Only Rain Should Go Down the Storm Drains

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates the discharges into the “waters of the United States,” the rivers, streams, estuary and bays, but in the real, everyday world they don’t really work on the local level. In the case of Virginia (and most other states) they actually do this by delegating to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality the authority to implement the federal Clean Water Act under the Virginia State Water Control Law. While it is the EPA and DEQ who make regulations and inspect for compliance with those regulations, it is the local government, our towns and counties that implements the programs to stop or reduce pollution and encourage compliance with regulations. Prince William County staff translates permits limits and state regulations into action.

The Prince William County department of Public Works implements a series of programs aimed to reduce the release of pollutants into the local stormwater sewer systems to protect our local waterways from pollution to the greatest extent possible. The Prince William County storm water sewer system consists of man-made components (pipes, ditches, and ponds) and natural components (streams, wetlands, and floodplains) that control the flow of storm water to prevent flooding and minimize pollutants entering our waterways. Prince William like much of Virginia, is also engaged in implementing programs to reduce the nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution from the County to not only protect, but to improve the water quality of nearby streams, rivers, wetlands, the Occoquan Bay and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay and its tidal waters have been impaired by the release of excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment. These pollutants are released from waste water treatment plants, agricultural operations, urban and suburban runoff, wastewater facilities, septic systems, air pollution and other sources that enter the tributaries and are carried to the Chesapeake Bay. The EPA has mandated a contamination limit called the TMDL (total maximum daily load for nutrient contamination and sediment) to restore the local waters. The TMDL sets a total Chesapeake Bay watershed limit which is a 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20 % reduction in sediment from the 2011 levels.

The Prince William County Department of Public Works addresses reducing releases from the stormwater sewer system by a series of programs all paid for by the stormwater fee on your property taxes. I spoke with Robert Jocz who is an Environmental Engineer with the County Department of Public Works, Department of Environmental Services in the Watershed Management Branch. Bobby is in charge of the Dry Weather Monitoring Program for the Prince William County stormwater system. He joined the County Staff in 2013 after receiving a master’s degree in Biological Engineering Systems from Virginia Tech. What Bobby and his inspector do is look for illegal discharges (which the U.S. EPA and the County insist on call illicit discharges) into the stormwater sewer system. We talked about the challenges and the new and improved County program and changes that have been made in response to the new stormwater regulation and tighter permit requirements.

Recently, Prince William County set up a demonstration of our stormwater compliance programs for the EPA to use for training state and regional enforcement inspectors. Bobby set up a demonstration of the Dry Weather Monitoring Program at the landfill. There was also a demonstration by Fleet Management Services of their facilities management programs and Fairfax County set up a demonstration of stormwater programs and VDOT. (See EPA Blog for more details.)

​While stormwater itself can be a problem, according to EPA it is a leading cause of pollution in our rivers and streams. When rain falls the stormwater picks up pollution as it flows across roads, parking lots, and open land, picking up oil and grease, litter, dirt and whatever else is on the ground and carrying the water through stormwater sewer systems which have traditionally been only conveyances. They do not treat the water. So any pollution that enters the system get carried right into our rivers, streams, wetlands and bays and this includes any pollution that was intentionally discharged into the stormwater sewer system. All stormwater programs are intended to reduce the flow of pollutants into the stormwater sewer system. Illicit discharges are intentional discharges into the stormwater sewer system; pouring anything down a storm drain is illegal.

Initially, the EPA regulated only the largest industries and city stormwater sewer systems. As the years have passed, EPA has extended regulation down to smaller and smaller entities. In the last few years as regulations have expanded to include stormwater sewer systems outside the urbanized areas, EPA has worked with many municipalities and counties in the region to improve their compliance with stormwater sewer system regulations and permits. Programs have been tightened and expanded to meet the mandated reductions in stormwater volume and pollutants.

As a result, Prince William County and many other local governments have improved their stormwater management programs to further reduce the contamination of stormwater runoff and prohibit illicit discharges into the system by small businesses and individuals. When small businesses wash their company cars and allow the wash water which contains dirt, grease, gasoline to flow into the storm drain in the parking lot, they are essentially pouring that dirty water directly into the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. Likewise, small painting contractors washing their brushes or incorrectly disposing of paint containing water down the storm drain, carpet cleaning companies’ disposal of waste water and cleaning solution into the stormwater sewer system, and others who routinely pour small amounts of waste water into the stormwater system are polluting. All these small pollutants add up. The stormwater system only carries water to our waterways, it does not treat it.

