List of Attendees Paul Stacey, Jean Brochi, Tom Gregory, Phil - - PDF document

List of Attendees Paul Stacey, Jean Brochi, Tom Gregory, Phil Calarusso, Toby Stover, Dan Arsenault, John Storer, Jeff Barnum, Rep. Peter Schmidt, Sharon Rogers, Alison Watts, Steve Couture, Matt Wood, Rich Langan, David Patrick, David Burdick, Tom Morgan, Ted Diers, Lyndsay Butler, Michelle Shattuck, Dean Peschel, Adrianne Harrison, Steve Jones, Laura Byergo, Doug Grout And PREP Staff: Rachel Rouillard, Kalle Matso, Abigail Lyon, Jill Farrell and Simone Barley-Greenfield About These Notes Readers will feel at times as though these notes are verbatim from the meeting. They should not be considered verbatim. Rather, we attempted to make the notes more conversational for readability. Please do not quote these notes as though it is a verbatim transcript. Sometimes, when PREP staff are not sure about name of the speaker, we will list the 1

person more generically as “Committee Member.” Rachel Rouillard (exec director, PREP): Welcome and thanks for being part of the process as we begin to work through data and prepare for the next State of Our Estuaries Report (SOOE), which will be released December, 2017. We’ve been on a small hiatus from the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and part of that is because we have a new coastal scientist and we’ve been thinking very thoughtfully about how to improve our process to get the necessary information we need for the next SOOE. We are aiming for a more inclusive and transparent process and focusing on the best available science for our next report. We will be going over the calendar (the structure for the next 8 months). Kalle Matso (coastal scientist, PREP): Anyone who comes in the room is part of the

• committee. There is no set membership. If we do vote today, everyone has a vote.

We will most likely not vote today, but if we do, you all have a vote. If we do vote, we are using consensus based decision making. IF we have a recommendations we will write it up on the flip chart for everyone to see. Your voting

• ptions will be:

Support Support with reservations Abstain Block “100% consensus” means everyone votes one of the top 3 options. If someone votes “block” we will do our best to understand and move through that vote. If we can’t reach 100% we will settle for 80% consensus. Groundrules: Seek improved understanding, not confirmation of your view. The goal of the TAC is to have a solid and common understanding of what the science indicates. What we do with that science is a whole other question and involves our personal values. Science cannot and will not tell us what to do. That’s important to remember. Making those value-based judgements is not what the TAC is for. We’re focused on 1

providing the science and being clear about what we know and what we don’t know. 1

Kalle Matso… Starting to talk about the indicators that were used in the 2013 SOOE. This graphic is based on the DPSIR model (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response), which is a widely accepted model for looking at estuarine ecosystems. Above, elements that have a border are indicators that we have already started tracking. The is just a draft and we can talk about adding or removing indicators. In green we have some new indicators, such as the social indicators and salt marsh mapping. Items listed in red are potential new indicators (river discharge, air/water temperature, light attenuation, CDOM); alternatively, we could use these parameters as information to help us understand other indicators, but they wouldn’t become new indicators that we report on per se. Note that, currently, we don’t have “benthic community and processes” on this

• graph. PREP is committed to making that happen for the next next SOOE, which will

be released at the end of 2022. Comments from Committee Members 2

• Services are not only related to the pressures that you have listed there. Abundant

fish, for example, is not driven by nutrient loading and toxic contaminants,

• exlclusively. There are other factors.
• One of the things that is not on here is “resource extraction.” Ought to be on here.

Resource extraction has driven impacts on resources we care about in the past and might be driving it again. 2

Kalle Matso... Reviewing the calendar set up for the TAC meetings. Indicators have a 1 or 2 listed next to them. A lot of the indicators that we track are not listed, and those are ones that are fairly uncontroversial. Today we are talking about nutrient loading, nutrient concentration, dissolved Oxygen, microalgae, sediment concentration. We will revisit them later in the year, as shown on the calendar. But keep in mind that this draft only. Step “1” is where we talk about what we’ve done in the past: are we happy with that approach? Should we make changes? At Step 2, we want to provide you with as much of the new data (from years 2012 through 2016), and we will offer you our draft recommendations for what to put in the “Data Report.” Remember that the TAC is really focused on the 200+ page Data Report—you can find the 2013 version at http://scholars.unh.edu/prep/265/ The TAC is NOT focused on discussing what goes into the SOOE; however, the SOOE does end up being comprised of content from the Data Report. 3

My predecessor, Phil Trowbridge, would use the Data Report to go through each indicator and cover: here’s why we care, here’s the data, and then summarize the

• results. Agreeing on broad messages to be included in that copy—without

wordsmithing—will be part of the Step “2” discussions. In some cases, we may even need a Step “3.” As you see in the calendar, Meetings 6, 7, 8 will focus on relationships between

• indicators. The goal is to not have those conversations until we have a solid

foundation of the data behind each individual indicator. Comments from Committee Members

• Migratory fish? Will that not be discussed?

