New York State’s Strategy to Address Nutrient and Sediment Problems in the Chesapeake Bay An Interim Plan based on the cbp watershed Model, Version 3

Developed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in partnership with the

Upper Susquehanna Coalition

2005

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It is about 200 miles long with over 11,600 miles of shoreline in its many coves, wetlands and tidal tributaries. It provides habitat to over 3,600 different species of plants and animals, and produces nearly 500 million pounds of seafood per year. Much of the Bay is extremely shallow, less than 6 feet, which adds to its productivity but also to its sensitivity to pollution. The entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed covers 64,000 square miles, which includes more than 15 million people in portions of six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and Delaware) along with Washington D.C.

The Bay has become significantly degraded from excess sediment and nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) entering its waters. Excess nutrients cause blooms of algae, which block sunlight needed by underwater bay grasses to grow. Algae also deplete oxygen as they die, robbing other living resources of the oxygen they need to live. Sediment can smother bottom-dwelling plants and animals, such as oysters and clams, prevent light from penetrating to the leaves and stems of submerged aquatic vegetation and also carry excess nutrients, particularly phosphorus, into Bay waters, further compromising water quality.

The pollution in the Bay is from both point and non-point sources. Point sources include wastewater treatment plants and septic systems. Non-point source pollution includes the nutrients from stormwater runoff from urban and suburban areas (e.g., lawns, parking lots, roads, tailpipe emissions) and runoff from farms (e.g., crop lands, pasture). Interestingly as more land is developed, especially near the Bay the urban and suburban lands are becoming very significant contributors.

In 1983, a voluntary government partnership, first championed by private citizens, was formed to direct and manage a restoration effort of the Bay. This partnership, called the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP), includes Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Chesapeake Bay Program serves as a model for dozens of other estuary cleanup efforts nationally, such as Casco Bay, Long Island Sound, Tampa Bay, Monterey Bay, Puget Sound and others.

Although the program has made great efforts, continued water quality impairments within the Bay led the EPA and the Bay states to the list over 90% of the Bay tidal waters as “impaired” under the Federal Clean Water Act due to low dissolved oxygen levels and other problems related to nutrient pollution. A federal court order requires the development of Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) if the Bay water quality impairment is not rectified by 2010. This spurred the CBP states to reach out to the “headwater” states of New York, West Virginia and Delaware to also be involved.

Thus, in 2000, New York State Governor Pataki, through a Memorandum of Understanding, joined executives from the other Chesapeake Bay Watershed states and the federal government in agreeing to

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  “Work cooperatively to achieve the nutrient and sediment reduction targets that we agree are necessary to achieve the goals of a clean Chesapeake Bay by 2010, thereby allowing the Chesapeake and its tidal tributaries to be removed from the list of impaired waters.
  
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  Provide for an inclusive, open and comprehensive public participation process.
  
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  Collaborate on the development and use of innovative measures such as effluent trading, cooperative implementation mechanisms, and expanded interstate agreements to achieve the necessary reductions.”
  

This Tributary Strategy will use a multi-faceted approach, taking into consideration implementation activities that are regulated, incentive-based or voluntary. We expect to gain reductions through regulated activities such as the Stormwater Phase 2 regulations, CAFO farm permits and existing individual and general SPDES permitted. These reduction activities tend to be those in the point source arena. Other Tributary Strategy implementation activities will be voluntary and incentive-based, especially those related to agricultural activities where several funding programs are already in place to support such efforts. It is also clear that a commitment to technical assistance, public education/outreach and a thorough regulatory oversight is necessary to meet and sustain the Bay restoration goals.

Although the goal of all Bay states is to have tributary strategies developed and fully implemented by 2010, it appears that due to the complexity of the issue, high costs of the implementation needed, available funds to support such efforts and the sheer “gearing up” needed to accomplish all tasks that the final timeline for success will reach at least well into the next decade. For this approach to be successful, considerable federal financial support from outside NYS is needed, particularly in the agricultural sector. The following strategy describes a realistic approach to meet New York’s nutrient and sediment load allocations.