Bobby runs the Dry Weather Monitoring Program. A "dry weather condition" is the period at least 48-hours after the most recent rainfall. If it is not raining, there should be limited flow if any in the stormwater sewer system. Dry weather sampling and monitoring is an effort to isolate potential illegal discharges. Occasionally, people knowingly or unknowingly discharge hazardous waste or other non-storm related waste into the stormwater sewer system. When illicit releases are discovered the first step is education. Bobby and his inspector inform the business or individual that what they are doing is illegal, and though the usual reaction is “it’s only a small amount,” small amounts of pollution quickly add up.

from PW County

If the illicit discharge was by and individual, the first step Bobby and his inspector take is to educate and then get them to agree to comply with the regulations. With small businesses or repeat offenders a “Notice of Violation” is issued that gives them 30 days to come into compliance with regulations of face fines up to $1,000 per day. So far there has been no need to issue fines. Bobby and his inspector revisit the sites to verify continued compliance, but in truth they can only spot check. So far, the largest number of violations have been from washing cars.

To clean up the Chesapeake Bay and meet the requirement of the EPA mandated TMDL we all need to change our behavior to reduce small source of pollution to the stormwater sewer system and our waterways. Individuals are still allowed to wash their automobiles in their driveways, but businesses are not. The car wash that was used as a fundraiser for schools has been banned in many communities and is a source of illicit discharge. You can help clean up our rivers, streams, wetlands and the Occoquan and Chesapeake Bays by not dumping any waste, liquid or trash into the stormwater sewer system or onto the ground that drains to the stormwater sewer system. You can also help Bobby and his inspector protect our waterways by reporting any illicit discharges you observe to the Dry Weather Mentoring Program at Prince William County Department of Public Works (703) 792-7070. Remember, only rain should go down the storm drain.

Should there be Fracking in Virginia?

Fracking for natural gas already exists in Virginia.  It is very controversial and proponents and opponents are very emotional in the views. Though it is an old method of enhancing yield from a well, the recent advances in fracking and horizontal drilling for natural gas have resulted in the ability to economically access natural gas reserves in shale that the U.S. Geological Survey estimates are equivalent to twice the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. This is energy security in a turbulent world. The annual production of methane in the United States had increased 30% from 2005 to about 30,171 billion cubic feet of gas a year.

Fracking is the current method of extracting unconventional oil and natural gas that is locked inside impermeable geological formations. Fracking is enabled by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (thus the name fracking). Fracking or hydraulic fracturing as it is more properly known involves the pressurized injection of fluids made up of mostly water and chemical additives into a geologic formation. The pressure used exceeds the rock strength and the fluid opens or enlarges fractures in the rock. As the formation is fractured, a “propping agent,” such as sand or ceramic beads, is pumped into the fractures to keep them from closing as the pumping pressure is released. The fracturing fluids (water and chemical additives) are partially recovered and returned to the surface or deep well injected for disposal. Natural gas or oil will flow from pores and fractures in the rock into the wells allowing for enhanced access to the methane or oil reserves.

The current debate over fracking centers on the economic benefits, energy security and potential environmental safety of the process. The greenhouse gas emissions from a coal-fired power plant can be reduced by about half and the mercury and sulfur emissions eliminated if the plant is replaced by a natural gas fired power plant. Opponents cite the potential negative health and environmental effects as reasons to ban the practice, while proponents tout its economic benefits, positive environmental impact of cleaner and lower carbon energy than coal, and energy security.

The environmental concerns include air pollution from the operation of heavy equipment, human health effects for workers and people living near well pads from chemical exposure, noise and dust, induced seismicity from the disposal of fracking fluids, and increased greenhouse gas emissions from poor well head control and continued use of hydrocarbons. However, the biggest health and environmental concerns remains the potential for drinking water contamination from fracturing fluids, natural formation waters, and stray gases. If fracking is done carefully and properly the safely extracted gas can reduce air pollution and even water use in electrical generation compared with coal and oil. However, the availability of vast quantities of natural gas is likely to slow the adoption of renewable energy sources and, if fracking is done poorly toxic chemicals from fracking fluid could be released into our water supplies and methane could be release to the air. (See Methane Regulations Coming Our Way and Virginia and EPA’s CO2 Cap)

Virginia has entered this debate, as untapped natural gas deposits are located within certain areas of the Commonwealth. The use of fracking has a long history in Virginia going back to the 1950s. A nitrogen-based foam has historically been used in the fracking process here. Natural gas from conventional reserves and coal bed methane has been produced in the Appalachian plan (in the southwestern area) of the Commonwealth where drilling and coal mining are significant portions of the local economy.