Kalle: Want to see how this schedule fleshes out before we start adding indicators. This schedule is somewhat flexible. If we are making progress then we can start adding indicators. Note that all indicators will receive review from the TAC; however, in some cases that review might not be through a public meeting process, but rather through electronic means.

• What’s EPSCOR?

Kalle: EPSCoR is a science program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and is focused on states that don’t get a lot of NSF funding. A recently completed EPSCoR project at UNH focused on climate change and how climate change could drive a lot of the parameters that we are interested in. Would be helpful to bring them into the conversation time allowing.

• There’s also been EPSCoR work on bacterial contamination and shellfish closures

and beach closures.

• To be clear, all of the indicators in the 2013 will be in the 2017?

Kalle: Yes. That is our intent. 3

Michelle Shattuck, presenting on nitrogen loading. Michelle works with Bill McDowell at UNH to collect samples from the tributaries that enter the Great Bay Estuary. She uses this and other data to assess changes in in nitrogen loading over time. Michelle… Collecting samples from head of tide tributaries. Great to be an active part of the TAC...been on the TAC for a number of years, but the first year I’ve been helping compile the data. 4

Michelle… Not presenting new data today. Going over what was done in 2013 and deciding if we want to keep that formatting and plan for the next SOOE. The above graphic shows in red, the part of the Data Report that pertains to this presentation. 5

Michelle… There are four main four sources to the GBE:

• WWTF (18) yellow dots; some discharge to freshwater rivers; other discharge

directly into tidal rivers

• Non point sources from watershed tributaries (Winnicut, lamprey, oyster, Cocheco,

salmon falls, great works...)

• Groundwater input directly to GBE
• Atmospheric

6

Michelle… Calculating the discharge from WWTF involves the following equation: Average TN or DIN concentration (mass/volume) X Effluent flow (volume/time) = TN

• r DIN load (mass/time)

Annual and monthly time step. Whatever your time period of interest is. 7

Michelle… WWTF N delivery factors:

• 6 facilities discharge to tidal rives (100% delivery to estuary
• 8 facilities discharge to freshwater rivers, delivering between 41.93 and 98.96% of

their N to the estuary). The methods for assessing this “attenuation” are indicated via the citations. We should discuss with the TAC whether these are appropriate methods going forward.

• 4 facilities discharge into the lower Piscataqua River (Particle Tracking Model (Ata

Bilgili et al., 2005) delivering between 12.5 and 26.34% of the Nitrogen to the the estuary. 8

Michelle… This graph from the 2013 Data Report shows estimated total nitrogen and dissolved inorganic nitrogen loads from wastewater treatment facilities in 2008. The updated graph in the next report should reflect the efforts that Dover and Rochester have made to decrease nitrogen significantly. 9

Michelle… We have some options in terms of what data goes into our N load assessment for this Data Report; we can stick very closely to what was done last time—see above—or we can add new sources of data, and even other forms of N that weren’t included last time. 10

Michelle… The last slides have focused on WWTF...what about assessing N from non-point sources? Here’s where the data come from to assess TN and DIN loads from major watersheds.

• 8 head of tide sampling stations sampled monthly March-December
• USGS LOADEST model (Runkel et al., 2004)
• Input monthly TN and DIN concentrations, and estimated daily average stream

flow (4 USGS stations)

• Output average load for study period, and monthly load

11

Michelle… In the 2013 Data Report, the WWTF data and the head of tide stations were combined to produce a graph showing the total N load from the watershed and showing the portion coming from WWTF and from NPS. Question for the group…IS this how people want to see the data presented? 12

Michelle… For the last Data Report, to estimate the groundwater contribution of N, data from Tom Ballestero et al. (2004) were used. That study measured the N loading rate from groundwater seeps to be 0.13 tons N/year per mile of tidal shoreline (assumed to be all DIN). Could use this again, or might be able to use data from the Great Bay Non- Point Source Study (NH DES 2014). http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/wmb/coastal/documents/gbnnpss- report.pdf 13

