MA WRRC Conference Abstracts

Balancing Use and Protection of Water Resources: Democratizing Water Management in South Africa
Evan Dollar, Senior Researcher with the Division of Natural Resources and the Environment, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

The South African Water Resource Classification System (WRCS), which is required by the National Water Act (NWA), is a set of guidelines and procedures for determining the different classes of water resources. The regulations that prescribe the WRCS provide for a definition of the classes that are to be used (Minimally Used, Moderately Used and Heavily Used) and a 7-step procedure to be followed to recommend a class.

The class outlines those attributes that the regulator and society require of different water resources. The WRCS is used in a consultative process (i.e. the Classification Process) to classify water resources to help facilitate a balance between protection and use of the water resources, i.e. to recommend a class.

The economic, social and ecological implications of choosing a class are established and communicated to all Interested and Affected Parties during the Classification Process. The class describes the desired condition of the resource, and concomitantly, the degree to which it can be utilized. This means the class must describe the volume, distribution and quality of the Reserve and resource quality objectives, and inform the determination of the allocatable portion of a water resource for use.

This has considerable economic, social and ecological implications, and hence the WRCS is an integral component of the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) environment, as it is fundamentally linked to other processes in the integrated planning of water resource protection, development and utilization, and in the management and control of water use.

A key component of the Classification Process is therefore an iterative process of evaluating scenarios with stakeholders where the economic, social and ecological trade-offs will be made, and out of which will emerge the allocation schedule, class, Reserve, resource quality objectives and the catchment management strategy. The development of the WRCS was therefore designed to align with the NWA which calls for the efficient, equitable and sustainable use of the Nation’s water resources, and national government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth-South Africa strategy that takes the position that without interventions targeted at reducing South Africa’s historical inequalities, growth is unsustainable.

In the context of IWRM, this involves allocating water for historic redress as a legal imperative, and contributing to eliminating the second economy. An optimal balance is therefore required that maximizes societal welfare and effectively deals with the core issues of redressing historical inequality and reducing poverty. This balance requires trading-off the value of water as a direct input to economic production and, for example, the costs associated with the use of the resource to dissipate waste, the socio-economic costs of environmental damages, and the potential health risks and cost that overuse, stream flow reduction activities and dry land agriculture may have on other users.

Estimation of continuous daily streamflow at ungaged sites in southern New England
Stacey Archfield, U.S. Geological Survey and Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University; R.M. Vogel, S.L. Brandt, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University

Two sets of regional-regression equations were developed to estimate the daily, unregulated, period-of record flow duration curve (FDC) at ungaged sites in southern New England. The first method assumes an underlying probability density function for daily streamflow whose parameter values are related to the physical characteristics of the ungaged basin. The second method relates flow at selected exceedence probabilities on the FDC to physical characteristics of the ungaged basin. We consider 66 relatively unregulated gages having between 10 and 86 years of continuous, daily-streamflow measurements. A jackknife procedure compared FDCs estimated from each method to the gage data from which the regression equations were developed. A continuous, daily hydrograph was constructed from the estimated FDC by use of an index gage. The transformation from the estimated FDC to a daily hydrograph assumed that the flow exceedence probability associated with a given day at the index gage is equivalent to the flow-exceedence probability for that day at the ungaged site. The assumption of equivalent exceedence probabilities at the
index gage and ungaged site was tested and the results of this test were used to provide guidance on the selection of the index gage.

Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration in the Urban/Suburban Environment
Donald Galya, Ken Wagner, Carl Tammi, David Nyman, Matthew Kennedy, ENSR Corporation, Westford, MA

Development, habitat and hydrologic modification, pollution, and other anthropogenic activities have resulted in the loss and degradation of aquatic ecosystems - including lakes, rivers, streams, estuaries, coastal waters, and wetlands - in urban and suburban areas of the United States. Typical aquatic ecosystem impairments include the loss of habitat, nutrient-induced eutrophication, contamination by toxic pollutants and pathogenic micro-organisms, loss of biodiversity due to invasive species, migration blockage by dams and roadway stream crossings, and hydrologic imbalance and disruption.There are numerous ecological and human benefits to restoration of aquatic water bodies. Ecological benefits include achievement of balanced biological populations and community, increased biodiversity, and protection against system stressors. Benefits to urban and suburban communities include improvement in the quality of drinking water resource areas, protection against flooding, reduction in exposure to toxic contaminants, and increased recreational opportunities.

Ecosystem restoration projects in the urban/suburban environment have included habitat creation or enhancement; pollution control from stormwater, sanitary wastewater, and industrial wastewater discharges; shoreline stabilization; contaminated sediment remediation; invasive and exotic species control; and hydrologic improvement. Experience with a wide range of these projects has demonstrated that successful restoration of aquatic ecosystems is achievable. However, total restoration to the original ecosystem conditions is often unlikely, and in most cases we should strive instead to restore ecosystem functions. Critical elements of a successful ecosystem restoration program include a strong program sponsor, upfront planning, clear goals, stakeholder buy-in, monitoring to track progress and determine the need for maintenance, continuing maintenance, adaptive management, program flexibility, consideration of ecosystem functions and connections, and the regulatory or other mechanism for funding and authority for performing the project.

This paper will discuss the issues and opportunities associated with ecosystem restoration and present a series of case study projects with important lessons learned.