The New York Landscape

The Susquehanna River Watershed lies within the Appalachian Highlands, covering 6,265 square miles of south-central New York, or about 13 percent of the state. It includes the Susquehanna River (4,521 square miles) and Chemung River (1,744 square miles) watersheds (Maps 1 and 2). Major municipalities include Hornell, Corning, Horseheads, Elmira, Owego, Binghamton, City of Cortland, Oneonta and Cooperstown. Portions of 19 NY counties are included and about 775,000 people. The population trends have been decidedly downward; the previously mentioned municipalities have each lost about 20% of their population between 1970 and 2000. The loss of jobs and population is also reflected in the rather high percent of the population falling below the poverty line, about 22%.

The geology of the region is characterized by rocky glacial till, with a land cover composed of 71% forest and wetlands, 23% agriculture, 5% urban/suburban and 1% open water. The general land use trends have been an increase in forest, a decrease in agriculture and the urban/suburban remaining about the same. The Susquehanna Headwaters is one of the most flood-prone regions in the nation. Its low rolling hills have narrow side valleys and steep gradient tributaries that feed the main valleys resulting in flashy watersheds that can flood even after moderate rainfall events.

Water quality in the New York portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed is generally good. Only the Whitney Point Reservoir at the tail waters of the Otselic River drainage is on the 303(d) list for impairments due to phosphorus levels. In general water quality and quantity problems are closely linked with such issues as stream erosion, gravel deposition and flooding, which have both local and regional significance. The resulting stream channelization, gravel removal and road ditch repairs are basin-wide issues. Agriculture is also an important nutrient source. Within the basin there are also localized issues concerning groundwater nitrification, septic system runoff, gravel mining, rapid residential development and acid mine drainage waters. The basin’s lakes, except for Otsego Lake, are generally shallow and eutrophic, with extensive weed problems due to nutrient enrichment from septic systems, streambank erosion and agriculture. Otsego Lake also has nutrient enrichment problems from septic and agriculture. The New York State Watershed Restoration and Protection Action Strategy: Susquehanna and Chemung River Basins provides an extensive review of water quality issues in each subwatershed.

This strategy was developed in 2000 and 2001 through a partnership among USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, NYS Department of Health, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, the Upper Susquehanna Coalition, Southern Tier Regional Planning and Development Board and Susquehanna River Basin Commission. The purpose of developing the strategy was to bring together appropriate agencies and stakeholders to identify important needs and to focus financial, technical and informational resources on addressing those needs so that water and natural resources are restored, preserved and protected.

A series of meetings were conducted to develop recommendations and commitments in watersheds that were considered a priority by either the NYS DEC or county members of the USC. Each 11 HUA watershed was prioritized by both the NYS DEC and USC. The status of the watershed was discussed, as were pollutants and their sources. A list of recommendations and commitments were developed. Additional Basin-wide recommendations and commitments were also developed to address the more ubiquitous problems. The watershed analyses were updated in 2002 and it will be part of this Tributary Strategy to again update relevant sections through 2005. The WRAPS was very important in accomplishing a comprehensive review of the Watershed on a subwatershed basis.

Susquehanna Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy (SCWCS)

President Bush signed the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2002, into law on November 5, 2001. This bill included $80 million for wildlife conservation grants to States and to the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. The Fish and Wildlife Service is apportioning the funds to NY under the State Wildlife Grants portion of Public Law 107-63. To establish eligibility for these funds the State must first submit a comprehensive wildlife conservation plan by 1 October 2005.

New York’s approach is to develop plans based on major watersheds. The Susquehanna Plan is being developed by NYS DEC with input form the USC and other interested organizations and individuals. Its objective is to describe actions that will protect, support and enhance species of special concern. To the extent possible we will attempt to integrate the goals of the SCWCS with those of the Tributary Strategy. The draft plan can be viewed at http://www.dec.state.ny.us

/website/dfwmr/swg/susquehannatxt.pdf.

The Outreach Support Group (OSG) is providing an accurate and consistent message that informs watershed stakeholders of the goal of the tributary strategy, the roles of those involved and the status of strategy development, and soliciting input and feedback, thereby encouraging stakeholder participation and acceptance.

Outreach efforts were begun with USC county members meeting with various stakeholder groups. Initial efforts included 130 separate presentations. A series of county meetings were held in 2005 to provide an opportunity for feedback directly to NYSDEC on stakeholder suggestions and to discuss somewhat in depth the need for point source reductions (Appendix A). A series of meetings are envisioned for presenting this draft Strategy to the public. We expect the OSG to continue to provide outreach support as the strategy is modified in the future.