Michelle… 2012 average disposition rate by Daley et al. (2010) was 2.11 tons/mi2/year 2017 annual wet deposition provided by Shattuck et al. from wet deposition station at Thompson Farm in Durham...OR use GBNNPS to teach out atmospheric deposition. 14

Michelle… This graph comes from the 2013 Data Report and shows nitrogen loads in terms of location—upstream or downstream of dams versus into the tidal waters directly—as well as NPS versus WWTF. 15

Michelle… This graph shows, for each month in a year during the last Data Report period (2009 to 2012) nitrogen loading as Total Nitrogen versus Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen. It’s important to understand that the bars are for WWTF’s, so the gap between the level and 100% is filled by NPS. For example, Total Nitrogen in Jan. is almost 40% from wastewater, which means that a bit more than 60% comes from NPS. Could compare the percent of nitrogen load to GBE from WWTF by month. Looking at seasonal variation. Are there other ways we should show this info? 16

Michelle… This graph is also from the 2013 Data Report and shows trends over time...N load for NPS (blue horizontal lines) and WWTF (red horizontal lines). Annual precipitation data shown in black. Going forward, Kalle and I have talked about presenting annual data for N and not the 3 year averages. Can provide annual data from WWTF and head of tide stations? If we start annual do we start now going forward? Comments from Committee Members…

• Given the improvements made by the municipal WWTFs, I would recommend that

you show that with annual data as opposed to 3-year averages.

• The facility in Farmington is special in that it discharges into a rapid infiltration
• basin. How will you account for that since it’s subsurface; they haven’t discharged

to the river for 5 years?

• We need to figure out a way to deal with the fact that, in wetter years, there’s an

assumption that WWTFs are delivering more of a load. That isn’t true…it’s just that 17

there’s greater volume of effluent but the concentration is way down.

• Michelle (answering above question): With the new data from towns we should be

able to show monthly data and paint a clearer picture. We have a lot more data

• now. I would advocate that we use annual data and monthly data and not

averaged data. 5 years X 12 months so 60 months of data tabulated in the report.

• I wonder if it makes sense to look at different parts of the system separately: say,

the Piscataqua System and the Great Bay/Little Bay system.

• (related to above) Going back 10 years, NOAA developed a process to estimate

WWTF nutrient loads for coastal discharges. There might be a process that NOAA has to fill in the data gaps. For attenuation estimates there are regionally based SPARROW models for Northeast or New Engalnd and they give different attenuation rates. Third, there are some new trends in flow weighted load

• techniques. Give almost daily load calculations based on flow data. Great Graphing
• packages. Developed by Bob Hersch. Worth a look.
• Related to the previous comment about wet years…We have better information

about load during storms. We should think about what we know about N loading in storms from the work of Wil Wollheim. We don’t’ have it in all streams, but we should figure out a way to incorporate that information in the next SOOE. Wil’s work was in the Oyster river.

• There’s probably a source of N we are missing coming from combined sewer over
• flows. Long term assessment of combining these...maybe not for 2018 but maybe

for future.

• (Related to above) Some of that was captured in the WISE project.
• It sounds like you didn’t have a lot of river gauging stations. Might just be an ask to

the municipalities. We maintain gauging stations for water supply, with real time tracking for flow data. Shouldn’t be a huge ask for towns. Seems like we could help.

• Michelle (responding to above): More gauging stations will be helpful. A big part of

working with the guages is getting the rating curve right, measuring flow at the full range of flow events to capture the relationship. There has been some effort to get that done. We are lacking in concentration data. Wil’s group has been mentioned for the Oyster, and we have more for the Lamprey; we have the money and time to bring that all in. It’s for us as a group to decide if we consider that a priority. Really, we need clarification on modeling and delivery load for WWTF and existing data. Then, we can decide if we have time left over for the rest of the data.

• Steve Jones has some information on CSOs; you should reference Linda Kalnejais

work on sediment fluxes as a source of nitrogen. And don’t forget about the FDA dye studies to help understand fate of effluent.

• National Weather Service may also have some models to help calibrate the NPS

17

assessments…if there’s stage data available.

• Kalle (question for group): How to maintain consistency with longterm dataset and

still avail ourselves of new methods?

