# Presentation: 073183

## National Water Quality Network: Delaware River Basin Pilot                                                                         

- NWQMC Meeting
- Philadelphia, PA: July 2007

## Presentation Overview

- National Issues/DRB Issues
- DRB Partners
- DRB Pilot Study Area
- Resource Components Snapshots
- Data Management Status
- “Dry Run” Nutrient Analysis

## Basin Facts

**Basin Facts**
-  Largest un-dammed river east of the Mississippi – 330 miles
- 13,539 square mile drainage
- 17 million water users
- 216 tributaries
- Three reaches included in National Wild and Scenic River System
- One of the world’s largest freshwater tidal estuaries
-  Delaware Bay- 782 sq. miles
- One five MACOORA subregions

**Notes:**
Port complex, including Philadelphia, Camden and Wilmington, is the largest freshwater port in the world

- Monitoring
- Partners
- in the
- Delaware
- River
- Basin

## NMN Objectives and Management Issues

| NMN Objective | NMN Management Questions | Delaware Management |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1.  Define status and trends of key              water quality parameters and conditions on a nationwide basis. | What is the condition of the Nation’s surface, ground, estuarine, coastal, and offshore waters?
Where, how, and why are water quality conditions changing over time? | Development of management strategies for protecting areas of high water quality. |
| 2.  Provide data relevant to determining whether goals, standards, and resource management objectives are being met, thus contributing to sustainable and beneficial use of coastal and inland water resources. | Are strategies that protect or remediate water quality working effectively?
Are we meeting water quality goals and standards? | Environmental sources, transport and effects of contaminants in the region (e.g. PCBs, pesticides, and contaminants of emerging concern). |
| 3.  Provide data to identify and rank existing and emerging problems to help target more intensive monitoring, preventative actions, or remediation. | What are the water quality problems?
Where are the water quality problems?
What is causing the problems?
 | Maintain freshwater quantity and quality. |
| 4.  Provide data to support and define coastal oceanographic and hydrologic research, including influences of freshwater inflows.
 | What research activities will help us to understand water resources and ensure they are sustainable?
 | Assuring public health (pathogen contamination and fish advisories.) |
| 5.  Provide quality-assured data for use in the preparation of interpretive reports and educational materials. | All management questions require these data. | Potential impacts of nutrient overload and nutrient imbalance in the estuary. |

##  Nutrient enrichment (arguable)

-  Oxygen depletion
-  **Nutrient enrichment** (arguable)
-  **Toxic contamination**
-  Sedimentation
-  Harmful algal blooms
-  **Habitat degradation**
-  Invasions by exotic species
-  **Pathogens** (indicator bacteria)

## Technical Needs from Estuary Science Conference

|  |
| --- |
| 1.  Contaminants (forms, sources, fates & effects for different classes) |
| 2.  Tidal Wetlands (status, trends and relative importance of different types) |
| 3.  Ecologically Significant Species & Critical Habitats (oysters, benthos, horseshoe crabs) |
| 4.  Ecological Flows (effects of flow changes on salt balance & biota) |
| 5.  Physical-Chemical-Biological Linkages (e.g., sediment budgets, toxics & biota) |
| 6.  Food Web Dynamics (key trophic connections among functional dominant biota) |
| 7.  Nutrients (forms, concentrations and balance of macro- and micronutrients) |
| 8.  Ecosystem Functions (assessment and economic valuation of ecosystem services) |
| 9.  Habitat Restoration and Enhancement (science & policy) |
| 10. Invasive Species (monitoring, management & control) |

## Estuary Program Operational Needs

| Top Six Operational Needs |
| --- |
| 1.  Strengthen Linkages Between Science and 
     Management |
| 2.  Develop a Conceptual Framework Describing the 
     Ecosystem |
| 3.  Implement an Ecosystem Management Approach |
| 4. Grow the Monitoring Infrastructure and Link to Improved
    Indicators and Goals |
| 5. Improve Data Coordination, Compatibility, Quality, Sharing,
    Access and Archiving |
| 6. Educate Public and Build Identity for Defining Traits and 
    Issues |

## Slide 9

## Delaware River Basin Pilot Steering Committee

- Chair: Bob Tudor, DRBC
- Organizations participating:
- DRBC, MACOORA
- USEPA Regions 2 & 3
- NOAA
- USGS NJ, PA, DE, NY and NAWQA
- NJDEP, DNREC, PADEP, NYDEC
- Rutgers, UDel
- PDE
- Set boundaries for study area
- Integrate with NMN Interagency Work Groups
- Coordinate DRB Work Group efforts
- Data Management efforts

- Other DRB Pilot Work Groups
- Data Management
- Atmosphere
- Rivers above head of tide
- Estuary
- Near shore
- Off Shore
- Wetlands
- Ground water

- Entire Delaware Basin
- 4 states—NY, PA, NJ, DE
- Several Physiographic Provinces and Ecohabitats
- Major inflows—Lehigh, Schuylkill, Maurice, C&D Canal
- Bounded by northern and southern Coastal endurance lines

- DRB Pilot Study Area Boundary

## Data Management Work Group

- Chairs: Eric Vowinkel and Ed Santoro
- Existing DRBC Monitoring Matrix
- Will create an ftp site on DRBC computer to store exchange of information
- Water-Quality Data Exchange (WQDE) Networks in progress at NJDEP, DNREC, PA?, NY?
- Exploring options for web-based portal for Delaware Basin

- http://www.delawareestuary.org/Info_gateway/Main_map.asp

## Estuary Work Group

- Chair: Jonathan Sharp, UDel
- Boat Run—historical monitoring along spine of Delaware Estuary
- Probabilistic network
- NCA
- New sites from USEPA Corvallis from Tony Olsen
- Discussions of mixing probabilistic and fixed stations

## Near-Shore Work Group

- Chair: Bob Connell, NJDEP
- Issues
- How far south?
- 12-miles out into Atlantic Ocean
- Physical habitat needs
- Sediments included
- Biological assessment and productivity
- Lidar methods—remote sensing
- Should not be looking at nutrients but rather eutrophic conditions
- Chlorophyll a, DO, macro algae, HABS, nutrient loads, wastewater discharges, atmospheric deposition

- Assests
- Gliders
- Air craft and satellite remote sensing
- Boat along coast with NJDEP & USEPA
- Fixed station LEO site from RU
- DEOs fixed station
- Optical sensor for DO in future in glider
- Nuisance algal blooms-by boat
- Loads from WWTP
- Maybe some nutrient data from atmospheric
- Map will be coming

## Off-Shore Work Group

- Chair: Scott Glenn, RU IMCS
- Endurance line off of Tuckerton, NJ
- Future site off of Delaware

- http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/auvs/

## Chair: Danielle Kreeger, PDE

**Notes:**
As I said, the tidal wetlands in our system are diverse, following this wide salinity gradient, ranging from fw tidal in the north to full salt marshes and salt brines in the southern areas.
Like all tidal marshes, these provide important ecological services.  Indeed, due to their sheer vastness, combined with the backdrop of industry and major water quality challenges, many scientists consider these marshes to be our kidneys or lungs at the ecosystem level.
Concerns, like here in the Gulf, see level rise, combined with land subsidence and possibly increased storms, are seen as a major threat
There is a lot of interest at this time in the state of our sediments budgets.
Degradation and marsh die back 

## Spills

**Notes:**
We need sediment!
DE Estuary is naturally turbid, has a turbidity maximum in the middle estuary
But Chris Sommerfield at UDel recently pointed out that channel deepening could be altering the sediment profiles by increasing net export of TSS, effectively depriving/starving tidal marshes of their necessary sediments.

## Atmosphere Work Group

- Chair: Lisa Totten, Rutgers
- Only one NADP site in the Basin
- Supplemental sites added by NJDEP, DRBC
- Some sites deactivated

## Ground Water Work Group

- Chair: Eric Vowinkel, USGS
- Significant vulnerability of ground water in the Delaware Basin to contamination by nitrate in PA, NJ, and DE
- Concentrations of nitrate in ground water are largest in agricultural areas and moderate in urban area

- http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2004/5118/SIR2004-5118.pdf

## Proposed NMN Riverine Above the Head of Tide Sites

## NMN requirements for rivers

| 

Rivers | Flow and loads from inland HUC-6 watersheds | Individual watershed | 1-3 per watershed | 258 sites
for conterminous
U.S. | Sites located to represent 90% of freshwater outflow from HUC-6 watershed | Monthly plus high flows (about 15 times per year)
Once per year for biological characterization and sediment quality | On going |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | Flow and loads to estuaries | Individual estuary
and aggregated for Network
estuaries | Variable | 72 | Sites located to monitor 97% of freshwater inflow to Network estuaries and inflow to 70% of Network estuary surface area | Monthly plus high flows (about 15 times per year)
Once per year for biological characterization and sediment quality | On going |
|  | Flow and loads to Great Lakes | Individual watershed | 1 per watershed | 56 | Sites located to represent outflow of basins draining 250 square miles or more | Monthly plus high flows (about 15 times per year)
Once per year for biological characterization and sediment quality | On going |