Habitat parameters, land use characteristics, and water chemistry data from sample locations within watersheds of Massachusetts were analyzed to assess their influences on macroinvertebrate metrics. The habitat parameters and macroinvertebrate metrics were obtained from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection - Division of Watershed Management (MA-DEP-DWM). The water quality data was obtained from a different database also obtained from MA-DEP-DWM. The sample locations and macroinvertebrate locations were placed in ArcGIS 9.1, where it was determined whether they were close enough to each other and whether there were any obstructions between locations. Some valid reasons for eliminating locations from being related to each other included fork in streams, dams, location of discharge facilities, distance between points greater than 1- kilometer (stream length), and sample date. The disparity in the sample date for the water quality and the macroinvertebrate data was not greater than 30 days but was primarily within one week of each other. Land use characteristics for the watershed and 100-ft riparian buffer were calculated using ArcGIS 9.1. A 100-ft riparian buffer was used because of the Wetland Protection Act of Massachusetts which prohibits development within 100-ft of the water body. Once all of the data was combined into one database, redundancy analysis was performed to evaluate the relationships between explanatory (environmental) and response (species) variables. Polynomial regression equations were developed to calculate species metrics and assemblages. The results show a good agreement (R2 ranging between 0.4 and 0.7) between the measured macroinvertebrate index metrics and those predicted by the model.

Suburbanization and Drought: A Mixed Methods Vulnerability Assessment in Rainy Massachusetts
Troy Hill, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University; Colin Polsky, Graduate School of Geography, George Perkins Marsh Institute, and Human-Environment Regional Observatory-Central Massachusetts, Clark University

This paper presents evidence that water-use restrictions in suburbanizing eastern Massachusetts towns are growing in duration, controlling for climate. We then assess the relationship between these suburban droughts and residential development. Focusing on eastern Massachusetts, seven towns independent of the Boston water supply system were selected to represent varying levels of sprawl-style growth. Regression models were specified using the duration of restrictions as the outcome variable, four climate-related independent variables and a non-climate time dummy variable. Modeling was supplemented by forty interviews with local stakeholders, which detailed the non-climatic forces affecting water resources in each region. Water restrictions are becoming more frequent in all of the towns studied, and regression models demonstrate that restrictions are increasing in duration, independent of climate. While many non-climatic factors increase drought sensitivities, interviews suggest that residential development plays a central role in this region. Long-term planning and the integration of land-use and water management communities emerged as two important mechanisms for attenuating the impacts of development.

The forests of Monteverde, Costa Rica are renowned for their biological diversity and the many rare and endemic species that inhabit them. Originally protected for water supply, these forests attract ecologists and tourists to the small community on the leeward slope of the Cordillera de Tilaran. While economically beneficial, the growth associated with the rise of ecotourism has strained water resources. Water for supply is taken directly from streams and springs in these forests with little or no storage, and stream chemistry is significantly affected by the direct discharge of graywater. The community is strongly dependent on precipitation for both water supply and to ensure adequate dilution of its wastewater.

Climate in this mountainous region is controlled by the migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and the steep topography leads to significant spatial variability in precipitation inputs. The rainy season, May through October, is characterized by intense convective events that deliver to Monteverde an average of 2000 mm of rain during these six months. For the remainder of the year, the trade winds increase in strength and carry moisture up from the Caribbean Sea. This orographic uplift keeps the highland forests immersed in clouds and fog, and average rainfall is approximately 600 mm during these drier months. While the dominant input of water occurs during the rainy season, our stable isotope analyses indicate that orographic precipitation maintains stream baseflow during critical periods of the drier season. Combined with recent climate modeling work that predicts an increase in cloud-base height and a concomitant decrease in dry-season precipitation, this indicates a susceptibility of the water resources of Monteverde to a changing climate.

Numerous studies report that climate change induced precipitation intensification will stress civil infrastructures. Climate change preparation, generally called adaptation in the literature, has become a focus of many recent studies, accompanied by recognition of the need for specific projections at the local level.

Our study focused on the White Brook watershed in Keene, NH. Using the current Global Climate Change models (GCM), we projected the percentage of culverts to be under-sized due to an increased frequency of more intense precipitation amounts, which can be expected in this part of the Northeast. We then combined our statistical analysis of the GCM with a watershed build-out projection based on current City zoning. The study also estimated the associated cost to upgrade the projected failed culvert infrastructure. Finally, we sought to clarify the impact of advancements in statistical methods on future design storm estimates.

Results projected 48% of culverts in the study site are likely to be undersized at an upgrade cost of $226,000. Extrapolating this undersized rate to the City's 248 culverts yields a total upgrade cost of $2.5 million, in current dollars. With such projections, the City of Keene, and other such communities, may have a window of opportunity to prepare.

This study makes an important contribution to climate change preparation, by establishing the feasibility of specific estimates of civil infrastructure vulnerabilities, as planners and engineers consider preparing for predicted increases in rainfall intensity and watershed runoff.

The Impervious Cover Model (ICM) has been identified as a useful tool for evaluating stormwater impaired watersheds in New England. The Center for Watershed Protection and other investigators have established a strong correlation between increasing impervious cover and decreasing quality of stream physical, hydrologic, water quality, and biological function. In 2005, EPA Region 1 successfully conducted a set of pilot TMDL projects demonstrating the utility of the ICM for supporting TMDL assessment. In each pilot watershed, %IC was estimated by subbasin and used to efficiently support TMDL development.

Presently, low quality impervious cover data for impaired watersheds limits the accuracy and the value of the ICM for conducting stormwater TMDLs. Impervious cover estimates are typically obtained using out-of-date land cover data and rough empirical estimates of %IC for each type of land cover. The resulting impervious cover maps are on a gross scale with a high level of uncertainty.

Remote sensing can provide accurate, site-specific characterization of impervious cover and can support efficient identification, prioritization, and removal of stormwater sources. The authors will demonstrate the use of high resolution QuickBird satellite imagery to accurately map impervious surface cover for a study area in Arapahoe County, Colorado. This multispectral imagery is particularly well-suited for mapping impervious surfaces. It has 2.4 meter spatial resolution for its 4-band multispectral data and 0.60 meter spatial resolution for its panchromatic data. Two image processing techniques for impervious cover characterization will be described. One technique utilized a whole pixel unsupervised classification method and the other used a pan-sharpened classification approach. Results of an accuracy assessment and compelling examples will be provided. The applicability of these remote sensing techniques for improving stormwater TMDL development and implementation in New England will be discussed.