• Matt Wood (DES) clarification: Often, when we have a new data crunching tool

that we think is productive, we’ll apply that to the whole dataset going backwards so we’re comparing apples to apples. 17

Kalle: Thanks to Tom Gregory, Rich Langan and Matt Wood for their time in preparing for this meeting. We met twice to think about issues related to how data has been analyzed in the past, ideas about modifying how we present data, etc. Tom, can you tell us what happens at these red dots? Tom: Red dots get monthly samples and high and low tide for a suite of measurements. Water taken back to lab to measure dissolved constituents. Particulates are measured (N, TSS, Chl a, and bacteria samples, etc.) Many of those sites have the data sondes. Data sondes are sensors that sit out there and collect data and some areset up to telemeter the data automatically. The data sondes measure every 15 minutes around the clock. Committee Member: Is the make up of the water stable enough that a monthly sample reflects the condition? 18

Tom: More often would give us more data and opportunities to ID short term phenomena. Dan Arsenault (EPA): We’ve also put data sondes in the Cocheco, the upper Piscataqua, the lower Piscataqua and the Lamprey. We’ve been doing that since 2012. The sondes go out in mid-July and stay out through early October with bi-weekly retrieval and water quality sampling, with a focus on nutrients. Keith Robinson (USGS): Monthly WQ sampling doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you do it for 10 to 20 years, you can capture the range of flow conditions that you need to. 18

Rich Langan: We are looking at Ammonium as a part of dissolved Inorganic N. When we looked at data from 2013 what drove us to conclude that N was an increasing trend was a single station (Adam’s point), but it was also ammonium that was driving the

• increase. And Ammonium is a very volatile thing to measure and can change in
• transport. Makes us uneasy using ammonium as a measure of increasing N since it’s

so volatile. You’ll notice on this graph that, after the data from the 70s/80s, we have a huge gap until the early 1990s. We don’t know what influence that has on the trend. Even if we say this data from the 70s/80s is good data...but with that big gap, we need to be careful in terms of how to account for that in a trend analysis. Matt Wood: I took a look at some of this data and removed the 70s/80s chunk; when you remove that, the trendline becomes negative. Not sure if it’s statistically significant. 19

Paul Stacey: It’s empting to think about the link to anthropogenic sources, but since ammonium is preferentially taken up my phytoplankton, this might reflect changing condition in bottom waters/regeneration. Needs to be explored more thoroughly. When N comes into environment, plants grow, plants die, animals eat it and their fecal matter drops to the bottom and releases ammonium. Steve: A similar discussion to this one occurred for previous reports and we came up with the same “trend” that if you take it out you see decreasing nutrient

• concentration. As former PREP TAC committee chair I can say we did this in prior

meetings. Ted Diers: Trends are important but how do you explain what that trend means to the

• verall system?. That’s where studies on nutrient cycling (like what Wil Wollheim did

for the Oyster River) helps us. The general thought at the moment on how you track trends for nutrients, it’s preferable to track TN. We can revisit that. That’s one of the things that comes out in the wash of analysis. In terms of the older data, I like having this information. Frankly it’s the best information we have about how conditions were like a long time ago. David Burdick: Part of the discussion has to be: what is this data actually telling us? What’s being left out of this graph is the plants, so if there are no plants to take up the ammonia, the concentrations will change drastically. If you have lots of plants, they will take up the ammonia and change what you see on this graph. When I look at this graph, I’m seeing the nutrients left over once the plants have used up all the ammonia in the water. Steve Jones: Not just the plants transforming N…it’s the microbes in the sediment,

• too. Microorganisms use nutrients too and under aerobic conditions they nitrify it.

Bacteria that use ammonia for their energy source. When there is adequate oxygen they use ammonia and transform it to nitrate. Organisms decomposing organic materials and releasing N. Complex N cycle and things are going back and forth all the time. 19

19

Kalle: Want to get at what folks prefer in terms of whether to include the 70s data. What about including all of the data—as Matt did in the lower graph above--and not just annual averages. Ted: The critters that we’re interested in (or plants) don’t live in the average

• condition. When we look at average condition we are missing a lot. Having more of a

sphere of data (beyond whisker plot) it helps us understand the system better. You

• nly need oxygen for 23 hours and 30 min of the day, but if you take away oxygen for

30 min you would be impaired. This is what can be missed when looking at averages. Paul Stacey: Important point is how you want to employ the data. If you want to just use it to inform everyone on what the system is doing that’s fine, but if you want to use it for management you might need to make compromises. Steve Jones: At data report analysis level...to make any relationships between the indicators we should use all of the data and not just averages. For Dissolved Oxygen you need all the data not just averages. Alison Watts: We’ve ben mostly talking about Adam’s Point but I assume we all agree we need to look at the other stations as well? Kalle: Yes, and, graphically, it’d be great to look at all of the stations on one page. Dave Patrick: There might be an issue with showing all the data points. If saw this for data I work with, I would be concerned about pseudoreplication. Not sure what’s ok in your field. 20

Michelle: Our group has been concerned about pseudoreplication with weekly

• monitoring. With simple regression lines you are getting auto correlation. On the
• ther hand, we’ve been looking at new ways to look at the trend and it’s not

changing the result, so it may not have a big influence. Kalle: OK, sounds like we need to look into that. New subject. The white dots in the graph above (the upper graph) indicate places where the yearly sample was considered “incomplete.” The following excerpt from page 35 of the 2013 Data Report offers Phil’s explanation: “The data for each station were averaged by month (there was rarely more than one sample in the same month) and then the number of months with data in each year was counted. At Adam’s Point, which is monitored year round, years with data in 10

• r more months were considered to have complete data because samples were

collected in all four seasons. At the other stations, which are monitored from April to December, years with data in seven or more months between April and December were considered to have complete data. It was important to identify years with complete data to avoid introducing bias from years for which the data do not reflect the full range of seasons.” Kalle (cont’d): I know some folks had some concerns about this approach. Any thoughts? Steve Jones: If it’s a random month that you are missing, fine, but if it’s missing winter or spring months then that biases the data. Paul Stacey: On a slightly different note, I prefer median versus mean as it neutralizes the outliers. One other suggestion…seasonality is important. Not sure if we have enough data to do this, but monthly plots might show how biologically active nutrients are. So...plot every year from March through November, for example. Kalle: We’ll give this some thought and come back to you with suggestions. One suggestion would be to only use the summer months for all the data so that it will be easier to compare. We will probably form an ad hoc sub-group on this matter and look into it more. 20

No notes…just showing other examples from 2013 Data Report. 21

No notes…just showing other examples from 2013 Data Report. 22

No notes…just showing other examples from 2013 Data Report. 23

No notes…just showing other examples from 2013 Data Report. 24

No notes…just showing other examples from 2013 Data Report. 25

Kalle: On the above slide, we’ve listed two different ways of looking at dissolved

• xygen. I’ve asked Paul Stacey to talk about this a bit.

Paul: DO measurements can be provided with both saturation and absolute

• concentration. For example, probes measure the amount of DO on a concentration
• basis. Then, you can use temp and salinity to determine level of saturation. Saturation

point is lower in cooler water than warmer waters. We use these measurements in different ways. Concentration can be used for standards for the health of fish, for

• example. Oxygen levels that are too low result in fish having to escape quickly or die.

Saturation can help you understand more about how the system works, because saturation can tell you more about productivity, what plants and other organisms are doing in terms of using and releasing oxygen in order to create biomas. For example, if you have a lot of phytoplankton, you can get above 100% saturation because the plants are pumping O into the system. Oxygen tends to be lowest in morning, as plants are respiring but not photosynthesizing. So saturation can tell us more about the trophic state of a system. [Is the system behaving oligotrophically, mesotrophically or eutrophicall?] If you are way below saturation at night and way above saturation in the day, that would indicate, for example, that you may have a eutrophic system. 26

Kalle: And I’ll add that I know we have questions circulating about regulatory policy and what’s an impairment, etc. I want to remind folks that PREP’s focus is not on regulation but rather on understanding, scientifically, what might be happening in our

• estuary. Tom Gregory, can you talk about the red dots in the slide above?

Tom: Thed dots represent the stations that have the data sondes with the omission of Salmon Falls. Not seeing stations that only get grab samples and not data sondes. These red dots are where we’re getting the 15 min measurements. Committee Member: Why is the sonde in the Salmon Falls only there 3 months a year? Tom: Funding. Have to access to it by boat; it takes 1 hour from JEL to get there. Don’t have the resources to get there. Rich: Some context on how the Salmon Falls sonde got started. We couldn’t use Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) money to put a sonde in other places besides existing stations. I pieced together money for the Salmon Falls sonde (seasonally only), because we used to see high chlorophyll numbers coming out of there. Steve Jones: I can add that we now have a site supported by the Municipal Coalitio in the Cocheco. It’s out there from March-December. 26

Kalle: Here’s one of the graphs used in the Data Report in 2013, focusing on percent

• saturation. I’m using the Lamprey river here because that’s one of the rivers where

we seeing more DES violations, so you can get a sense of how the colors look. Any questions/comments so far? Tom: Just want to clarify that the Lamprey is unusual in that we have a station at the head of tide as opposed to the mouth of the river as in the case with Squamscott. So, if there were any violations in Exeter at the head of the tide, we wouldn’t know it because we’re not measuring. Phil Colarusso: Where in the water column are the readings being taken? Tom: .5 meter from bottom according to the protocol. Steve Jones: Just want to note that when we started seeing results like this in the Lamprey, we had some follow up studies done by John Pennock looking at different depths in the water column different parts of the river. That would have been in 2003 through 2006. Committee Member: Certainly, it seems like saturation and super saturation are

• important. We should note when more than 100% occurs.

27

Rich: The biologically significant piece is how long is the condition present? Could be 74% and you’d get a red mark for that day. It’s listed the same as if we had 10%. It would be good to be able to show the difference somehow. Dan Arsenault: Looking the graph above, in 2010, if you have 87 days...is that 87 days with one point below 75% or a daily average? Matt: Believe it’s average. Concentration mg/L is an instantaneous measurement. **Double check if it’s daily average? David Patrick: Careful about how you tell the story with this graph. So, the grey part

• f the bar is no data? Because the bars are all the same height you are confusing the

picture a bit, not normalizing the data. This figure could be misinterpreted. Paul Stacey: Jumping back in...think about context. Estuaries are the most productive habitats in the world so we would expect some productivity to drive down DO. The context we need is what does a natural Great Bay look like. Think about that

• perspective. Been enlightening in other systems where they can model what a natural

system might look like. Jean Brochi: Relevant to what David noted, it would be helpful to explain why there was no data for certain times. Tom: Has to do with technology improvements in Oxygen probes. Now they are much more stable for the month deployment. Early 2000s we don’t have as much data. Isn’t because the probe wasn’t out there. The new probes are good for a month once calibrated (was 3 days). Matt: Data goes to DES and we do a quality assurance step. We look at when it starts to drift. We then have no confidence in it, but it’s invalidated. Rich: With regard to the violations in the Lamprey…I’m concerned that the reason we have so many violations has to do with the location of the sonde. If there’s a halocline in that river, with freshwater on top and salty water on bottom, you would get a low

• xygen zone but not because of eutrophication, but because of stratification.

Steve Jones: Speaking of violations, I would use caution in terms of using the term “violation” because of regulatory connotation. Dean Peschel: I agree. Perhaps PREP doesn’t use the word violation but rather does it meet or not meet a standard. The issue is really related to whether the problems are within our power to control or not. Paul Stacey: Stratification is so important and so is residence time. Flushing rate can determine a lot. The Great Bay Estuary is rapidly flushed and not as sensitive as an 27

estuary that has a longer residence time. 27

Kalle: Matt and/or Tom, can you talk about this graph a bit? Tom: This is concentration of oxygen in the Lamprey from July to the end of September for 2011. The dots indicate the daily minimum DO. Alison: Does this correlate with temperature? The colors in the graph are a bit confusing to me. Tom: Good question, make a graph and look at. May also correlate with time

• f day. Salinity and temp which is the diurnal tides which is a different

schedule than daylight. Rich: Also Tidal effect. Time of day and tidal stage would be important. Jean: Where are these data sondes placed in the Lamprey? Tom: GBNERR station at head of tide. ½ m off bottom, near Newmarket mill buildings. Ted: That’s below the dam but above the WWTF. Committee Member: What’s really critical here is how long the DO was below the

• standard. For 10 minutes is one thing…for three days is another.

Matt: This is just the daily minimum. Doesn’t give the duration because it could go up and below. Kalle: But you could show Paul’s idea, right? 28

No notes. 29

Tom: there was a sampling method change for a period of time, and it biased the data making it seem high. In the winter months when JEL docks are out, the person who was sampling was wading out to the cove rather than rowing out to Furber Strait, so those samples have high TSS. It’s been changed since. Committee Member: Can we just get rid of those moths? Tom: Yes, we will have to – they’re not representative of what was going in the bay that day. Ted: Just want to point out that this data is best if its compared to a sediment export model. Rich: Agree. We need to better understand sediment fluxes. To get a sediment budget you need to understand what the exports are. Is it new sediment, is it resuspended. Important but also difficult to do. 30

Tom: : Part of monthly grab samples, take back to lab. Water is filtered and we collect the particles. 31

Paul: Once again, I think seasonality is important. It would be great to get station by station seasonal analysis. Keith’s discussion about box and whiskers for error bars would be helpful here. Ted: DES has been thinking about this a lot. The probe data, from our estimation, show timing and how long blooms last and frequency of blooms. Grab samples, in contrast, are horrible at capturing blooms. We feel we have some new tools to help think through what’s going on with chlorophyll. Jeff Barnum: There are several entities that have data sondes. Is it worth while to look at those other data sondes to include them in the report? Is that happening and who is coordinating that? Kalle: Yes. Tom’s been working with the Municipal Coalition, they have their Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) set up. PREP is involved in those discussions. Jeff: Will that all be incorporated in the next SOOE? Kalle: We plan on referring to it in the narrative…we may not show graphs of all the

• data. Depends on how much time we have.

32

Kalle: Whether we call these “parameters” or “indicators” is in important issue. If they are parameters, in PREP’s jargon that means they are things we will look at to understand other things that we have named indicators, such as “dissolved oxygen”

• r “oysters.” On the other hand, “indicators” are things that we’re tracking and

devoting a good deal of attention to in their own right. Either way, the ones you see on the slide above are parameters that have come up in discussions I’ve had with a few folks. Would like to hear your prioritizing of these four and also if we are missing anything. Steve Jones : The data we’re already collecting are useful. We should use what we can but recognize limitations. Some are useful for building our understanding, but patchy for indicators. River discharge and air/water temperature. There are enough data to be brought in, but maybe not as indicators. Steve Couture: What questions are you trying to answer? Can’t give feedback without knowing how they will be used. Kalle: Want to know what stressors are impacting a suite of biological indicators, especially benthic community, shellfish, eelgrass, fish. What, if anything, is stressing them out. Paul: I’m in favor of casting a broad net. Any physical or biological parameter is 33

• valuable. We need to pay more attention to planktonic community indicators.

Microalgae was mentioned but chlorophyll is the indicator. There’s attached algae. What about macroalgae? You mentioned benthos but that might be a heavier lift. Shannon Rogers: Vote for air/water temp. Relatively easy to obtain. The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest regions warming on the globe it would be good data to have. Allison: River discharge and water temp are closely related to climate change. Looking forward to climate change as a stressor/driver...this is something we will be measuring and there are indicators for that. Rich: Re Steve Couture’s question, what’s the thing that affects eelgrass the most? Light attenuation. CDOM affects light attenuation...how is that related to river discharge? More discharge more CDOM? Air and water is data we have so it’s easy to

• do. Eelgrass and macroalgae are both heavily impacted by water temperature.

Jean: Don’t think you presented it, but it should be clear that it’s part of the CCMP (Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan) and there are indicators already in place. For every indicator there are areas where additional data could be

• included. Some of these are just additional data and not indicators

Keith: Agree with Steve and Jean, need more context on why we would want to look at these things. Once we have the context we can start to look at why we would include this. How would we characterize river discharge that’s not already including in the loading data? Michelle: Another parameter is carbon and phosphate data from head of tide stations for rivers. We have that monthly concentration data. Could be added. Is it an indicator

• r what would we do with that data?

Steve J.: You have a whole suite of these other parameters in the CCMP; we haven’t started talking about some of them (toxic chemical analysis...fecal born bacteria). Rich: Reason why you want to look at these is that we came to some conclusions in the 2013 report that might not be the correct conclusion. The impairments might be more related to one of these additional data points. Looking at these might give us a better exploration for what was happening in 2013 and what is happening now. David Patrick: I would say that this list has data that is so fundamental, we have a responsibility to report on them. Air and water temp is a no brainer. Pulling out river discharge gives it the additional attention it might need. Tom: Rich mentioned CDOM. We need to look at that data set. 33

Thanks very much, everyone. Please contact me, Kalle Matso, with questions/comments. Email is kalle.matso@unh.edu 34