Currently, there are more than 7,700 natural gas wells in the Appalachian plane where drilling required fracking in the extraction process. To date, there have not been any reports of adverse effects on water quality from the fracking. The other environmental impact of an industrial process is not much different from coal mining, dust, constant truck traffic, noise. The expansion of coal bed methane production has been in rural Buchanan and Dickenson counties.

Other areas in Virginia are known to have methane reserves that could be accessed by fracking. The George Washington National Forest is the largest protected forest in the eastern United States at 1.1 million acres in the mountains of Virginia. Approximately half of the forest sits atop the Marcellus shale deposit. The U.S. Forest Service announced November 2014 that it will allow oil and gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing or any other legal and regulatory approved method, but only in the 16% of the forest with existing leases and privately owned oil and gas rights. This final plan reversed a 2011 Environmental Impact Assessment that recommended allowing drilling in 993,000 acres of 1.1-million-acre forest, but banned hydraulic fracking. The finalized plan will allow drilling on 10,000 acres in the forest now leased for energy development and on 167,000 acres whose mineral rights are privately owned. (The government never owned those rights. When the government acquired the land for the forest the owners retained the mineral rights.) Currently, there are no active gas wells in the forest or in surrounding private tracts.

The Taylorsville Basin is located north of Richmond and extends across the Virginia Coastal Plain in the tidewater region of the state. In a 2011 study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the area could contain up to 1.06 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, not huge, but worthwhile economically. Shore Exploration, a Texas-based energy company, has reportedly leased the mineral rights from more than 80,000 acres in Virginia’s Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula spanning large sections of King George, Caroline, Westmoreland, Essex, and King and Queen Counties.

Currently, Virginia law prohibits drilling in the Chesapeake Bay waters and all of the tidal tributaries, but outlines the path for drilling to proceed in the non-prohibited areas of the tidewater region. Whether or not to allow drilling in areas that are not areas identified as part of the Chesapeake Bay waters and tidal tributaries is a regulatory decision, controlled by the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME). Basically, in order to grant a permit, DMME must undertake an environmental impact assessment in consultation with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). However, DMME is only obligated to consider the findings of the assessment, and ultimately maintains the full authority to issue the permit. Local communities that might be significantly impacted by truck traffic, there is no pipeline, no source of water for a hydraulic fracturing so thousands of truck loads would have to run on small rural roads.

On average, 3-5 million gallons of water are forced under high pressure into each well. Water must be transported to the fracking site in trucks that normally hold approximately 4,500 gallons of water. This means even with reusing the flowback from other wells hundreds of truckloads of water are required for each well. In addition to the mixing trucks that are necessary for adding the required fracking chemicals.

But the major concern over the water use stems from the “flowback” and “produced water” that resurfaces after the rock has been fractured or is produced from the well. It is typical for about a quarter of the water used to return to the surface over the life of the well. Only a small fraction, about 250,000 returns to the surface in the first weeks after the well is drilled. Still the flowback water must be safely collected, stored and treated. An appropriate regulatory structure for addressing flowback does not really exist in Virginia. Typically, large surface ponds are used to store this water, which is polluted with the various fracking chemicals, naturally occurring salts, and naturally occurring radioactive compounds. If the water meets specific standards after being tested, it can be applied to the local land for disposal. If it fails to meet those standards, it must be safely transported to an approved disposal facility. Unfortunately, there is no approved disposal facility.

There is significant concern that the contaminated water would be improperly stored for extended periods of time and could infiltrate into the ground and ultimately contaminate the Potomac Aquifer, which is the sole water supply for over half a million people in eastern Virginia. In addition, extracting natural gas reserves from the Taylorsville Basin would require drilling through the Potomac Aquifer. The real question is where should fracking be allowed?

Test Your Home for Radon

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has named January as national Radon Action Month, in hopes of getting as many people as possible to test their homes for radon. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas produced by the breakdown of uranium, thorium, radium, and other radioactive elements that naturally occur in granites as well as some metamorphic and sedimentary rocks in soil, rock, and water and is widespread in the United States. Radon is an odorless, clear radioactive gas that can cause cancer. Most people only test their home at purchase, but the It is a good idea to retest your home if you make any changes to the structure and every few years to be sure radon levels remain low. In addition, if your home has a radon mitigation system, it is important to monitor the system and retest at least every two years to make sure the system is functioning.

