Watershed Steering Committee
Minutes
April 6, 1999, 9:00 A.M.
#1 Game Farm Road,
Kentucky Department for Fish & Wildlife
Introductions
NHD Contract status and report – Bruce Bauch
Bruce described the basis of the National Hydrographic Dataset (NHD) as a partnership between Kentucky and USGS, with funding coming from the Office of GIS to provide 1:24,000 scale hydrography GIS coverage for Kentucky. NHD combines the best of the digital line graph (a USGS product) and the Reach File RF3 (an EPA product). Line features provide routing and flow attributes and capabilities, while the two-dimensional features of RF3 provide better spatial representation of the waterbody as well as linkages to older datasets tied to RF3. Many additional features will be available for querying the data. Coverages will be produced by basin (cataloguing units) rather than tiles, as done in the past. It will be distributed in Arc format. This is the first such project in the country.
A contract was signed this past fall of 1998 and work is underway to revise the line-work. A 1:24,000 scale pilot on the Big Sandy cataloguing unit is completed. The entire state will be completed by December of 2000.
Basin reports
Salt & Licking basin unit
Basin Status Reports: suggestions for next time? – Allison Shipp
The basin status reports for the Licking and Salt management units have been completed and mailed. Copies were provided. Additional copies may be obtained on the web, or by contacting Allison for Salt reports, or Pamla for Licking reports. Allison sought feedback on how the writing and formatting could be improved next time around.
Salt & Licking Monitoring Plan: feedback? – Pamla Wood
Copies of the Salt and Licking Monitoring Plan were handed out. Pam described the process and players involved in developing the plan. She asked for comments on the plan. Lee Colten emphasized the need to correct errors in the plan as it represented what everyone’s commitments were; there is a need for everyone to know what the other is doing. Comments should be submitted to Lee, Pam, or Allison within the next week (two weeks maximum), as monitoring for these basins begins April.
Russ Barnett inquired about the selection of sites in the Salt unit; Allison stated that sites had been mailed out to team members. Russ stated that the Salt River Watershed Watch was trying to target their sites around the agency monitoring efforts.
Kentucky basin unit: Lindell Ormsbee
Lindell passed out some material that described a series of public meetings and report outline. He stated that the public meetings were being conducted to solicit input into the prioritization process and to generate interest and identify local groups willing to take on addressing various watershed problems. One of the issues being struggled with is the balance between agency involvement vs. citizen involvement through the five-year schedule of activities. There is also a struggle between identifying issues first vs. identifying groups to address them. The handout and Lindell’s presentation outlined the proposed approach to recruit regional coordinators, develop educational materials, and hold "regional" meetings to educate about process, prioritize 11-ditit HUCs, solicit input on issues and input on assessments. Two hurdles in getting local involvement are cynicism about government programs and the need for funding to carry out activities. Some people commented that the meeting turnout was suprisingly low; this is not good. The point was also made that existing meetings should be utilized where possible as a means for improving participation. Dave Morgan suggested Water Supply Planning Councils as an example.
Local coordinators have been solicited to conduct at least two meetings in each of four regions within the basin. The regions have been shaped around geo-political boundaries (counties) vs. watershed boundaries. This is contrary to the resource concerns, yet addresses the reality of local politics.
He also discussed a proposed outline for the Watershed Assessment Report. This report will be a comprehensive set of data needed for prioritization. This represents a slight change from the Framework document, in that it combines the monitoring report with the assessment report. [The Water Quality Branch of the Division of Water is still intending to produce one-page biological monitoring reports for each sitesampled.] The report will have one section on each of the 11-digit HUCs and will present all the data that leads up to the prioritization formula.
Russ Barnett asked a few questions on the prioritization formula. He suggested adding some criteria that specifically address urbanization. Dave Morgan asked whether water quantity issues were considered in the prioritization; Lindell responded that drought vulnerability, flooding, and other issues / data raised by the county water supply planning were included in the formula.
Cumberland, Tennessee, Mississippi Basin Management Unit: solicit recommendations for River Basin Team – Lee Colten
Lee reminded the Steering Committee about the roles and responsibilities of the River Basin Teams, and the types of expertise needed to staff them. He asked that committee members suggest individuals that could fill the Cumberland / Tennessee / Mississippi Basin Management Unit. Several names were suggested. Lee said he would begin calling around to collect the remaining names and notify the committee before a final decision is made. Lee stated that the group needed to meet for the first time in June. The basin coordinator for this unit would be housed in the Division of Water London Region Office, with (pending funding and an agreement) support from TVA in the lower Cumberland / Purchase area. This basin unit is getting a head start on Tennessee’s watershed approach in that Watershed Watch is already underway. However, other watershed scheduling should be in sync with Tennessee’s watershed approach.