The Scientific Support Group (SSG) was formed to provide sound scientific advice on assessing needs and options for achieving nonpoint source load reductions, substantiating management measures and evaluating the effectiveness and costs of the measures that may be implemented to reduce nutrient and sediment loads. The SSG is composed of academic and agency technical specialists. The SSG is currently developing proposals to address important scientific questions. These topics are summarized in Appendix B “Strategic Planning Needs”.

The Strategy Development Advisory Group (SDAG) was formed to provide recommendations to the NYSDEC on development of the New York tributary strategy and recommend how NYSDEC and local partners can build upon the success of the Watershed Restoration and Protection Action Strategy (WRAPS) for the Susquehanna and Chemung River Basins so that the tributary strategy can be coordinated with and supported by efforts to address local water quality concerns. As part of this Tributary Strategy effort the subwatershed problems and commitments documented in the WRAPS will be updated and will be revisited concurrently with each Tributary Strategy review.

The Chesapeake Bay Program has developed an extensive library of information on the sources of nutrients and sediment. The interested reader should search the CBP site for more specifics at (http://www.chesapeakebay.net/info/wqcriteriatech/tributary_tools.cfm). The CBP Watershed Model estimates loads at the “edge of stream” for a specific subwatershed and as well as the load “delivered” to the Bay from that watershed. We will use “edge of stream” as this is an estimate for New York’s load, while “delivered” takes into account denitrification and other processes occurring in the river system that we cannot affect. We will discuss “delivered” load when appropriate.

Nutrient and sediments loads are estimated by the CBP on a subwatershed basis using their Watershed Model (Map 1). In the Model’s Version 4.3 estimates for NY are based on two watersheds: the Chemung Basin on the west and Susquehanna Basin on the east. The Version 5 model estimates use 72 smaller subwatersheds of which all or portions are in NY. These watersheds generally represent drainages with at least 100 cubic feet per minute flow and each is further broken down along county lines so there are 156 “watershed polygons” for NY. The Watershed Model develops estimates based on these polygons because most information is collected at the county level and then allocated to the corresponding watershed. The Watershed Model Version 5 will not be available until early 2006, but it is important to understand the differences in the models as we transition from the simpler Version 4.3 to the more detailed Version 5. We will generally discuss our implementation needs for the entire NY Chesapeake Bay Watershed as a whole. We will depict subwatershed data at times to help demonstrate certain aspects of the Model.

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Map1. CBP watershed delineations
and Cover Classes used in the Watershed Model

Land cover classes and acreage estimates for Versions 4.3 and 5 are depicted below. Similar to the watershed delineations the newer Version 5 has a much finer resolution. Nutrient and sediment load estimates in this strategy have been developed using Version 4.3; these estimates and load allocations may change in 2007 or 2008 when the Model Version 5 is implemented.

Each land use category, through a complex series of analyses, is given a unique sediment and nutrient runoff load on a per acre basis. The model can adjust these numbers due to differences in such variables as rainfall and practices installed to determine a final “edge of field load”. The Model will help us to understand which combination of land uses and practices may provide the most cost-effective opportunities to reduce nutrient and sediments. It is beyond the accuracy limitations of the model, including Version 5, to give precise subwatershed estimates; for this reason the strategy focuses reduction efforts at the entire watershed level.

There are 21 Land Use/Land Cover types in the Version 5 model versus 10 in Model 4.3. Below we compare the two acreages. We will compare the Bay Model land use cover types of certain headwater counties with digital information developed by the USC to determine how well the Bay Model estimates compare with what we see on the ground. This information will be included in a later version of this strategy to help recalibrate the estimates reflect numbers closer to the real present conditions.

After considerable analysis the CBP developed an estimated total yearly load for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Sediment that it considered the maximum amount the Chesapeake Bay could handle and still meet Federal Clean Water Standards. It distributed these loads to all of the states using a specific set of protocols that can be reviewed at http://www.chesapeakebay. net/tribtools.htm. The numbers that were developed are referred to by the CBP as the “Cap Load Allocations”. The allocation for New York, an estimate of our loads for 1985, the first year of analysis, and 2004, the last year available, and our estimate for potential reductions based on this

strategy, are depicted in the table below: