Floyds Fork Data Subcommittee

Floyds Fork Data Subcommittee MINUTES KY FARM BUREAU OFFICE

9:00 AM ATTENDEES Ann Fredenburg, Kaye Brothers, Hui Chen, Joe Cain, Karen Schaffer, Shari Vani Sripada, Patrick Fitzgerald, Teena Halbig Scenarios:  Regional Salt River WWTP scenario 2. ½ facility concentration 3. Full permitted level. 4. See Patrick Fitzgerald’s MSD information

Follow Up Tasks EPA/Tetra Tech  Nothing identified KDOW  KDOW to forward HRU data to Tetra Tech and EPA and KDOW to submit assessment results to EPA and Tetra tech and release to the stakeholders. Sub-committee  Determine if additional constituent sampling or increased frequency of sampling at existing MSD sites would be useful.

ANN FREDENBURG Welcome. Bathrooms down the hall, coffee around the corner. Amy Newbold from EPA R4 and Bryan Watson from Tetra Tech on conference line. KDOW will send Bryan the impaired segments listings.

PATRICK FITZGERALD I can repeat the scenarios here: Berrytown and Starview Elimination and diversion to Floyds Fork in 2013/2014 Floyds Fork Expansion Completion in 2013 JTown Elimination in 2015 - 2.8 MGD to DRG, 1.2 MGD to Cedar Creek Lake of the Woods and Chenoweth Run Elimination in 2015 to Cedar Creek Lake Forest WQTC Elimination and Diversion to Floyds Fork in 2012

TEENA Jeffersontown plant 1.2? Did you look at the document? PATRICK Don’t know. Dry weather goes one place Wet weather another. Jumping watersheds goes by gravity. Does any of the modeling show if outfall effluent is eliminated, how much does it go back to a natural flow? BRIAN WATSON Model set up 2001-2010. All sorts of flow being calculated. How much coming from other sources. Water accounted for. If flow removed, would it go back to a normal flow? That would be a scenario. All forested would be another scenario. TEENA Louisville water coming into watershed. Water company has information? PATRICK Effluent is more important on modeling TMDL than what water is entering from outside. Does a model water resource differ between MSD and natural water? Flow that’s spring fed is given a different scenario. SHRI VANI Having to reduce phosphorus load reduction. How much are they discharging into Floyds Fork? BRIAN WATSON There definitely needs to be a scenario for all online facilities entered in at their permit value. The other scenario could look at all majors having a certain P number, and minors having another P number. Any of those combinations can be evaluated. PATRICK Is it set up to examine seasonal phosphorus limits? Does the model incorporate a time series? BRIAN WATSON Yes, model applies time series and you can have daily or even sub-daily values. SHRI VANI Can the model turn off insignificant contribution? BRIAN WATSON Yes, you can have different ways to present the info. For example, break down sources, remove septic tanks to see the impact. KAREN We have a list of scenarios from different subcommittees. Are we going to see the compiled scenarios? ANN Yes, but may combine some scenarios if they are related. KAREN It would be helpful to show the scenarios individually and in combination so we can see the effects of each one. ANN At the end, we will specify LA, WLA. PATRICK Removal of many SSO in watershed. We have many SSOs in the 10yr plan to be removed. TEENA Request that septics be removed from the model because they account for <1% KAREN I have a problem that. If septic systems are removed it will increase the overall error in the model. We have made an effort to include sinkholes, septics and other small sources. Have a concern if we take out septic systems, will it increase the error in the model. BRIAN WATSON Leave them in the model. From evaluation point, small sources don’t have a large impact. But we should acknowledge their contribution and be aware that they exist. KAREN Along those lines, aggregation probably important locally. Septic tank may not be a big issue in a large watershed, but it could be a big issue in a small watershed. BRIAN WATSON Agree. Talked about scale; if we zoom in, we might see a larger issue on some area. TEENA Haven’t touched on creation of lagoons for single family homes. I think it is atrocious - $350,000 homes with a lagoon. Lagoon instead of septic tank on some houses. ANN Lagoon may be KNDOP facilities, but not sure. PAT Primary flow evaporates. KAREN KNDOP facilities were not incorporated. TEENA How many lagoons are in the watershed? Is the Health Department involved? We should figure out how many lagoons are out there before we finalize model. I saw one in Jefferson County. PAT From a model perspective is it important? Does the lagoon have a significant effect on the model? Are there effluents to the ditch? TEENA They could be discharging anywhere. ANN If they are being administered by the health dept, KDOW doesn’t have the permits. TEENA These are karst areas and they are impacting the watershed and we should get the data from the health departments. ANN DOW had segments of interest based upon the USGS sites. We had historical biological data in from 1980 into 2000’s. Not exactly sure of biological sampling dates. But we had some sites with nutrient data without biological data to assess use-impairment. We went out this summer to collect samples to get biology to pair with the nutrient data. We have identified that some segments are impaired. KDOW has completed the assessment process and will be releasing the location of impaired segments. TEENA Where are the impaired locations? Are they below WWTPs? ANN I have not had a chance to look at the information. KAREN So from 2008-2012 there is a smaller subset that’s impaired. That’s good. What does that mean to TMDLS? Will the TMDL show all segments of interest? ANN TMDLs will be done on impaired segments only. KAREN OK PATRICK Are there other data needs from MSD? MSD collects monitoring info and may be willing to add parameters or sample more frequently at existing sites. TEENA We are interested in P and N below Red Penn landfill. KAREN We don’t know how far the existing sampling station is from the landfill. TEENA The landfill is at the Oldham/Jeff line. Need nitrogen/phosphorus above or below the landfill. SOD farm, golf courses for Nitrogen/phosphorus. PATRICK Are these things that need to be sampled monthly? Haven’t researched. Number of people – increase look at creek monthly? Single family residential; MFR; Parks commercial; industry runoff. TEENA (to Bryan) We need to know your sampling location? ANN The locations are in the model report. BRIAN WATSON Question on land use. How many sampling events for HRU data? PATRICK Sampled during wet weather-otherwise they are dry – didn’t know if there were multiple samples collected per event. BRIAN WATSON This is helpful for urban representation. PATRICK With Teena’s? Watershed many miles landfill below 1%, one sample for each event. KAREN MSD’s HRU data includes an extensive list of parameters. ANN I will send MSD’s HRU sampling data to Tetra Tech AMY Please copy the EPA e-mail on this. KAREN Fertilizer load table spreadsheet. It will be helpful to have somebody walk through the table. How to use the information. BRIAN WATSON The primary use for the fertilizer loading spreadsheet was to calculate the fertilizer loading number for cropland. To develop this table, there was a tremendous amount of back and forth work among a number of folks. This was helped by Dr. Chad Lee. More in-depth, work sheet UK-AG land use come up for loading for crops: planted vs. harvested; app rate; loading rate each county, each crop; manure changes; deep ground infiltration. Sent out for AG committee, EPA, and Tetra Tech. KAREN Are there loading rate changes from last time? BRIAN WATSON There’s one for fertilizer application and one for manure application. FertLoading_Rev1 does not include two changes (soybeans, were negative, now equals zero) and clarification on application rate (per yr instead of per season). KAREN Why is manure application converted from a monthly basis to an annual basis? BRIAN WATSON Because app rate number is lb/acre/year. Due to nutrients available even if crop is harvested within 6 month. Based on the group who reviewed the spreadsheet, this is best approach. KAREN Any consideration for nutrient cycling in bottom sediments? Was an internal QA/QC review done by TetraTech and is there documentation of that review? BRIAN WATSON It is in calibrations. Nutrients flush from sediment. WASP does better on nutrient cycling. Calibrated WASP model. Have internal QAQC at Tetra Tech. Sent out model to be reviewed. KAREN Has there been review of the nutrient cycling model? BRIAN WATSON We have performed several internal QAQC reviews KAREN Is it possible for the TAC committee to see those reviews to see any issue not fully addressed? BRIAN WATSON Reviews are informal, hard to show, such as hundreds of emails, QAQC process occurring in the modeling report KAREN Is a QA process being documented or formally reported? AMY There has been extensive QA/QC on the LSPC and WASP models. The watershed and water quality modeling reports are documenting the stepwise development process, and we provide those reports to the TAC and stakeholders for peer review. We welcome comments on how to improve those reports to increase clarity and transparency. BRIAN WATSON QA/QC Has been of a higher level; normal part of putting together model. Normal part of calibration. May be documented by EPA? PATRICK Karen, Have you seen modeling report? Is there any specific value for the parameter? KAREN There is a report on the model with appendices summarizing the outputs, but the report is not clear about what data was used and how, QA/QC of the model is not documented. AMY We welcome comments on how to improve the model reports to increase clarity and transparency. KAREN The subcommittees have been helpful If another revision of the report is released, it would be helpful for the TAC to have more time to review it prior to the meeting. It would be helpful to show changes in the report in yellow highlight since track changes in this complex document would be very difficult to read. AMY We will give plenty of review time after the release of the next modeling report. We don’t expect to have the revised report by the next TAC meeting due to all the changes (fertilizer rates, manure, etc). But, shortly thereafter. Are you asking for us to turn on track changes? KAREN No, just highlight them. BRIAN WATSON Trying to make it more readable. What Amy said, the revised report probably won’t be available for next meeting. Revised report will be released to give TAC enough time to review. PATRICK Pull back the curtain on model development; review pieces could be helpful. KAREN Was fertilizer and manure loading data by county applied to crop and pasture in the watershed? BRIAN WATSON Yes KAREN Question on calibration of precipitation. Why use Thiessen Polygon - Pros and Cons of Thiessien polygon versus NexRad. BRIAN WATSON Separate gridded section still using stations to help get data in next update. Issues with 2000 data. Pro approach quicker to look at results related to flow. Issue – isolated storm event. From what I’ve seen stations we have to match timing of hydrograph. In this approach, we are getting positive results. The pro of Thiessen polygon is 1) quick to see results, 2)match the USGS data well, isolated rain event may not good, and 3) match volume hydrography. X Y data is time consumed, expensive, also hard to get some data. KAREN So those differences seem to be insignificant, seemed to be variations. See different stream hydrology, is the difference significant? I do see a big difference. BRIAN WATSON Definitely wouldn’t say insignificant. The model isn’t going to be perfect. Try to minimize but will always be deviations. Have to look at more than one. Cannot match one to one, reviewers agree to this method. We should look at the system as whole. At each station, we do see some outlier. ANN (to Bryan) We have flow measures at 7 sites. For sites where TP and TN were collected in 2007 and 2008 by USGS, did you area-weight the flow from the gage to the USGS station? For those with no gage did you show the stats? BRIAN WATSON We did not area weight the flows to these sites. We just looked at the concentrations. KAREN The hydrology calibration is based on 5 stations with larger drainage areas, but the validation is based on 2 stations with small drainage areas. Why was this approach used and what are the implications? Also, flow is over-estimated by more than 20% for some stations, which causes overestimates of loads, resulting in a more stringent TMDL. PAT Above 20% is excessive. BRIAN WATSON 20% + (-). Looking at calibration, annual total volume described top; bottom seasonal a lot more variation. Total annual volume time you can have higher volume. Case: impact one season into another season; all flow stations were looked at. Trying to balance other things going on in the watershed. (Over predicting) People haven’t looked at targets: growing season value. Target at longer period of time. Error associated with USGS storm value. Total volume percentage is much less. We try to keep with 5% ±, when model precipitation, USGS recommends 10%. Look at individual station, see total volume, it is 5% ±. Positive error in monthly estimate impacts one season, then extend to next season. We look at all flow stations; there is no data compare to. We try to balance, minimize error. We use over estimate because we want to include all possible sources. Targets are in growing season, there is major error associated with data collection. That’s why USGS recommends 50%± on storm water but no on annual level. KAREN Some flow gauges are located on streams with small drainage areas. There are many ways to validate the model. What are the implications of validating the model using only stations with small drainage areas? How were gauges on small drainages selected to validate instead of the gauges on large drainages? BRIAN WATSON Seven flow stations calibrate/validate. Time period outside of model. Originally talked about going back before 2001, but finding data prior to 2001 was a challenge. Calibration: evaluate smaller gauges. They were chosen we could have predicted not validating for smaller data. Separation – infiltration; loss of groundwater lost in aquifer. Deal with volume number. Base flow; hydrograph; fine tuning; water taken up by foliage (roods, sub surface vegetation). Some are fixed numbers. KAREN When calibrating hydrology, what major parameters changed? BRIAN WATSON Main change is infiltration. Looking at loss of groundwater to deep groundwater. Then we start looking at shape of hydrographs, base flow recession. When you’re looking at fine tuning volume, you look at volume uptake by foiliage. Subsurface, what is the water taken up by roots and subsurface vegetation, etc. TEENA Are you saying the aquifer water doesn’t go to the streams? BRIAN WATSON No, we’re talking about the flow that leaves the system (goes to Ohio, for example). This is one of the major things we looked at for the karst system.Deep Sub surface water. KAREN It’s deep water that did not return to Floyds Fork, but may go elsewhere, like the Ohio River SHARI VANI An error on page 74 on grading TP and TN. BRIAN WATSON It’s a rounding issue. SHARI VANI Need to show regression value at top of graph for viewer. BRIAN WATSON A 1 to 1 line is more significant than a R2 value; nitrogen looks better than phosphorus. R2 value could be 1 but it not fall on the 1 to 1 line. For this type plots, R2 value it is not the best statistic. KAREN How about deviation? BRIAN WATSON This approach is not related with any statistical metric. The scatter more like a circle than a line. SHRI VANI What about the outliers? ANN These high loads may have the same concentration as the others but be larger loads because they were collected at high flow. SHRI VANI Validate model. BRIAN WATSON Sorry, I am going to have to go. ANN Quick reminder for anyone that is interested. Next Wednesday the 30 th, 1-4pm will be the Point Source meeting. Public meeting February 19th, 7-9pm and TAC February 20th 9-12. Thank you all for coming out in the weather today.

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