USFS / KDFWR / DOW partnership biological database – Lee Colten
Lee described the development of an aquatic biological database. This system will allow storage and retrieval of fish, algae, and macroinvertebrates in a networkable MS Access database. The application has been developed by a contractor with EPA and a final draft is due any time now. Modifications to the system and capabilities to automate data sharing is being jointly funded by the Division of Water, KY Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources, and a partnership grant through the US Forest Service. Anyone wishing to receive a copy will have to agree to share data through a protocol, yet to be developed.
Source Water Assessment & Protection: Susceptibility Analysis Guidance review – Pamla Wood & Pete Goodmann
Pamla reminded the committee that the Source Water Assessment and Protection Program is a response to state legislation to conduct county-level water supply planning and federal law (Safe Drinking Water Act) to do source water assessments. The committee has meet several times to discuss various aspect of this program as it has been developed. Susceptibility Analysis is another aspect that Kentucky has yet to submit to EPA for approval. The Susceptibility Assessment will be applied on all revisions to county water supply plans. The Watershed Steering Committee is serving as a technical advisory role.
Pete Goodmann gave a 20-minute presentation, summarizing draft susceptibility analysis guidance that was previously mailed to all committee members. Information from plans and susceptibility analysis will eventually be incorporated into the consumer confidence reports.
Russ Barnett and Pat Neither suggested there was too much discussion of treatment systems and it was not clear that the susceptibility was for the source vs. the treatment system. Division of Water staff explained that the language about the facilities and MCL violation in the treated water was simply there as an indication of what was potentially in the source. Leah MacSwords said that the document "does not say what you want it to say.".
Pat Neichter said that factor number 3 covered factor number 4.
Ernest Collins commented that on the top of page 3 the comment "…both categories…" was not clear.
The charge of this assessment is to determine the susceptibility of the source, not the treatment systems.
Margaret Shanks agreed that adding a distinction between systemic ("overriding") and "site-specific" factors would be helpful.
Russ Barnett expressed concern that some systems will have higher risk, e.g. Louisville, that others, e.g. trailer park, simply because of assessment – not because of real risk. The point was also made that a lower risk could result simply because of less data. Question: why not rank between systems. Answer: this was never an objective of susceptibility analysis. Beverly Oliver commented that the ranking system is intended to rank potential contaminant sources within the supply area, not to rank among public water supplies.
Margaret Shanks expressed concern about the ability of systems to conduct the assessments and that there would be different evaluations done between systems, based upon their ability and sophistication with the assessment. She also expressed concern with getting public water systems to actually carry out protection measures that were indicated in the assessments. Lee reminded the committee that there is not requirement to do "protection," just assessments.
Russ Barnett raised some questions related to Table 2 and land use categories. He stated that the categories were inconsistent and incomplete. As an example, he questioned where he would put certain industries.
Steve Alexander suggested that there is spill response data available from various EPA. Dave Morgan suggested using an EPA list on that is available on the web. Steve also asked if pipelines were included in transportation corridors as it relates to spill emergency response.
There was also some discussion of the need to generally clarify the issues and factors.
Comments are due April 16 to the Division of Water.
In closing, Lee asked if there were any questions or announcements.
Announcements:
April 28 Workshop on Water Conservation, Pennyrile State Park; contact Leon Smothers.
Watershed Watch Trainings:
Upper Cumberland: May 1 Somerset; May 2 Pineville
Four Rivers (Lower Cumberland/Purchase): April 17, Paducah; April 24, Hopkinsville and Mayfield
Kentucky: April 17, Hazard
Salt: April 17, Bernhiem Forest
Big Sandy: May 1, Prestonsburg
May 14-15, Kentucky Waterways Alliance Annual Meeting and Conference, Pennyrile State Park
Meeting Facilitator: Rose Marie Wilmoth
The following documents were provided as handouts at the meeting. If you would like a copy, please contact Julie Duncan at 502-564-3410.
· Salt and Licking Strategic Monitoring Plan
· Analyzing and Determining the Susceptibility of Kentucky’s Drinking Water Sources to Potential Contamination
· PowerPoint presentation to Susceptibility Analysis guidance document
· Kentucky River Basin public outreach plan and assessment report outline