# Presentation: 060028

## Initial IOOS Design Plan for Public HealthFocus on beaches and coastal waters of S. California

**Presentation by Steve Weisberg**
**to**
**U. S. GOOS Steering Committee**
**September of 2006**

## BACKGROUND

**The GSC identified the need for a written design plan and cost estimates for the IOOS**
- Ocean.us agreed with that need
**The GSC offered to assist with development of that plan**
**Formed design subcommittees for each of three key product areas**
- Public Health
- Coastal Flooding
- Marine Transportation
**The public health group held a two-day meeting in August**
- This is a progress report from that group

## PARTICIPANTS

**Bart Bibler**
- Florida Department of Health
**Stephen Weisberg**
- Southern California Coastal Water Research Project Authority
**Juli Trtanj**
- NOAA Ocean and Human Health Initiative
**Ken Hudnell **
- EPA National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory
**Eric Terrill**
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography
**Tom Malone**
- University of Maryland and Ocean.us

## GOALS

**Develop the conceptual framework for an observing system designed to protect public health**
- Observations
- Data management
- Modeling
- Communications
**Identify the measurements and modeling necessary to implement that framework**
**Determine how much of that system is already in place**
**Estimate the cost to implement the rest of the system **
- Gap analysis

## A GOOD START

**Agreed on clients and decisions to be made with data from the observing system**
**Developed a conceptual design**
**Added some specifics for two case studies**
- Pathogens on California beaches
- HABs (*K. brevis*) in the Gulf of Mexico

## BUT,...

**We were only able to develop ideas for two case studies**
- Didn’t even really finish the HABs case study
**We were not able to estimate costs or quantify existing infrastructure**
**We were able to determine that this assignment is too large to effectively complete in two days with only six people**
- Let’s come back to this at the end of the talk

## SOME PRINCIPLES

**Assess user needs and design the observation and decision support system to meet those needs **
**Need to demonstrate benefits of the system**
- Pilot projects
**The system needs to be adaptive, both short-term and long-term **
**An epidemiological link is important, particularly given uncertainties in the indicators that we measure**

## PRIMARY USERS

**Health Departments**
- Issue health advisories, but don’t fix the problems
**Regulators**
- Issue fines and orders to monitor and/or cleanup
**Dischargers**
- Primary party responsible for fixing the problems
**NGOs**
- Influence government policies and procedures
- Sometimes provide data integration and reporting to the public
**Risk assessment teams**
- Set standards that drive monitoring requirements and data interpretation
- Operate on longer time frames than the others

## USER NEEDS

**Assessment of present condition **
- 	Foundation for a health warning system
**Predictive health warnings**
- 	Forecast changes in exposure risk
- 	Engage in adaptive sampling
**Analysis of historical data **
- Source assessment
- Causative agents
- Trends in condition
- Assessment of management effectiveness
**Early warning for emerging threats**
**Scientific foundation for policymaking **
- Risk assessment

## ELEMENTS OF A SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BEACH CASE STUDY

**Input monitoring**
- 	Precursor information
- 	Causative agents
**Present condition monitoring **
**Trajectory modeling **
**Human health surveillance system **
**Data integration and display**
**Education and outreach**
**Research and transitioning new elements to operations **
**Continual program re-evaluation **

## INPUT MONITORING

**Three classes of measurement**** **
- Flow
- Continuous physico-chemical measurements
- Static parameter monitoring
**Its manageable**
- Ten largest river systems comprise 95% of land-based runoff in southern California
- Four largest POTW outfalls comprise 90% of wastewater input

## PARAMETERS TO BE MEASURED FROM EACH INPUT SOURCE

**Continuous measurements**
- Flow
- Temperature
- Turbidity
- Transmissometer
- CDOM
- Dissolved Oxygen
- Nutrients
**Static monitoring**
- Bacteria
- Viruses
- Priority pollutants (for other purposes)

## Anthropogenic inputs – riverine flows after rainfall

## INPUT MONITORING

**Three classes of measurement**** **
- Flow
- Continuous physico-chemical measurements
- Static parameter monitoring
**Its manageable**
- Ten largest river systems comprise 95% of land-based runoff in southern California
- Four largest POTW outfalls comprise 90% of wastewater input

## PRESENT CONDITION MONITORING

**Primarily fecal indicator bacteria sampling on the beach**
- Collected by hand
** **
**Sampling density/frequency a function of perceived risk**
- Number of bathers at the beach
- Risk of contamination

## *High risk - a source of contamination flows continually and is a known problem

| Usage |  |     High     Risk* |  | Medium        Risk* |  | Low 
Risk* | No Known Source* |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lifeguarded, or high use dive or surf |  | Daily or 5/week | 5/week |  | Weekly or 5/month |  | Weekly or 5/month |
| Accessible sandy beach, or low use dive or surf |  | 2-3/week | Weekly or 5/month |  | Weekly or 5/month |  | None |
| Other accessible shoreline; low use dive or surf |  | Weekly or 5/month | Weekly or 5/month |  | Monthly |  | None
 |
| Inaccessible shoreline |  | None | None |  | None |  | None |

- *Medium risk - a source flows intermittently or flow is low but continuous, and there is an occasional contamination spike
- *Low risk - a potential source exists, e.g., a public restroom or near a POTW, but is not usually a problem
- *No known sources - no sewage lines are known

## TRAJECTORY MONITORING

**Near the target population**
**Near inputs**
**Larger landscape **
- Link inputs to risk

## NEAR THE TARGET POPULATION

**Focus on piers **
- They give shelter from rough ocean conditions
**Select piers based on proximity to beachgoer density and fecal inputs**
**29 piers at present; 21 meet criteria **
**Automated sampling**
- Pump sampling for parameters not yet automatable
**Capital cost 150K per site, without next-generation sensors **
**O&M:  ?**

## Existing Piers

**Notes:**
Moorings
NDBC Met Buoys

## Existing Piers

**Notes:**
Moorings
NDBC Met Buoys

## NEAR THE TARGET POPULATION

**Focus on piers **
- They give shelter from rough ocean conditions
**Select piers based on proximity to beachgoer density and fecal inputs**
**29 piers at present; 21 meet criteria **
**Automated sampling**
- Pump sampling for parameters not yet automatable
**Capital cost 150K per site, without next-generation sensors **
**O&M:  ?**

##   Next-generation sensors as they become available

**  ****Bottom mounted pressure sensor**
**  ****Current meter**
**  ****Full met package**
**  ****High speed data communications**
**  ****Submerged pump system for moving seawater topside**
*** ***Nutrient
-  Chlorophyll
-  Dissolved gas
-  Inherent optical properties
**  ****Next-generation sensors as they become available**
-   Flow cytometers
-   Laser optical plankton counters
-   Microbial/virus

**SENSORS ON PIER SYSTEMS**

**Notes:**
Manual Shore Stations
SIO Pier

## NEAR SOURCES

**Single mooring at each outfall  **
- Including ADCP
**Capital cost $300K per mooring**
**O&M:  ?**

## Slide 24

## LARGER LANDSCAPE

**HF radar every 20km**
- 200K Capital cost for each installation
- O&M:
**Four gliders **
- One associated with the area surrounding each outfall
- 200K Capital cost for each glider
- O&M: ?
**Offshore wave direction buoys**
- No additional cost
**Remote sensing of ocean color **
- No additional cost
**Bathymetry**
- Offshore – Every twenty years: Cost?
- Near runoff sources – Every five years: Cost?

## Slide 26

## HUMAN HEALTH SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS

**Human health surveillance needs to be linked to monitoring systems **
- This is the ultimate management goal
- Surveillance is also a means for identifying pathogens not presently measured
**Several types of surveillance systems**
- Passive
- Active
- Hospital
- Epi studies
- Marine mammal network
**Need specialists to help us better select among options **
- Active monitoring is the most likely choice, at a cost of $500K/year

## DATA DISPLAY AND OUTREACH

**Four primary outputs**
- Input, fate and transport of pathogens entering the system
- Assessment of present health risks
- Predictions of future health risks
- Retrospective looks at the origins of pathogens
**Build on existing systems, where possible**
- Elements of the system exist in every region
**Principal challenge will be in reducing the time necessary to gather and display the data **
**Costs are difficult to estimate **
- Costs will be region- and element-specific

## RESEARCH

**Difficult to prioritize**
- Many options
**Some elements are to improve the system in the short term**
- Investment in the modeling
**Some elements are for long-term improvement**
- Development of sensors
**Some are to improve the underlying foundation for the indicators that are measured**
- Epidemiology studies

## COSTS

**Costs are difficult to estimate**
- Primarily instituted as short-term research projects to date
**Level of desired system reliability and QA are ill-defined**
- Redundancy/reliability costs can be huge
**Costs for aspects beyond data collection are even harder to estimate**
- We had questions about how to best “sell” these investments

## WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO FINISH?

**More time**
- Several more meetings to flesh-out ideas
- Time to quantify what is already in place
- Time to write
**More people**
- Six was a good start, but we needed more expertise
**A vetting process**
- It needs to be more than the opinions of six people
- Certainly need the buy-in from relevant RAs
- Also need the clients to verify that these designs meet their needs
**A worthwhile activity, but not one well-suited to volunteers**
- Contractors?
- Selected regional associations as leads?
**Pilot projects**
- That will help refine design
- Add certainty to cost estimates