We had our data collection 6 phase last fall. Right now we're calibrating the 7 model to that data. And then next phase would be 8 the applying the model to some future condition. 9 Hydrodynamic transport. The model selected 10 and the model that we are developing is dynamic. 11 It does represent the tidal conditions, the water 12 levels moving up and down. It does have a 13 transport mechanism to move salinity back and 14 forth. 15 The higher salinity waters coming from the 16 ocean are denser. They behave differently than the 17 freshwater that usually stays on top. 18 Water quality. We're looking at a water 19 quality model that takes these basically physical 20 processes in the hydrodynamic and the transport 21 models and applies chemical and biological 22 processes that determine the dissolved oxygen 23 concentrations throughout the harbor. 24 We have an upper river basin and -- that 25 connects to the harbor. And that model is a model 142 1 2 that is being developed by the State of Georgia. 3 We've talked a little bit about that briefly. 4 It will be used to give us flow 5 characteristics coming down from the drainage 6 basin. It won't be directly part of the model that 7 we're developing for the harbor, but it is under 8 development, and able to feed our model at the 9 upstream boundary. 10 The Lower Savannah River Estuary. I've said 11 this before, but just so you understand, the 12 upstream boundary of the model, even though we are 13 concentrated in the estuary and in the Lower 14 Savannah River Harbor, the project is all down 15 below I-95. 16 This model projects all the way up to 17 Clio, the USGS gauging station, which is upstream 18 50 or 60 miles. Just a real quick look at the WQ 19 Map Model System, which was selected to model the 20 project. 21 This is very confusing, hopefully you'll 22 understand. It's made up of a package of different 23 models that all work together and feed each other. 24 It starts with BF grid, where you chop your system 25 into grids and into cells, and in our case we have 143 1 2 a horizontal division and also vertical division, 3 10 layers throughout the harbor. In every section 4 of the harbor we have 10 layers in our model. 5 How does the model see the river? Like I 6 said, it's three dimensional. It's 7 boundary-fitted. Like I said, it's very important 8 in this situation with all the bends, we have a 9 curve linear grid and it's sigma stretched, which 10 means that those 10 layers expand and contract with 11 the tides. 12 This is a grid representation. You can see 13 how it's chopped up. This is only the planned view 14 looking down from above. There's also in each of 15 one those grids 10 layers vertically chopped. 16 We've talked about the grid resolution. You 17 can see the grids vary throughout the system some. 18 Some are long and skinny. Others are more square. 19 MR. BREWTON: What is the range of the size of 20 those grids? 21 MR. ELLIS: From several acres to probably 10 22 acres. 23 MR. BREWTON: So the largest grid, the 24 coarsest it is right now is 10 acres. 25 MR. ELLIS: Roundabout. There's thousands of 144 1 2 these grids. 3 MR. BREWTON: These are grids -- this grid is 4 the output, not the data collection points, this is 5 the prediction? 6 MR. ELLIS: It's not the prediction. This is 7 the model development. Once you get your data, we 8 have the Corps surveys, we have the surveys that 9 were performed when we were out in the field, so to 10 calibrate our model to that data, we want to use 11 the survey data that is most representative of 12 those conditions. And so be build those grids 13 according to the survey data that we get from the 14 Corps. 15 MR. BREWTON: But what I'm trying to 16 understand is, is there a data collection at each 17 of those grids, or is the output of the model, will 18 there be a prediction for each grid? 19 MR. ELLIS: Each grid. 20 MR. BREWTON: Prediction for data collection 21 a sample prediction or both? 22 MR. ELLIS: Every cell has a -- the ability to 23 go through the mathematical processes and predict a 24 salinity value, a DO value, a chloride value for 25 each grid. 145 1 2 Will we be able to present everyone of those 3 grids, no. It would be almost impossible. We 4 would present certain slices, representative slices 5 of the system. 6 MR. BREWTON: So those cells represent the 7 cells for which predictions can be made, not the 8 cells from which -- not any relationship to data 9 collection points? 10 MR. ELLIS: No, right, correct, correct. So 11 what you want to do is be able at certain strategic 12 points where you have data collection stations to 13 compare the predicted and measured data points. 14 This is just a graphical representation. The 15 deeper black areas are the deeper areas. You can 16 see this is a meter, 16 to 17 meters, and the 17 lighter blues are the shallower areas. You can see 18 up at New Cut, that's actually a closed part of the 19 channel. 20 MR. BREWTON: Could you go back to the 21 previous slide one more time. I have one other 22 question. 23 MR. ELLIS: I don't know. How do you do that? 24 MR. BREWTON: Probably back space or 25 something. I remember a discussion, the day Chuck 146 1 2 Watson was here, y'all had about some of this. 3 This shows all the cells stopping at what 4 point? Is that a low water, is that a high water 5 mark? Obviously, the water extends out into that 6 marsh. How's the point at which those cells stop 7 determined, in fact, where is that point? 