## Nutrient dry run

- What was done
- Compared Nutrient IWG recommendations
- Tier 1—required
- Tier 2—add significant value
- Response variables
- Ancilliary
- For Delaware River at Trenton as test case (see table)
- For Delaware Estuary Boat Run Data

- Results
- Delaware at Trenton site monitored 4-6 times per year for DRBC and PADEP
- Will be monitored 16 times per year for NAWQA Status and Trends in 2008 for nutrients and pesticides but only once every four years
- Site location data well documented
- Metadata and QA/QC well documented
- Only Tier 1 nutrients satisfied except for silica
- Did not meet detection limit for most constituents by more than an order of magnitude
- For Estuary Boat Run more constituents were analyzed for in the different Tiers but generally did not meet the detection limit requirements for nutrients

## Example of River Nutrient Data

## Water Quality Monitoring Data Web sites

| Agency (Abbreviation) |  | Web address | Contact | Letter of Support |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Federal Monitoring Programs |  |  |  |  |
| U.S. Geological Survey Water Science Centers | USGS-NJWSC
USGS-PAWSC
USGS-NYWSC | http://nj.usgs.gov/
http://pa.water.usgs.gov/
http://ny.water.usgs.gov/ | Richard Kropp
Patricia Lietman
Willie Rodriguez | Y
Y
Y |
| USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) |  | http://nj.usgs.gov/nawqa/delr/ | Jeff Fischer | Y |
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Ecology Division (AED) |  | http://www.epa.gov/aed/ | John Garber | Y |
| USEPA National Estuary Program (NEP) Center for Inland Bays |  | http://www.inlandbays.org/ |  |  |
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 2 ( USEPA-R2) |  | http://www.epa.gov/region2/ | John Kushwara | Y |
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 3 (USEPA-R3) |  | http://www.epa.gov/region03/ | Larry Merrill | Y |
| USEPA Atlantic Ecology Division/ORD (USEPA-AED) |  | http://www.epa.gov/aed/index.html | Henry Walker | Y |
| DE and Nat. Oceanographic and Atmospheric Admin (NOAA/NEERS) |  | http://nerrs.noaa.gov/ | R. Scarborough | Y |
| NOAA PORTS Delaware River/Bay |  | http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/dbports/ |  |  |
| National Park Service (NPS) |  | http://www.nps.gov/upde/ | Joseph DiBello | Y |
| Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS-NJ) |  | http://www.nj.nrcs.usda.gov/ | Tom Drewes | Y |
| U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) |  | http://www.fws.gov/northeast/njfieldoffice/ | Clifford Day |  |
| U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District |  | http://www.nap.usace.army.mil/ |  |  |
| National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) |  | http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/ |  |  |
| Non Federal Monitoring Programs |  |  |  |  |
| Delaware River Basin Commission
(DRBC) |  | http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/ | Robert Tudor | Y |
| New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) |  | http://www.state.nj.us/dep/ | Leslie McGeorge
Robert Connell | Y |
| New Jersey Water Monitoring Coordinating Council (NJWMCC) |  | http://www.state.nj.us/dep/wms//wmcchome.html |  | Y |
| Delaware Depart of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DENREC) |  | http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/ | R. Scarborough |  |
| Partnership for the Delaware Estuary (PDE)  |  | http://www.delawareestuary.org/ | Danielle Kreeger | Y |
| Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) |  | http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/dep/ | James Newbolt |  |
| Delaware Environmental Ocean Observing System (DEOS) |  | http://www.deos.udel.edu/ |  |  |
| Rutgers University Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS) |  | http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool | Scott Glenn | Y |
| Univ. of Delaware  |  | http://www.ocean.udel.edu/cms/jsharp/CruiseDatabase.htm | Jonathan Sharp | Y |
| Sea Grant and Marine Sciences Consortium |  | http://www.njmsc.org/Sea_Grant
http://www.njmsc.org/ | Mike Weinstein |  |
| Drexel University |  |  | Mike Piasecki | Y |