Estimating Agricultural Nutrient Loads to a Eutrophic Lake using Remote Sensing and Watershed Modeling Tools
Ken Hickey, Brendan Lennon, Brenda Berasi, Scott Stoodley, AMEC Earth & Environmental, Westford, MA

Agricultural nutrient loadings can result in water quality impairment in streams and downstream lakes. The nature and extent of agricultural sources must be sufficiently characterized to support identification of effective mitigative actions to remove impairment. Unfortunately, resource and method limitations often result in insufficient agricultural source characterization to support mitigation. The authors have identified and applied an innovative strategy for quantifying the nature and extent of agricultural nutrient loadings on an impaired lake. This agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) evaluation features application of a combination of remote sensing and watershed modeling techniques.

An innovative agricultural NPS evaluation was conducted in the Grand Lake watershed in Oklahoma. The Grand Lake watershed consists of approximately 46,500 lake acres and 389 stream miles and has been placed on the State’s 303(d) list for nutrients, low dissolved oxygen, and other parameters. The State seeks to effectively target implementation of best management practices (BMPs) within portions of the Grand Lake watershed. As implementation requires active participation of landowners and managers, the program identifies and focuses implementation efforts to areas where they are needed the most and where the environmental benefit will be maximized.

A clear picture of what is occurring in the terrestrial environment is required to effectively understand and correlate the relationship between the ambient water quality problems and terrestrial land-use. To this end, the authors have integrated remote sensing using Landsat 5 TM-based landcover with Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) water quality modeling to identify source areas of pollutants. This combination allows for development of up-to-date accurate landcover data and an estimation of pollutant loads at the field level. Results from this project include a spatial display of targeted areas in need of BMP implementation. This strategy optimizes limited resources by targeting high priority areas that will have the greatest impact.

Effects of 3-D Visualization of Groundwater Modeling for Scenario Planning and Decision Making
Jessica Block, Decision Theater; Ramon Arrowsmith, School of Earth and Space Exploration; Arizona State University

Since the turn of the 20th century, natural hydrologic processes in the greater Phoenix region (Salt River Valley) have been shut down via the construction of dams, canals, wells, water treatment plants, and recharge facilities. Water from rivers that once naturally recharged the groundwater aquifer has thus been diverted while continuing groundwater outflow from wells has drawn the aquifer down hundreds of feet.

The rise of 3-D visualization hardware and software technology provides new opportunities to advance scientific and policy research in water resources. Although the petroleum industry has used immersive 3-D technology since the early 1990s for the visualization of geologic data among experts, there has been little use of this technology for policy decision making. This paper documents a case study in the use of 3-D immersive technology for water resource management in Arizona, using an immersive visualization center designed to combine scientific research with policy decision making. The East Valley Water Forum, a partnership of water providers east of Phoenix, used 3-D immersive technology to build visualizations of the East Salt River Valley groundwater system based on MODFLOW modeling outputs to aid the design of a regional groundwater management plan. The resulting visualizations are now being integrated into policy decisions about long term water management.

Challenges in visualizing scientific information for policy making are addressed and the roles of policy actors (hydrologists, computer scientists, and political decision makers) involved in designing the visualizations are highlighted. The results show that these policy actors respond differently to 3-D visualization techniques based on their experience and objectives. Hydrologists that understood the modeling were comfortable with a very technical visualization, whereas the decision makers require a visualization that emphasizes coupled groundwater and surface water processes and less detail in the modeling outputs in order to understand the hydrologic concepts being shown.

A Systems View of Watershed Management
Richard Vogel, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University

Watershed management efforts have often dealt with individual issues such as stormwater management, water quality management, and land use planning as separate and almost independent issues. A systems view of watershed management involves a comprehensive and holistic approach to watershed management which accounts for the effects of human activities and management decisions on the interrelated natural and human components of the entire watershed system. Several approaches will be discussed for performing comprehensive watershed planning using decision support systems being developed at Tufts University. Decision oriented models which integrate ground and surface water supply management problems with land use planning, as well as stormwater and water quality management will be briefly described.

Carrying Water in a Sieve: Addressing the Gaps Between Science, Public Policy and Water Use
W. Jesse Schwalbaum, Watershed Hydrogeologic, Inc., Amherst, MA

For years there has been a growing awareness that water use in New England (including water supply, wastewater and stormwater) can result in negative impacts to aquatic ecosystems: reductions in stream low flows, impacts to wetlands and vernal pools and water quality impacts. There have been many conferences and symposia devoted to this topic and many new policies and regulations are being developed at the state level. However, there has been relatively little public discussion of the large gaps that continue to exist between scientific assessments of the problem, which are relatively straightforward, and public policies and perceptions, which are complicated by politics, economics, resistance to change and misconceptions regarding the nature of the problem and potential solutions. In order to develop effective public policy to address the environmental impacts of water use it is essential to bridge these gaps.

The first step is to identify the gaps. Using the current state of affairs in Massachusetts, this paper examines some gaps in the translation of science into public policy as well as gaps between public policy, water use and potential improvements to the environment. These gaps can be large enough to effectively nullify well-intentioned (and costly) efforts to protect aquatic ecosystems. This can result in wasted efforts, unabated impacts to the environment and public mistrust of both scientists and policy makers. But an open examination and discussion of these gaps can point the way to closing them and the development of truly effective water policies that benefit both aquatic ecosystems and communities. Current efforts to restore low flows in the Ipswich River Basin will be highlighted.