8 MR. ELLIS: This grid represents the main 9 channel areas, okay, where you can model the 10 currents and flows. I'm not saying navigate the 11 main river harbor areas, not just the navigation 12 channel. 13 As you can see, it's the whole harbor system 14 and all the interconnections between those, and it 15 does cover the shoreline up to mean water level, 16 mean high water level, except in the areas, the 17 extensive marsh areas up in the upper part of the 18 system. 19 The grids don't go out into the marsh areas. 20 There are marsh cells that flood and dry that take 21 care of all the volume of water you need, so that 22 when you are passing the flows in the navigational 23 channel, that water is exchanging. It's coming and 24 it's going. 25 MR. BREWTON: I guess what I'm getting at, all 147 1 2 that green marsh areas, even some of those side 3 creeks, so forth, I guess shown there -- 4 MR. ELLIS: Uh-huh. 5 MR. BREWTON: -- a lot of that area is some of 6 the most significant area, in terms of habitat and 7 some of the environmental issues. 8 MR. ELLIS: Right. 9 MR. BREWTON: Are you predicting what's going 10 to happen to salinity and so forth in those green 11 areas? Are your predictions going to stop at the 12 boundary we see there? 13 MR. ELLIS: This model WQ Map will take it to 14 those boundaries. Okay. You do not see the marsh 15 cells that are off of this, that are basically just 16 holding areas that represent a volume of water that 17 fills and drains with the tides. 18 So to accurately predict the conditions in the 19 channel, which is what we're primarily interested 20 in, you need to represent those volumes. We will 21 be able to carry the projections in the model up 22 into these fingers, into these tidal creeks, into 23 the grid that you see there. That's where the 24 predictions will end. 25 MR. BREWTON: So they will not go into the 148 1 2 marshes itself? 3 MR. ELLIS: WQ Map will not. We're doing 4 a lot of other work with Fish and Wildlife to look 5 at marsh salinity and being able to correlate those 6 marsh salinities, and basically that's a ground 7 water condition when the tide is down low with the 8 surface water conditions. So we're doing a lot of 9 work to be able to -- 10 MR. BREWTON: You're doing additional work or 11 modeling that will show the distribution? 12 MR. ELLIS: Of marsh salinities up in those 13 areas. 14 MR. SCHUBERTH: WQ is an acronym or a formal 15 name? 16 MR. ELLIS: It is a formal name, but it is 17 water quality map. It's GIS-based, as you can see, 18 all of this is on a GIS database and Windows 19 Interface. 20 This is the depth. BF hydro is another part 21 of the package. What are we simulating? Water 22 surface elevation, currents, we talked about it 23 before. I've lost it. 24 Water velocity, that's basically the currents. 25 Transport of material. That's important in looking 149 1 2 at salinity, and then chlorides transport through 3 the system. Salinity and temperature, we are 4 modeling temperature, which is important to 5 dissolved oxygen. 6 Those are all included in that hydrodynamic 7 model package, which we are calibrating now, and we 8 will be presenting to the MTRG in the next couple 9 of months. That's the first thing you need to 10 accurately represent. 11 The water quality model package, once you have 12 your hydrodynamic, your transport, those things -- 13 basically those the physical properties, you can 14 add the water quality model. 15 We're simulating salinity, temperature, 16 dissolved oxygen, nutrients in the system, 17 biochemical oxygen demand, which is the organic 18 load that comes either naturally or from wastewater 19 discharges. 20 As you can see, the WQ Map allows you to add 21 the GIS database, and all the shoreline data from 22 NOAA and from other sources, the environmental 23 data, we have a lot of meteorological date that we 24 have collected, others have collected that we can 25 use in the development of model. We can also 150 1 2 connect nutrient loading and other sources of 3 loads, flows into the system. 4 What makes a model useful? I think we've said 5 it many times before, but you can have -- the thing 6 that can really mess up a model is having data. 7 Models are fantastic. You can apply them and show 8 great graphs and pictures. 9 And if you have no data to compare it to, you 10 really don't know what you have. The quality of 11 your model is only as the good data that you have 12 to be able to compare it to. 13 That's why in the fall, we went through an 14 extensive, very comprehensive field data collection 15 effort to gather data, to be able to develop the 16 model and to compare the model to actual field 17 data. 18 We stepped back at the beginning. We selected 19 a model that would be appropriate for representing 20 the characteristics in the harbor, and it has to be 21 applied within those specifications. And then it's 22 important to have critical review by outside 23 modelers letters and stakeholders, like we're 24 having in MTRG and in the SEG. 25 That makes a model useful, and it will serve 151 1 2 the purposes that the group decides are important 3 to the stakeholders. So any other questions? 4 MR. BERSON: What's the procedure for 5 validating the model? 6 MR. ELLIS: That would calibrated, when I say 7 calibrating, I mean we calibrate to a data set and 8 we have three months of data. We compare the 9 projected, the model predicted outcome with the 10 actual data, which we have the continuous 11 monitoring data for a lot of these things over that 12 three month period. 13 Some people say verify with another data set. 14 We have such a long data set, we have many, many 15 tidal conditions. We have the spring. We have 16 multiple spring neep cycles, all the different 17 conditions that occur over that three month time 18 period. 19 The calibration, the verification, and the 20 validation will be comparing to not only that '99 21 data set which is very comprehensive, but the data 22 set collected back in '97. So you use all that to 23 calibrate, verify, validate the model. Any other 24 questions? 25 MR. FARMER: Bo, you have 10 layers going 152 1 2 down. When you deepen the harbor, do you create 3 an 11th layer, or do you just expand the -- 4 MR. ELLIS: No. Those layers, sigma stretched 5 grid, which means those layers expand and contract 6 with the tidal deepening. The 10 layers will just 7 be moved to the bottom, a very, very complicated 8 mathematical process. 9 MR. FARMER: You have equations that tell if 10 you have this at the top level what's happening 11 at the bottom level and also sideways? 12 MR. ELLIS: Right. All the cells communicate 13 directly with the cell above it, beside it, you 14 know. 15 MR. FARMER: You have other equations that say 16 if you do something over here that goes upstream 17 and affects everything one way or another also? 18 MR. ELLIS: Right, but by going through that 19 mathematical process of each grid talking to each 20 other, it carries through the whole system. 21 MR. FARMER: You have data every so often that 22 tells you if your equations give you the right 23 answer? 24 MR. ELLIS: Right, it spreads throughout the 25 whole system, back river, front river, middle 153 1 2 river, up in Abercorn Creek, up above Abercorn 3 Creek in the Savannah River, and we even have some 4 data offshore. 5 MR. FARMER: I understand it, how about you? 6 MR. ROBINETTE: We've looked at it. A lot of 7 this stuff looks like a wave, you know, the data 8 set, the real time data where the salinity peaks up 9 and comes back down. Then the model will be laid 10 in another wave line right on top of that. 11 Our folks, Wiley Kitchens and that group looks 12 at that to see how close those lines line up. That 13 gives you verification. 14 It's a good mental pictures, I guess two wave 15 lines laying on top of each other. The closer they 16 are, the more accurate your model is. It's amazing 17 with such a dynamic system as this, it is so very 18 complicated how you can get that to come out as 19 close as Bo and his group has done. 20 MR. DYSART: Let me ask a question. Are you 21 at the end of your formal presentation, Bo? 22 MR. ELLIS: Yes. 23 MR. DYSART: As a matter of information, we 24 have 10 minutes to cover the remainder of old 25 business and all the committee reports, and because 154 1 2 the fish and Wildlife Service has requested up to 3 10 minutes for their new business item, and it is 4 my intention that we would close at 1:00. I want 5 to know, do you use your 10 minutes for further 6 questions on this, other old business and committee 7 reports, however you desire to? Ben Brewton. 8 MR. BREWTON: I have a quick question. I 9 don't think Bo addressed the actual questions on 10 the agenda yet, which I'd like for him to address. 11 In regard to that model, Bill Farmer's 12 question to you about the layers, and you're 13 talking about the sigma stretching, that means each 14 cell will enlarge post-deepening, so it will be a 15 little bit coarser grid post-deepening than 16 pre-deepening? 17 MR. ELLIS: Vertically, yes. 18 MR. BREWTON: Second thing, in each of those 19 cells, your prediction will give a single point 20 prediction for the individual cell? 21 MR. ELLIS: Yes, uniform consistent throughout 22 the cell. 23 MR. BREWTON: The only other question would be 24 the thing on the agenda; that is, what is the 25 status of the MTRG data collection report, and when 155 1 2 will that be completed? 3 MR. DYSART: That's after the next 4 presentation on mine. 5 MR. ELLIS: I thought that was later. 6 It's addressing the MTRG status report. Any other 7 questions about the model? 8 MR. DYSART: Stuart. 9 MR. STEVENS: I have a comment, I guess. 10 Since our last meeting of the SEG, I've checked 11 with the two professors that we consider to be 12 the experts involved with the MTRG, and they have 13 been very pleased. 14 I want to compliment Bo and your staff for 15 working with them. They said your folks have been 16 willing to address their concerns, and they're very 17 pleased with how the model is working. Thank you 18 for the work you're doing. 19 MR. ELLIS: I appreciate that. We have a 20 great group that works hard, goes through the 21 technical deliberations in the MTRG. I'll talk 22 about that later in the status report. 23 MR. McINTOSH: I have a question. What did 24 you estimate would be a model run, Bo, the length 25 of time to do one? 156 1 2 MR. ELLIS: It takes around a day right now. 3 MR. McINTOSH: It's not something you could 4 bring at a later SEg and turn it on and let it run 5 through? Could you speed it up after it did it? 6 MR. ELLIS: Once we have done it, and 7 calculated all -- all those models, the BF grid, 8 the BF mass, the BF water quality, the portions all 9 talk to each other, we can come in and show a 10 simulation in a matter of minutes. 11 MR. McINTOSH: Okay. 12 MR. ELLIS: So you can present it. The actual 13 crunching of the numbers to get that simulation 14 together takes quite a bit of time. 15 MR. McINTOSH: It's not a question of the 16 flower opening up at a fast speed? 17 MR. ELLIS: Yes, yes. 18 MR. McINTOSH: You could come in and do the 19 fast forward for us at some point on the model? 20 MR. BREWTON: Time lapse. 21 MR. ELLIS: For a selected simulation, 22 exactly, we could. 23 MR. KEEGAN: I think it's a little misleading, 24 the discussion. Right now we don't have a nice 25 graphic flower that we can speed up and slow down, 157 1 2 to use your analogy. 3 MR. McINTOSH: I understand that, yeah. 4 MR. KEEGAN: You're going to get a huge dump 5 of numbers, right? 6 MR. ELLIS: Right. 7 MR. KEEGAN: That would have to be translated 8 into some visual presentation to allow you to sit 9 and look at it. I'm not sure we've discussed how 10 to do that. I only bring that up because I don't 11 want to raise false expectations. 12 At one point in my head I was thinking if I 13 could go sit in a movie and have my bag of popcorn, 14 we could see, watch this thing do a bunch of 15 different stuff. It isn't going to do that. 16 MR. ELLIS: When it comes to applying the 17 model, we have to choose all the inputs and design 18 every simulation; the project depth, any of the 19 other -- the freshwater flow conditions, the tidal 20 conditions, all those have to be carefully selected 21 and agreed to so that you don't have to do 22 thousands of model runs. 23 MR. KEEGAN: If I may, I don't want anybody to 24 misinterpret what I said. There's no intent to not 25 show you, share with you, let you understand what's 158 1 2 going on. We just know yet how to do it. 3 MR. McINTOSH: Wait a minute. You don't how 4 to run the model? 5 MR. KEEGAN: We don't know how to present 6 output in a way that's useful or meets the time 7 constraints of this group. 8 MR. McINTOSH: Okay. Is there any hope, at 9 some point, after you've done a number of runs of 10 your own picking and choosing with the parameters 11 and input, that you would pick and choose to 12 simulate those conditions you think ought to be 13 simulated, that we could see a couple of those? Is 14 that possible? 15 MR. KEEGAN: That's our intent, yes. 16 MR. ELLIS: It is possible. This package 17 allows you to present visually some of the 18 simulation. Any other questions? 19 MR. DYSART: Will. 20 MR. BERSON: I'm a little lost in terms of 21 what gets done when. I'm assuming since you have 22 the ability to stretch these data sets vertically, 23 that areas that would be proposed for a 48 foot, 24 for example, just straight 48, no over depth; do 25 you have the ability to model -- to take that 159 1 2 in -- 3 MR. ELLIS: Yes. 4 MR. BERSON: -- 48 plus 2, 6, 8, 10, so we 5 should have -- 6 MR. ELLIS: I should have said that, but one 7 of the best features of this modeling package is 8 it's very, very appropriate for any type of 9 physical change. 10 You can change your grid and automatically run 11 everything else and see what would happen before 12 and after that physical change. 13 MR. BERSON: so wherever in the sedimentation 14 stuff this happens, we should be able to see not 15 just 48 feet from Tybee up, but the various depths 16 that the projects would actually require? 17 MR. ELLIS: Whatever you put in the model, you 18 can put any grid, any bottom elevation, any 19 cross-section. 20 MR. KEEGAN: The answer to your question 21 briefly is yes. 22 MR. DYSART: Excuse me, hold down the volume, 23 so I can hear the discussion. Go ahead, Larry. 24 MR. KEEGAN: I'm done. 25 MR. REES: He just said yes. 160 1 2 MR. DYSART: I couldn't hear what he said. 3 Teri, further comments. 4 MS. LEFFEK: Not a comment about this. I was 5 noticing we're short on time. I would like to 6 definitely get the Fish and Wildlife's question on 7 the agenda. If there are the no further questions, 8 I'm asking the other SEG members, is it okay to 9 defer some of these things and answer this? 10 This does deal with a procedural matter, are 11 we going to meet every month. I would like to get 12 to fish and Wildlife. We only have a few minutes. 13 MR. DYSART: We have 11 minutes left. Fish 14 and Wildlife has requested up to 10 minutes, and if 15 this body -- Morgan. 16 MR. REES: I'm next on the agenda. I'd like 17 to take one minute and take care of this item. We 18 have this overview presentation that the SEG has 19 asked for. 20 Let me just suggest, there are hard copies 21 here. We'll put it on the website. You can come 22 to next meeting with any questions you have of it. 23 It's pretty self-explanatory. I don't want to say 24 superficial. It's not a detailed level of 25 analysis. 161 1 2 It's much more a layperson's presentation. 3 There is -- there are two items I do want to point 4 out, that since we prepared this a couple of days 5 ago, we've reached decisions on that were undecided 6 at the time. 7 One is the question of -- that was raised last 8 time in Bill Bailey's presentation in the committee 9 chair's report about post-construction monitoring 10 and verification of impacts. 11 We have decided, yeah, that makes sense to do 12 that. The question is how much to do. That's to 13 be worked out, but we have decided to do that, and 14 there was one other study recommended by the MTRG 15 internally that we had not approved yet. 16 While I can't -- it had to do with just some 17 research on the existing tidal data, we'll do that 18 too. That's a little different from what's in 19 here. 20 We'll make those corrections and put that on 21 the website. At the next meeting we can ask 22 questions about it. Oh, Larry's suggesting you 23 might want to send an e-mail with questions you 24 have to help us prepare to answer them efficiently 25 at the next meeting, if everybody agrees. 162 1 2 MR. STEVENS: Those are hard copies in front 3 of you? 4 MR. REES: These are hard copies of my 5 presentation. 6 MR. STEVENS: Would you pass them down, can we 7 have those? 8 MR. REES: Sure. 9 MR. DYSART: Anyone here who cannot live with 10 proceeding on the agenda for the Fish and Wildlife 11 Service presentation? 12 MR. BREWTON: I have no problem with that, 13 just at some point, can we get Bo's response to the 14 update us on the data collection report? 15 MR. DYSART: I presume, it's our custom, 16 everything that gets overcome gets rolled forward 17 again. We will do that without objection. 18 MR. BREWTON: We're not going to meet in the 19 next couple of months -- 20 MR. DYSART: That hasn't been decided. 21 MS. LEFFEK: We don't know yet. 22 MR. DYSART: Is there anyone who cannot live 23 with proceeding with the Fish and Wildlife 24 presentation? Seeing no hands, John, would you 25 like to proceed? 163 1 2 MR. ROBINETTE: Yes. We propose that instead 3 of meeting monthly we meet quarterly, even if we 4 have to meet longer. 5 We feel like it's a more efficient use of our 6 time. We've got a lot of the studies underway 7 right now. We're doing a lot of field work, which 8 includes a lot of my time and a lot of time for 9 several of the people at this table too. 10 I'd like to throw that out as a possibility 11 and let the SEG discuss it, if we could meet 12 quarterly, and maybe meet all day and have a lunch 13 break, that would be a more efficient use of our 14 time is what we were thinking. If there's any 15 discussion, be glad to hear it. 16 MR. DYSART: Chris. 17 MR. SCHUBERTH: This is the first I've heard 18 of this. I'm just kind of curious, why? I mean, 19 I've come to most of the meetings and we go to the 20 end of it with rather intense discussions. 21 I think that we lose momentum, we lose 22 continuity if we meet four times a year versus 23 meeting 12 times a year. It's hard for me to 24 recognize we've already met 18 times, 18 times and 25 we're moving ponderously slowly towards some kind 164 1 2 of answers to questions. 3 So my own opinion would be that I think it's 4 about as efficient as we can be in meeting the way 5 we're meeting. My recommendation would be that 6 maybe to try to get everything in in three hours 7 rather than four hours on a monthly basis, if time 8 is a factor in terms of meeting 12 times a year. 9 MR. DYSART: Ben Brewton. 10 MR. BREWTON: I concur with Chris. I think 11 the frequency of meeting is probably just as 12 important, perhaps more important than the length 13 of time between meetings to keep everyone abreast 14 of things going on. 15 Some of these questions, I know I would be 16 very uncomfortable waiting three months to hear an 17 answer to. I'd also observe that if we decided to 18 meet for a full day, I think some people travel, 19 and end at 4:00 o'clock, take an hour and a half 20 for lunch, that would only add an hour and a half 21 meeting time to the day, which is one of the 22 reasons, I think, a couple times we did meet 23 longer, and then decided to go to partial day 24 meetings without a lunch break. 25 I can understand the work the agencies have to 165 1 2 do, and those of us who are here as volunteers, the 3 time we're taking away from our businesses, so 4 forth. 5 I wouldn't have a problem if we did this 6 occasionally, I think if we did this one month, if 7 we decided to skip a month, but I would hate to see 8 us go, on an ongoing basis, only going to meet 9 quarterly. 10 I think there's too much going on. We're 11 starting to get information in, having additional 12 questions come up that need to be answered. So by 13 that long-winded answer, I would say I concur with 14 Chris, and if we need to skip the month of July 15 because it's the middle of summer and people are on 16 vacations or something, I wouldn't have a problem 17 with that. I'd like to see us continue, at least 18 most of the time, with monthly meetings. 19 MR. DYSART: John. 20 MR. JOHN PHILLIPS: I'd like to go on record 21 as supporting the Fish and Wildlife recommendation 22 being mentioned. You mentioned travel. I think 23 there's a lot of folks here from South Carolina 24 solely for the purpose of the meeting. 25 That's an expense to the agency to send them 166 1 2 down here, and spread that over, you know, once a 3 quarter versus once a month, I think it would be 4 not only time management better, but also your 5 resources. 6 MR. SCHUBERTH: For some of us, it's an 7 expense personally. 8 MR. DYSART: Any other questions? 9 MR. McINTOSH: Question, if we were to meet 10 quarterly, would there be concurrence we would meet 11 all day and do the lunch break as they proposed, or 12 would we be stuck with half a day in this quarter 13 meeting? 14 MR. DYSART: What was -- would you clarify 15 your Fish and Wildlife Service proposal, John? 16 MR. ROBINETTE: I think it would be a full 17 day. We were looking at Ed having to travel, folks 18 having to travel -- other folks -- all day, us 19 having to travel to this meeting, which blows a 20 whole day anyway, you know. 21 I mean, when I come to the meeting, you know, 22 we've always got a lot of stuff left over, you 23 know. This day is shot is even though I travel 24 a very short distance. I'd rather meet all day and 25 get more done than meet, you know, every other 167 1 2 month, every quarter, whatever. 3 MR. McINTOSH: I was looking for a consensus 4 from the group. Are there people that would meet 5 all day, who would be better off if we did the all 6 day, lunch, stay and get it done, as opposed to 7 meeting quarterly in a short meeting; would that 8 make sense for most people? 9 MR. SCHUBERTH: Some of us can't meet all day. 10 I'll tell you that right now. 11 MR. DYSART: Stuart, Fred, Will. 12 MR. STEVENS: Stuart Stevens, DNR. I could go 13 with it either way. I think if we do go to 14 quarterly that we're going to have to have more 15 time to discuss issues in each of those meetings. 16 I would also offer the option we might 17 consider, it doesn't rule out we could have a 18 called meeting, something is really important 19 happens like the MTRG saw some hot issue, they 20 wanted to have a special meeting, we could still do 21 that in addition to having a quarterly meeting. 22 MR. DYSART: Fred. 23 MR. BEASON: Fred Beason, Bottom Line Echo. I 24 could go either way. I might default to the 25 Georgia Port Authority in trying to move the 168 1 2 project along. I think they might have an agenda 3 they're trying to meet, just to make everything 4 stay on track. 5 I echo Chris' concern. If we go to quarterly, 6 I personally think it's going to slow down. I 7 don't know that we can live with that, if we're 8 going to try to get this thing done in some 9 reasonable period of time. 10 MR. DYSART: Will. 11 MR. BERSON: Speaking as somebody that comes 12 from atlanta for these meetings, I understand the 13 time commitment, but in effect, this ends up being 14 an all day meeting for me anyway. 15 I leave here and go to the Economics Working 16 Group meeting right afterwards. I don't quite know 17 how all these committee meetings are going to get 18 reconciled with this meeting, and still get the 19 work done. That was just my comment. 20 MS. McINTOSH: I would like to see us continue 21 monthly. I think there's a whole lot of momentum. 22 If we went to quarterly, just as an example, the 23 Sound Science Initiative on the aquifer meets 24 quarterly, or the advisory committee does, and 25 perhaps we could have brought up that whole issue 169 1 2 way earlier in this process, if that group had met 3 more frequently. We lose an awful lot if we only 4 meet quarterly. 5 MR. DYSART: Fred asked, does GPA have an 6 opinion or anything to say on this? 7 MR. SCHALLER: Well yes, we have, you know, 8 our heads pretty full with the work that is 9 currently underway. I mean -- 10 MR. STEVENS: We can't hear. 11 MR. SCHALLER: If we weren't here working 12 during the SEG meeting, we'd be working on the work 13 that has to be done for this project. 14 Everytime we have one of these meetings, it is 15 another expense. It is another day away, if you 16 will, from the office to concentrate and focus on 17 the work we're trying to do. So -- everybody 18 hasn't had their say. I'd throw out every other 19 month as a prospect for discussion. I'd put that 20 subject on the table. 21 MR. DYSART: Keith and Darrell. 22 MR. PARSONS: I'm going to echo what Patty 23 just said. I think of the continuity we've built 24 up over the 18 months, we should continue to move 25 at a forward pace. I also have to come from 170 1 2 Atlanta for these things on a monthly basis. I 3 understand the travel constraints there. 4 I certainly feel the monthly meetings provide 5 us an ability to at least talk about these issues 6 face to face. Having quarterly meetings can be 7 problematical with those of us that have really 8 busy schedules, have a lot of mandates. 9 If you miss one of those meetings, you've 10 lost 25% of the annual meetings. If I miss a 11 monthly meeting, from time to time, you know, I 12 still have the continuity going on. If I miss a 13 quarterly meeting, it would be six months between 14 meetings. I'd be lost at sea. 15 So I'm going to say I think it's important if 16 we are going to act as a cohesive organization 17 here, quasi organization, that we continue on the 18 monthly schedule till we reach our goal. 19 MR. DYSART: Darrell, Ben and David. 20 MR. GREENWOOD: As one of the novices, you 21 guys overload these and I have to really catch up. 22 These monthly meetings, I have to have a chance 23 to absorb the stuff. Listening to David, I 24 think we probably could go every other month. 25 MR. BREWTON: I think Keith makes a really 171 1 2 good point, if you miss a meeting quarterly setup, 3 you're six months between the meetings. Even if 4 you went to every other month, you're four months 5 between meetings. 6 I think I understand the concerns, but I think 7 neither solution is perfect. But after hearing the 8 discussions, I'm still a proponent of trying to 9 meet monthly. We haven't posed the question to 10 how many people a full day meeting would be 11 difficult for. 12 I guess the other observation, I saw one hand 13 go up there -- as I came in this morning there were 14 a lot of cards on the table. Seems like we've got 15 a fair number of absences here today. 16 I would hate for us to make a decision, for 17 that significant a change, without letting some of 18 the other members who aren't here be able to 19 participate in that. Maybe it's something we need 20 to think on, and let everyone consider how it would 21 affect their schedule, and discuss it more before 22 the next meeting. 23 MR. DYSART: David then Bill. 24 MR. KYLER: I just want to echo what was said 25 about the advantages of monthly, and the handicap 172 1 2 of meeting less often. I want to put a different 3 spin on this representing those of us who are 4 memory challenged, expect I'm not the only one in 5 the room. 6 I know the amount of effort I've had to spend 7 to reacquaint myself with the issues, and where we 8 were at the last meeting on those issues. It would 9 be very hard to justify, if we met less often. 10 MR. DYSART: Bill. 11 MR. FARMER: We've had 18 meetings and 12 finished the agenda on two of them, which indicates 13 to me we should not go to fewer meetings. If 14 anything, we should maintain or increase the number 15 of meetings. 16 MS. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Bill for setting me 17 up for further suggests I was to about to offer 18 to the group, as a new member, that is perhaps to 19 have more productive meetings you set a timed 20 agenda, and then perhaps you'll get through some 21 more meetings in the future. 22 MR. DYSART: Just as a matter of record, we 23 suggest that everytime, and the body likes to have 24 non-structure, and then we get in a horrible 25 squeeze at the end. 173 1 2 MS. O'BRIEN: Maybe the body wants to 3 reconsider. 4 MR. DYSART: Perhaps the body might want to. 5 Okay. I see no further cards up. In the SEG 6 tradition, is there anybody who can't live with 7 proposal that's on the floor? 8 MR. HANZALIK: I wanted to mention something. 9 It seems like a lot of little issues pop up 10 during the meetings we have. Sometimes people 11 never get to mention their committee reports. They 12 don't have a chance to talk about the committee 13 reports. 14 A lot of little issues are addressed in some 15 of the committees, so I think possibly what you 16 could do is have the committees set up their 17 meetings at times and post them on the website. 18 If there's an issue someone is really 19 interested in and wants to address a specific 20 issue, they can go to that committee and address it 21 at the committee meeting. 22 Then when you get together and go through the 23 committee reports, you can voice those problems. 24 So these meetings will go a lot quicker. The 25 committee meeting may go a lot longer. At least 174 1 2 those issues are addressed in the committee 3 meetings -- just a suggestion. 4 MR. DYSART: That suggestion seems to have 5 some wisdom to it. 6 MR. HANZALIK: If you are here in this meeting 7 and there's something that a committee is 8 addressing, you say let's defer that to this 9 committee. You talk about it in the committee. 10 The people that are interested in that 11 particular issue, they can go to the committee 12 meeting and voice opinions, et cetera. 13 MR. DYSART: That is my understanding why we 14 have working science committees, so those sorts of 15 things can be dealt with there. 16 MR. McINTOSH: I don't have a name. I've got 17 a tent up. 18 MR. DYSART: Neff McIntosh. 19 MR. McINTOSH: This is going to sound like 20 heresy. My chairman, my relative, and my friends 21 are all speaking for the monthly. The thing that 22 was said about not ever getting through the agenda. 23 It seems to me that there may be some sense in 24 the every other month all day meeting, the 25 quarterly all day meeting, and we might get out at 175 1 2 3:00, 4:00 o'clock. 3 For me, it's more than half day. I won't get 4 to work till 2:00 o'clock, I guess. It's 5/8's of 5 day down the drain 12 times, or for all day, we can 6 go till probably 7:00 o'clock. I don't get hungry 7 for supper as long as you feed me lunch. 8 We can probably get through everything in an 9 all day meeting. The committee reports would get 10 done. 11 As long as everybody was here -- I heard Teri 12 say she couldn't do an all day meeting, but if you 13 could do it, then you would probably get through 14 everything for a change and probably have time to 15 do the small comments, plus the committee reports, 16 plus the new business. May ought to experiment 17 with it one time, skip July and August, go for an 18 all day, or skip July and August and go for an all 19 day in September. July and August are bad months. 20 I would suggest to the group that our 21 inability to cover everything is that everybody 22 is here for half a day. We enter the room with 23 half day mentality in place. If we came in with 24 all day, by 3:00, 4:00 o'clock, we might get 25 through. 176 1 2 MR. DYSART: Another alternative is you come 3 three day questions for a half day meeting. So -- 4 Anyway, Teri had her card up. 5 MS. LEFFEK: I was going to say I think Neff 6 has something there. I understand the group wants 7 to gather monthly. If that's what the SEG decides, 8 that's the consensus, that's what we'll do, but 9 Neff has something. I can ask my employer if I can 10 stay all day. 11 That might be handled, since most of the work 12 is being done in the committees where most of the 13 work should be done. As the young gentleman 14 mentioned earlier, maybe we should try. I'm sorry. 15 I don't know your name. 16 That might be something we should look at. 17 It's just another option. Neff might have 18 something. If the group wants to do monthly, then 19 that what we can do. I can go either way. 20 MR. DYSART: Our format here is there's been 21 a proposal on the table. Is there anyone that 22 cannot live with the Fish and Wildlife Service 23 proposal? 24 There's several hands up, therefore there's 25 not a consensus. Ben Brewton has an idea. 177 1 2 MR. BREWTON: I was going to suggest there 3 has been -- although I am opposed to changing from 4 our monthly format, there have been some good 5 points made by folks here about considering 6 alternatives. 7 I'd suggest instead of throwing this us off 8 the agenda permanently, we each give consideration 9 to how it would affect our own schedules, and 10 answer such questions as what does all day mean? 11 To some of us, it might mean 3:00, 4:00 12 o'clock. To other people it might mean 7:00 13 o'clock. We need to look at those questions and 14 discuss it further at a future meeting, see if 15 there is some of the alternative blend of those 16 things that might work. 17 MR. DYSART: Thank you. Judy. 18 MS. JENNINGS: I think a lot has been 19 expressed, possibly the suggestion has merit. 20 Possibly it's just at this moment premature. 21 Also, just a brief comment about an all day 22 meeting. I don't know. Nobody is waiting on me to 23 get home, but at 9:00 o'clock, I really care about 24 this. Along about now, just about whatever. 25 MR. DYSART: Ben Brewton. 178 1 2 MR. BREWTON: With all that being said about 3 not continuing to meet each month, I know the way 4 attendance dropped off last summer, so forth, we 5 might actually want to consider either skipping the 6 July or August meeting, take a slight breather. I 7 don't know what the group's feeling will be about 8 that. 9 MR. DYSART: One item on the agenda is the 10 next meeting date. 11 MS. JENNINGS: I don't know that solves the 12 problem. 13 MR. BREWTON: I wasn't suggesting it was 14 solving the problem. 15 MR. BERSON: I have a suggestion. Why don't 16 we meet in July, not meet in August, and have a 17 long meeting in September and give it a try. 18 MR. DYSART: Anyone who can't live with that? 19 MR. SCHUBERTH: What the it? 20 MR. BERSON: Try the all day meeting in 21 September, see if our brains come out of our ears, 22 and that way I'm saying we could see how everybody 23 does if we skip August, have an all day meeting in 24 September, try the format. I mean, and then just 25 revisit the question of how often to meet. 179 1 2 MR. McINTOSH: I like that. 3 MR. DYSART: Anybody who can't live with that? 4 MR. BREWTON: I saw some people that looked 5 like they might not be able to be here all day. 6 MR. DYSART: Is there anybody who cannot live 7 with Will's proposals? 8 MR. BERSON: Or an alternative, I heard Ben 9 say about people who aren't here, sleep on it. 10 Come back in July and we can decide what to do with 11 August or September. 12 MR. BREWTON: Let's let the other people know 13 it's up for discussion, see what sort of comments 14 there are. 15 MS. LEFFEK: Maybe an e-mail needs to be sent 16 out so they're aware this is the question. We're 17 prepared to get it answered at the next meeting. 18 MR. DYSART: We have a consensus not to change 19 anything now, discuss it next time. 20 MR. McINTOSH: That sounds typical, doesn't 21 it? 22 MR. DYSART: Okay. It is now 1:15. I know 23 Carl Hall has something that we want him to take 24 care of. 25 MR. HALL: I'd like to take this moment to 180 1 2 recognize Tom Meronek, our Striped Bass Committee 3 Chair. This is the last SEG meeting we'll see Tom 4 at. People say you can't go home. Tom's accepted 5 a position in his home state of Wisconsin -- 6 couldn't afford to turn it down. It's about 70 7 miles from his hometown. 8 Tom's been a mover and shaker in the Striped 9 Bass Committee, moved the projects forward. We're 10 going to miss him. 11 For the moment, we won't have a committee 12 chair. I'll be temporarily acting until we discuss 13 it more. It's really going to be an impact losing 14 Tom and his knowledge and understanding of 15 technology. 16 At least we've got things underway. We 17 appreciate him helping us get underway, and maybe 18 we can struggle through the remainder of it. 19 MR. REES: Tom, are you available on a 20 consultant basis? 21 MR. HALL: That's all I had. 22 MR. DYSART: Thank you, Carl. 23 MR. McINTOSH: Did we set the day? 24 MR. DYSART: The first Tuesday would be the 25 4th of July. The second Tuesday would be the 181 1 2 11th of July -- 11th at 9:00 o'clock, unless 3 there's any objection or what not, I apologize for 4 not having time to get to the committees. Let's 5 roll them ahead, and we'll roll everything else 6 ahead. 7 If there's specific guidance or advice on what 8 you want on the agenda, you know how to get in 9 touch by e-mail. Without objection, I declare the 10 SEG meeting adjourned. Thank you for your 11 cooperation and good work. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 182 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 I hereby certify that the foregoing 7 transcript was taken down, as stated in the 8 caption, and the questions and answers thereto 9 were reduced to typewriting under my direction; 10 that the foregoing Pages 1 through 181 represent 11 a true and correct transcript of the evidence 12 given upon said hearing, and I further certify 13 that I am not of kin or counsel to the parties 14 in the case; am not in the regular employ of 15 counsel for any of said parties; nor am I in 16 anywise interested in the result of said case. 17 This, the 20th day of June, 2000. 18 19 20 ________________________ 21 Kathleen Dore, Certified Court Reporter, B-2041 22 23 24 25