Water resources management is particularly complex in parts of the developing world due to problems such as limited use of technology, highly variable and changing climates, weak institutional structures, poverty, the prevalence of water-related diseases, over-reliance on agricultural livelihoods, limited markets, and growing urbanization and populations. As shown by several case studies in Africa, watershed management has the potential to be effective if integrated assessment addressing these issues is carried out.

Hydrodiplomacy: Resolving Disputes and Negotiating Agreements between States and Nation-States

Putting the Diplomacy Back in Hydrodiplomacy – How States Can Resolve the Tough Issues
Ken Moraff, New England Region, Environmental Protection Agency

Today’s most pressing water quality problems tend to be characterized by system complexity, data gaps, high remedial costs, uncertainty as to the effectiveness of various remedies, and the intertwining of environmental and political agendas. Each of these issues becomes more difficult to manage when an environmental problem crosses state lines. Once these specific difficulties are recognized, however, approaches can be designed to reduce their influence and make it easier to resolve an interjurisdictional water quality dispute.

Payoff Replication in Agreement Design: An Application to Water Sharing Agreements
Mazen Skaf, Stanford Center on Conflict Resolution and Negotiation, Stanford University
and Strategic Decisions Group, Palo Alto, CA

The approach to agreement design introduced in this paper builds on the concepts of side payments, contingent claims, and replicating portfolios. The separation method through payoff replication, in its simplest form, uses financial engineering to allow one party in a venture to offer each of the other parties the payoff profile of their preferred alternative. The separation method can be applied to a large class of negotiations involving any number of partners negotiating over multiple alternatives for which the payoffs are determined by the same exogenous uncertainty and these payoffs are common knowledge across the states of the uncertainty. The method does not require the negotiating parties to provide any information regarding their beliefs, attitudes toward risk, or time preferences; it is thus immune to misrepresentation related to these parameters. An application of the method to negotiations among nations sharing a river basin further demonstrates the broad scope of its applicability. The analyzed case of two riparian states incorporates the essence of various water crises among nations in more than one part of the world. We further discuss issues related to agreement stability and the readiness of parties to apply this approach to agreement design.

After more than 120 years of being at odds with one another in the aftermath of the War of the Pacific, Bolivia and Chile still today lack official diplomatic relations. Exacerbating the problem is the Silala River dispute, a transboundary body of water flowing from Bolivia into Chile. While the Bolivians claim that the Silala is their own in that the flow of water is artificial, Chile asserts that it is a natural flowing river crossing an international boundary; therefore rightfully theirs to exploit according to international law. This presentation will give an overview of the dispute and use negotiation theory as a basis for exploring potential solutions.

Global Water Policy: Institutional Trends and Infrastructure
Jerome Delli Priscoli, Institute for Water Resources, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Water threatens to be a major source of conflict in the developing world and a challenge in management for developed nations. Dr Delli Priscoli will discuss the approaches being taken across the globe to cope with these growing challenges and the critical need to address the burgeoning infrastructure and governance requirements of both developed and developing countries.

Private Actors in Global Governance: Implications for Water
David Levy, Management, University of Massachusetts Boston

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are critical players in developing the architecture of global governance. In their roles as investors, polluters, innovators, experts, manufacturers, lobbyists, and employers, MNCs constitute an integral part of the fabric of global governance. They are increasingly prominent in negotiating formal intergovernmental regimes and in scientific advisory panels to these regimes. They participate in quasi-private policy bodies such as the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue, which are becoming increasingly influential in trade and investment policy. In collaboration with private and public partners, they establish standards and codes of conduct that govern not just products but also environmental practices and labor conditions. The influence of MNCs on water governance thus extends far beyond lobbying activities. Widespread privatization of water supply systems has changed the nature of governance in these sectors, shifting the burden of governance from the public to the private sphere, often with significant consequences for environmental impacts, quality, access, and pricing. Private corporate strategies are thus deeply political. This presentation will set out a conceptual framework in which global governance is a contested political-economic arena, or ‘field’, engaging firms, nongovernmental organizations, states, and multilateral institutions. This framework will be used to analyze trends in global governance affecting water.

Mediating a Path Towards Regional Water Stability in The Middle East
Sarah Freeman, Ali Akanda, Civil & Environmental Engineering; Maria Placht, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; Tufts University

The Euphrates, longest river in the Middle East, supplies the bulk of freshwater to eastern Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. Due to water intensive development plans, the projected water demands of these riparians are expected to exceed the total flow of the river around 2025. The threat of water shortage is compounded by the GAP (Southern Anatolia Project), a massive, multi-sector, integrated development project in eastern Turkey, which, once fully operational, will consume a third of the river’s mean annual flow for irrigation, hydropower generation, and water supply. Relations between the three countries have been characterized by distrust and a lack of communication, compounded by unilateral development projects and inefficient water management practices. There have been a few efforts to share data and discuss challenges bilaterally; however there has been no trilateral dialogue to jointly manage the waters of the Euphrates.
This paper analyzes the historical and present barriers to negotiations, the interests of the countries, and the physical constraints to allocating water. A WEAP (Water Evaluation and Planning System) model is used to demonstrate that seasonal demand management and efficient irrigation techniques alone cannot reduce the unmet demand in projected future scenarios. Thus, a framework for cooperation that promotes equitable sharing of the river is vital for peace and sustainable development in the region. We prescribe a process, complementary to the existing Track II efforts, which would be triggered by influential third parties that have the legitimacy, capacity, and power to bring the three countries to the table. Mediation, supplemented with incentives and cooperation along a triangle of needs (water, energy, food security), can provide the level of ripeness needed for a breakthrough towards cooperation. Initiating trilateral collaboration between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq is vital for building their water management capacity, addressing disputes, and thus preventing the looming water crisis.

Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Policy: The Case of California's Central Coast
Brian Dowd, Daniel Press, Marc Los Huertos, Carol Shennan, Environmental Studies; Andrew Fisher, Earth Sciences; University of California, Santa Cruz

Nonpoint source discharge from agricultural sources is one of the largest components of ambient waterway pollution in the United States. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the response by policymakers has thus far been relatively ineffective. A moderately-sized literature exists that advises certain policy remedies; however, this literature is primarily model-driven and generally ignores empirical studies of implemented policy responses. The paper first reviews this literature and summarizes its findings. We then turn to the case of California’s Central Coast to analyze the region’s plan to manage agricultural nonpoint source pollution. After an eighteen-month stakeholder process, the local regional water quality control board adopted an effluent permit waiver program that relies on design standards to achieve environmental goals. The waiver also mandates a grower-administered cooperative monitoring program. The paper examines the limits to design standards, monitoring, and funding, noting how the regional board has constructed a politically feasible agreement given these constraints. Despite its political success, it remains to be seen whether the waiver achieves desired and measurable environmental outcomes. We argue that empirical analyses that examine existing agricultural nonpoint source policies can fill a gap in the literature, better inform policymakers of their choices, and suggest directions for scientific research.

Designing Emergency Response Trainings for Small Municipal Drinking Water Systems
Eva Tor and Michael Gorski, Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) Western Regional Office developed a training program for small municipal public water systems (PWSs) to assist them with preparation, response, and communication during drinking water emergencies. The focus of the training included instruction on the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the Incident Command System (ICS), and a review of relevant components of the PWS’s Emergency Response Plans, including Contingency Planning for specific scenarios. Examples of natural disaster scenarios range in complexity from a power outage to response to a hurricane. NIMS compliance and the use of ICS are now required of all emergency first responders, including drinking water providers, by Homeland Security Presidential Directive #5 (HSPD-5). Although police and fire department responders are often familiar with the provisions of NIMS and ICS, PWS officials often lack training in these systems. The final component of the training included the completion of emergency tabletop exercises, varying gradually in severity of the emergencies. MassDEP intends to use this module to train small PWSs at various locations throughout the western Massachusetts region. Evaluation from the PWSs will be obtained and used to develop future training modules.

Covering nearly 200 square miles and storing an estimated 500 billion gallons of water, the Plymouth-Carver Aquifer (PCA) in southeastern Massachusetts is one of the largest aquifers in New England. It provides abundant drinking water, supports cranberry cultivation, feeds hundreds of ponds, and maintains flow to streams. The numerous coastal plain ponds support a variety of globally rare species. In recognition of the importance of the PCA to the coastal plain ponds, the Town of Plymouth partnered with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and hired the Horsley Witten Group to identify potential water supply locations that minimize potential ecological impacts to critical water resources while providing quality water supply capacity into the distant future.
The project was a planning-level analysis that included a GIS evaluation to identify potential land use conflicts, hydrogeologic modeling to identify potential impacts to nearby water resources, and a water supply development plan. Twenty-one potential well sites were identified with favorable geology, maximum separation from sensitive water resources, and minimally developed upgradient contributing areas. Those sites were prioritized based upon proximity to existing water system infrastructure and areas of projected water system expansion. Those sites closest to sensitive water resources were further evaluated using a groundwater model to delineate the contributing areas to subject wells and ponds, and to identify potential drawdown impacts to water resources from the operation of those wells.

The Town is currently conducting detailed field-based investigations of some of the more promising sites from the study. By working cooperatively with TNC from the project inception, and by taking a comprehensive approach to water supply development, the Town is likely to enjoy a simplified permitting process as selected individual sites are developed. In addition, the identification of numerous potential water supply locations will help the Town protect these valuable resources for future needs.

A New England Stormwater Utility Success Story
Charlene Johnston, Andrew Reese, Mary Halley, AMEC Earth & Environmental, Westford, MA

Stormwater utilities provide a steady funding source that allows municipalities to plan, manage, and support stormwater systems. The City of South Burlington was the first municipality in the State of Vermont to form a Stormwater Utility. The South Burlington Utility Feasibility Project started in April 2003 and two years later the first bills were mailed.
These Stormwater Utility bills are comparable to other utility bills such as wastewater and water, in terms of paying a fee in exchange for the use of a service. The South Burlington Stormwater Utility rates were carefully calculated based upon impervious surface area, which allowed the municipality to generate a stable, equitable, and adequate source of revenue in an efficient and defendable manner.

This Utility allows the City to upgrade and implement new effective stormwater treatment measures designed to improve water quality and control water quantity. Improving water quality in South Burlington is an important goal of the program, because South Burlington has six surface waters on the State’s list of impaired waterways, and stormwater runoff is the main culprit.
The City of South Burlington owns and maintains a separate stormwater system with approximately 50 miles of stormwater pipes and over 3,500 catch basins. The City’s storm system inventory was incomplete and some areas had not received the maintenance required. Prior to the stormwater utility program, only $177,000 per year was allocated to stormwater program costs. Now, the South Burlington Stormwater Utility generates approximately $1 million in revenue per year to proactively care for the City’s stormwater system.

This presentation will outline how the City established a Stormwater Utility that provides a stable and adequate source of revenue for the City to investigate, inventory, plan, operate, maintain, repair and construct its stormwater system.

Sustainable Urban Waters and Watersheds - the Fifth Paradigm of Urbanism
Vladimir Novotny, Center for Urban Environmental Studies, Northeastern University; Jack Ahern, Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning, University of Massachusetts Amherst

The authors suggest that throughout the last two millennia, urbanism has experienced four periods and paradigms of urban water and water resources: beginning with the simple reliance on wells for water supply and surface drainage on streets (Paradigm 1) to the current fourth paradigm that considers long distance regional water supply, high imperviousness, underground (sewer) fast conveyance of runoff and sewage, and end–of–pipe treatment. By the end of the last millennium it became evident that the fourth paradigm is not fully working and the integrity goals for the nation’s waters impacted by urbanization expressed in the Clean Water Act will not be fully met no matter how much funding is spent on improving the water/wastewater infrastructure. We are also facing the realities of global warming expected to fundamentally change hydrology and ecology, and significant global population increase, mostly in cities and urban regions.

A sustainable water management paradigm of future cities will be based on “closing the loop” of the total hydrologic cycle of urban areas wherein water supply, stormwater (snowmelt) management and wastewater disposal will be managed as an integrated system. Two main areas of change leading to the new fifth paradigm of urban water and terrestrial hydrological and ecological urban sustainability are:

The concepts of the fifth paradigm of the unified hydrological and ecological urban sustainability were deliberated at the 2006 Wingspread Workshop – “Cities of the Future” and the highlights of this inter-disciplinary workshop will also be included in the presentation.

Demonstration of the Effect Particle Size has on the Design and Performance of Stormwater Quality Systems
Scott Perry, B. Lee, Imbrium Systems, Rockville, MD

Current industry practice relies on evaluation of total suspended solids (TSS) removal to assess and select stormwater best management practices (BMPs). TSS is widely used as a surrogate for trace element pollutants found in stormwater runoff. While particles in stormwater vary in size and typically include clay, silt, sand and gravel, reference to particle size distribution (PSD) in relation to the common performance requirement of 80 percent TSS removal is often neglected. The interpretation of percent TSS removal becomes subjective in the absence of a PSD reference.

Consideration of the size and characteristics of particles in stormwater provides a better assessment of BMP performance. This paper examines the effect of PSD on the design and performance of a stormwater quality manufactured devices using 3rd party certified available laboratory testing data. While numerous studies have and continue to emerge with respect to particle size and associated pollutants, this paper emphasizes the importance of defining stormwater characteristics including PSD in a treatment criteria by design regulation.

Bioremediation of perchlorate (ClO4-), a groundwater contaminant, is thought to be a cost-effective method of perchlorate treatment. This research investigated a novel enrichment culture using elemental sulfur pellets as the energy source for perchlorate reduction. Sulfur pellets are inexpensive and serve as an excellent packing material for both in-situ and ex-situ bioremediation. Use of sulfur as an electron donor has the additional advantage that autotrophic bacteria tend not to produce high levels of matrix-clogging biomass. The overall objective of this project was to investigate the microbial communities that thrive on elemental sulfur to develop a bioremediation processes. In both batch cultures and bioreactor systems, the microbial community could reduce both high (5 ppm) and low (100 ppb) ClO4- concentrations to less than 4 ppb. Samples from batch cultures and bioreactors were investigated using culture dependent and culture independent techniques. The composition of the batch culture community was examined using 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, which identified close relatives from different classes of perchlorate-reducing bacteria (PRB). Detection of the gene for the chlorite dismutase enzyme (cld) further supported the presence of PRB. Culture samples indicated a dominant perchlorate-reducing strain most closely related to Dechloromonas sp. strain JM (a member of the beta-proteobacteria). Microscopic observation showed the cell morphology of a short rod shape, further supporting the similarity of this strain to Dechloromonas sp. Direct identification with fluorescently labeled gene probes specific to this organism confirmed its presence in both batch culture and bioreactor samples. Currently, a dilution to extinction strategy is being used to isolate this novel perchlorate-reducing strain and allow detailed characterization in pure culture. This research will expand the understanding of perchlorate reduction supported by autotrophic bacteria in contaminated aquifer systems.

One hundred twenty-five households in the village of Gandathur (rural Karnataka, India) were examined in a quantitative and qualitative study, assessing the contaminant level of harvested rainwater in relation to the degree of community participation with each catchment system. Data was collected during the summer of 2006 at a site chosen in the southwestern region of India in collaboration with the non-profit organization MYRADA. At the time of data collection, the village had 125 rainwater harvesting structures completed and in use, and 22 under progress. The households with the finished technology were questioned verbally during a community meeting regarding the level, frequency and routine of their operation and maintenance procedure with the harvesting tank, gutter, surface and filtration components. Following the completion of the surveying period, microbial and physicochemical samples were taken of each system. A simple bacteriological test detecting H2S producing bacteria, whose presence is consistently associated with coliform and fecal contamination in water, was utilized on each system. Ten additional samples of 17 physicochemical parameters (pH, turbidity, color, conductivity, total dissolved solids, total hardness, calcium hardness, chloride, nitrate, etc.) were sampled from randomly selected households, bore-wells and from the backwaters of the Kabini River to comparatively assess the quality of the various sources of water. The results revealed that 37 out of the 125 rainwater harvesting systems supplied water that was not suitable for human consumption. It is anticipated that the quality of water will directly correlate to the level of operations and maintenance performed by the households. MYRADA has agreed to educate and provide proper training demonstrations to those households that may be instigating the growth of the harmful bacteria.

Natural Attenuation of Acid Mine Drainage by Microbiological and Hydrological Processes at Davis Mine, Rowe, MA
Caryl Ann Becerra, K. Nüsslein, Microbiology; A. Sengupta, D.P. Ahlfeld, Civil and Environmental Engineering; University of Massachusetts Amherst

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is an acidic, iron-rich leachate that reduces water quality and destroys aquatic life. An abandoned pyrite mine, Davis mine has areas where AMD is generated and areas where AMD is attenuated. To address what biological processes are potentially contributing to the attenuation of AMD at Davis mine, such as elevation of stream pH value and removal of dissolved metals, microcosms of both areas were constructed and the changes in key geochemical parameters within the microcosms were measured over time. Microcosms of an AMD attenuated area displayed higher pH values and lower oxidation-reduction potential values than microcosms of an AMD generating area. The observed trends for the microcosms of the AMD attenuated site were enhanced when supplemented with organic carbon, suggesting that AMD attenuation is biologically influenced. The presence of sulfate-reducers was confirmed through fluorescent in situ hybridization, the presence of a black precipitate of iron sulfide, and accumulation of sulfides as H2S. The increasing concentration of Fe (II) over time indicates that iron reduction was occurring in AMD attenuating area. To address the hydrological influence on the natural attenuation of AMD, the transport and the effects of a suite of chemical reactions to reduce the concentration of ions in the Effluent Creek were investigated through field and computer modeling simulations. Streamwater samples were collected from 2003 to 2005. The stream properties such as dispersivity, exchange between stream/storage zones, and the area of storage zones were determined. Models were generated using OTIS and PHREEQC to determine the influence of sorption, acid-base chemistry, precipitation, dissolution and oxidation-reduction on the decreasing concentration of ions within the 27 m reach of Effluent Creek. Different scenarios were also generated to study the extent of interactions between the different zones, such as streamwater-streambed and stream-storage zones to decrease the concentration of ions in the stream. The investigation of microbiological and hydrological influences on AMD attenuation at Davis mine as a model will provide a better understanding of how AMD can be remediated at other AMD-affected sites.

Blogging Places: Using Social Media to Foster Place Identification and Share Local Knowledge
Tim Lindgren, Instructional Design and eTeaching Services, Boston College

If Henry David Thoreau were alive today, would he keep a blog? Greg Perry’s site, “The Blog of Henry David Thoreau,” helps us picture what this might look like by posting daily entries from Thoreau’s journal. While Thoreau would likely feel ambivalence toward blogging for technological and political reasons, it is not difficult to imagine him finding affinity with those who today identify themselves as “place bloggers.” In much the same way that Thoreau grounded his daily journal writing in his local surroundings, so also place bloggers use the genre as a way to explore the relationship between where they are and who they are. When blogging was first gaining widespread popularity, one group of bloggers created a wiki called “Ecotone: Writing about Place” that served as a portal for those interested in discussing both place and blogging. Between 2003-2005, more than 50 bloggers from around the world contributed 350 posts on a variety of shared topics that encouraged participants to construct a deeper sense of place. More recently, the launch of such sites as placeblogger.com reflects a growing interest in place blogging as a form of citizen journalism designed to enable people to share vital local knowledge with geographically proximate audiences. While the web has often been viewed as a disembedding mechanism that attenuates social relationships and undermines place identification, these sites suggest that place blogging can serve as a tool for re-inhabitation, creating what the Ecotone bloggers describe as an “edge effect” that blurs the real and virtual in productive ways. Place blogging can empower ordinary people to think of themselves as creators of local knowledge, whether as citizen scientists, citizen journalists, nature writers, or urban flâneurs. Because our environments are being shaped by digital networks whether we like it or not, it is incumbent upon those concerned with the health and sustainability of places to examine critically how new communication technologies might reconnect people to where they are and enable like-minded people to create and share vital local knowledge.

The Citizen Scientist: an Emerging Scientific, Social and Economic Voice in Discussions about Water Resources, Wildlife Habitats, and the Impact of Climate Change
Glorianna Davenport, The Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In recent years, public discussion about changing ecosystems has been fueled by scientific data extracted from the environmental sampling, especially that extracted from ice core samples. Collected with amazing precision, these samples speak definitively to characterize the current period as being one of global warming. Whatever the cause, the situation is precarious. While the world’s scientists are focused on obtaining the best data possible and using it to predict future scenarios, billions of people who are not strictly speaking scientists are left to worry about what global warming means to them and their progeny. The schism between scientist and non-scientist has never been more immense. How can we bridge this divide? An important answer lies in making space for the citizen scientist.

Who is the citizen scientist? The citizen scientist actively participates in the accumulation of scientific perspectives and through analysis, reflection, and retelling participates in public discourse about place and policy. What tools and methods best support the activities of the citizen scientist? In the collection mode, wildlife organizations focus on designing a generation of protocols refined for the casual collector; these protocols are associated with place and time stamps that define their authenticity. Increasingly, data collected through these protocols are published on the network in order to encourage annotation by citizen scientists.

Using knowledge gathered in the data gathering and analysis phase permits the citizen scientist to produce interesting and informative stories for the general public as well as for a policy-sensitive local audience. Delivered in-situ on mobile devices or over the Internet, these stories can help foster the emergence of innovative long-range, sustainable management strategies for the natural environment. As we view early results from the citizen scientist model of engagement, we are heartened not only by how this method impacts local management but also by a vision of science education at once more foundational and more inspiring.

The Hudson River Almanac: Creating a Electronic Network of Phenologists
Steve Stanne, Hudson River Estuary Program/NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation and NYS Water Resources Institute, Cornell University

From Manhattan to Troy [NY], the Hudson River is an estuary - a 153 mile long arm of the sea that is home to diverse and abundant fish and wildlife and has a long history of human use as a trade and travel corridor, water supply, pantry, playground, source of aesthetic inspiration, and sewer. In 1987, New York created the Hudson River Estuary Program to conserve the river’s natural resources and ecosystem health, promote public use and enjoyment of the Hudson, and clean up pollution and other impairments. To promote public interaction with and understanding of the river, the program initiated the Hudson River Almanac in 1994, collecting and publishing natural history observations from anglers, boaters, birders, and other laypeople willing to write down what they were seeing on the river. Reports came from sites ranging from the Adirondacks to New York Harbor, and were published in annual volumes recording the phenology of the Hudson–descriptions of the seasonal pulse of life in the estuary. However, production requirements for these books delayed the appearance of the observations by six to eighteen months. In 2003, the Estuary Program took advantage of technology to provide information in more timely and cost efficient fashion. The Almanac became the Hudson River E-Almanac, a free weekly electronic newsletter. The new format also made it easier to search through Almanac records. Back issues are archived on the Department of Environmental Conservation’s website http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/hudson/alm.html; its search engine can find mentions of individual species, notable events, or particular sites. The Almanac is currently delivered as an email, providing one-click immediacy but limiting use of images. Links are provided to websites with further information on topics of interest; as staff and resources allow, this effort could be expanded by creating webpages for items that appear often in the Almanac.

The Wildlife Inventory Project: Citizens Combining the Ancient Skills of Animal Tracking with Modern Data Collection Methods to Monitor Wildlife Activity within the Watershed
Bob Metcalfe, New England Discovery

In 2003 New England Discovery, in partnership with the Powow River Watershed Council, started the ongoing Wildlife Inventory Project in Amesbury Massachusetts. One goal of the project is to collect data on wildlife activity and movement within open space areas of the watershed with the intent of identifying high use areas for feeding and shelter as well as travel corridors used by wildlife. This data is available to schools, environmental organizations and local agencies to aid in determining future land use plans.
A second and equally important project goal was to raise awareness and appreciation of local wildlife and to help people become more familiar with the open space areas within their watershed. This was accomplished by encouraging citizens to participate in the data collection process in the field, as well as attending project review and planning meetings.

Project volunteers are provided basic training in the identification of animal tracks and signs. Volunteer
groups are assigned specific areas to monitor for wildlife activity. Emphasis is placed on finding locations of high activity rather than specific species identification. Several times a year the volunteer groups bring experienced trackers to their locations to confirm identification of what species are using the area.
The data is collected on hand held computers equipped with GPS units. CyberTracker software, developed by Louis Liebenberg, is used to record, map and display project results.

The citizen scientist project Life on the Purple Loosestrife (www.flickr.com/groups/lifeontheloosestrife) was designed to track the use of the invasive wetland plant purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) by other organisms. With the goal of surveying as wide a region as possible, volunteers were recruited using the photography site Flickr and were asked to photograph any plant or animal observed on wild purple loosestrife plants. Forty-three volunteers from three different countries and four different US states have participated in the project so far. Preliminary results revealed the presence of twelve different orders of plants, gastropods, insects and spiders, with forty-three different insect and spider families represented. The insect data was comparable with a peer-reviewed study performed in Canada in 1994, and demonstrates not only that citizen scientist teams are effective at collecting valuable biological data but also that the internet is an effective tool to share such data. While a species survey project of this type will invariably lack depth compared to a typical scientific study performed by experienced biologists, it offers the advantage of greater geographic breadth (with photographers in several U.S. states, the UK, and Japan) and serves as educational outreach to inform the public about invasive species and the importance of wetland habitats. Most importantly, it helps reduce the large gap that exists in the current knowledge about the integration of invasive plants into the natural environment.

Disseminating Wetlands Restoration Planning Information via an Online Document with Interactive Mapping Capabilities
Beth Suedmeyer, Wetlands Restoration Program, Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management

The primary goal of the Great Marsh Coastal Wetlands Restoration Plan is to disseminate information about potential restoration sites to communities in the Great Marsh region. The Plan identifies over 100 potential restoration sites in eight towns on the North Shore of Massachusetts. An online mapping application was desired as a component of the Plan, so users can locate and access information on these sites and know the regional context of each site. Recent advancements in conveying spatial information have improved the way data providers can present, maintain, and disseminate information to the public, and have also increased public expectations of spatial information providers. The Wetland Restoration Program sought open source tools to present the online publication of the Plan so that information on the website could be easily accessed, utilized, and updated. The project required tools that would allow for the integration of information in a variety of formats, namely text files, photographs, database output, and GIS files. The staff of the Wetlands Restoration Program evaluated and identified the best combination of tools available to meet the project needs, staff skills and time, and limited financial resources. This presentation will briefly explain the evaluation process and present the resultant product – an online resource with information on the Plan and the sites identified therein. Google Maps API (application programming interface), a free web map server application, was selected as the tool for the interactive mapping interface, allowing the point file of 100+ sites to be presented as a layer on the Google Maps base maps. The Plan and associated interactive site map can be accessed from www.mass.gov/czm/wrp/planning_pages/gmplan/home.htm.

Strategies for Incorporating IT into Community Science Projects
Robert Stevenson, Biology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Jerry Schoen, Water Resources Research Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Three aspects of information technology (IT) are together producing profound societal change:
1) The hardware and software technologies themselves - e.g. the Internet, digital cameras, handhelds, GPS and GIS, search engines, etc.;
2) Integration of multiple tools into sophisticated end-user applications such as GPS-enabled smart phone cameras; navigation programs with customized point of interest alert systems; Flickr, Youtube, Google Maps, and other user-created content sharing systems; and
3) Human networks that form around use of these tools: e.g. MySpace and Facebook communities; topical and local Wikipedia collaborations; geocaching enthusiasts, etc.

How can organizers of community science initiatives make the best use of existing and emerging IT tools and networks to advance the scientific and community goals of their projects? This discussion session will explore these issues in the context of two case studies: The Hudson River Almanac Project and the Ashuelot Valley Environmental Observatory. Examples from earlier presentations and from audience member experiences will inform the discussion.

Volunteer-based Survey of Aquatic Habitat Continuity in the Ashuelot Watershed of Southwest New Hampshire
David Moon, Ashuelot Valley Environmental Observatory

The Ashuelot River Continuity Project, a partnership of The Nature Conservancy and Ashuelot Valley Environmental Observatory, used a volunteer-based protocol to assess fish habitat fragmentation caused by stream crossing infrastructure in a 425 square-mile watershed. Dams were also assessed by technicians. Over 80 volunteers used an EPA-approved survey method to collect data on 730 culverts and bridges. TNC will analyze data with both a scoring algorithm and GIS to prioritize sites for restoration of habitat connectivity. This protocol is being used in other New England States and may provide an important new tool to watershed restoration efforts.