According to the EPA about 21,000 people die each year from lung cancer caused by long term exposure to elevated levels of radon in their homes. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the general population, and is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. As radon gas is released from bedrock, it migrates upward through the soil and can seep into the basements of houses and other buildings through dirt floors, cracks in concrete, and floor drains. Radon has a tendency to accumulate in enclosed spaces such as buildings. Air pressure inside your home is usually lower than pressure in the soil around your home's foundation. Because of this difference in pressure, your home acts like a vacuum, drawing radon in through foundation cracks and other openings. Radon, in its natural state cannot be detected with human senses- you cannot see, taste or smell it. The only way to detect radon is to test.

Ambient levels of about 0.4 picocuries per liter, pCi/L, of radon are typically found in the outside air. EPA recommends mitigating radon if the results of one long-term test or the average of two short-term tests show radon levels of 4 pCi/L or higher. According to the EPA, radon levels in most homes can be reduced to 2 pCi/L or below using standard mitigation techniques. Short term radon testing kits consist of a container of granular activated charcoal. The charcoal absorbs the radon gas entering the canister from the surrounding air. At the end of the radon gas test period, typically 3-7 days the canister is sealed and sent to the laboratory in the pre-paid mailer for analysis. There are also 90 day test kits. I have been thinking of trying one of those this winter.

Radon mitigation takes one of two approaches either preventing the radon from entering the home or reducing the radon levels by dilution after the radon has entered the home. There are several techniques that can be used depending on the type of foundation the home has. It is better to prevent radon from entering the home in the first place so I will discuss the preferred methods of prevention. The type of foundation, construction materials and condition will determine the kind of radon reduction system that will work best. Homes are built with some kind of foundation- a basement, slab-on-grade, a crawlspace, or a combination of the three. It is common to have a basement under part of the home and to have a slab-on-grade or crawlspace under the rest of the home. In these situations a combination of radon reduction techniques may be needed to reduce radon levels to below 4 pCi/L, which the EPA says is a safe level, but be aware that there is a synergistic risk from active smoking and radon exposure that increases the risk of getting lung cancer.

Soil suction techniques are the preferred method of mitigation and prevents radon from entering your home by drawing the radon from below the home and venting it through a pipe(s) to the air above the home or outside the house where it is diluted by the ambient air. An effective method to reduce radon levels homes with crawl spaces is covering the dirt floor of the crawl space with a high-density plastic sheet. A vent pipe and fan are then installed and used to draw the radon from under the sheet and vent it to the outdoors. This is called sub-membrane suction, and according to the EPA when properly installed is the most effective way to reduce radon levels home with crawlspaces.

In homes with concrete slab foundations or basements, sub-slab depressurization is the most reliable radon reduction method. One or more suction pipes are inserted through the floor slab into the crushed rock or soil underneath the home and a fan is used to draw the radon from under the slab or basement floor to a roof or wall vent. It is possible, and in many cases preferable, to install the suction pipe under the slab by running the pipe on the outside of the house. Another variation is to use the drain tiles or perforated pipe that are installed in modern homes to keep basements dry. Suction on these tiles or pipes can be effective in reducing radon levels. This system is most effective if the drain tiles are on the inside of the footer, sealed beneath the floor and form a complete loop around the foundation of the building. In homes that have sump pumps the sump can be capped so that it can continue to drain water and serve as the location for a radon suction pipe. There are kits that can be purchased for capping the sump pump. It is important that the sump cover lid is readily removable for service of the sump pump.

There are several other techniques such as sealing cracks and passive methods that are often installed in new construction that are not as effective as active depressurization of the slab, basement or crawl space. As a temporary measure ventilation will reduce the radon levels by introducing more outside air, but it will increase your heating and cooling bills. After a mitigation system is installed do confirmation testing of radon levels before you make the last payment to the contractor to ensure that the mitigation system works. For more information of mitigation approaches and techniques see the EPA’s Consumer's Guide to Radon Reduction .

Methane Regulation Coming Our Way

from EPA

Last Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially announced the next set of regulations for the United States to address climate change; EPA will set standards for methane and VOC emissions from new and modified oil and gas wells, and natural gas processing and transmission plants. By summer of 2015 EPA will issue a proposed rule and a final rule will follow in 2016. As with the power sector, EPA plans to first regulate new methane emissions, then circle back and regulate the existing sources of methane emissions.

Regulation of existing oil and gas wells will begin ahead of EPA regulations for the oil and gas industry. Using the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Administration will begin tightening the regulations on existing oil and gas wells by toughening the standards for operating gas and oil wells on federal land. The new standards will be designed to reduce venting, flaring, and leaks of natural gas, which is primarily methane, from these oil and gas wells. These standards, to be proposed this spring, will address both new and existing oil and gas wells on public lands and will serve as a test run on regulating existing oil and gas wells.

The Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will propose natural gas pipeline safety standards in 2015 aimed at reducing leaks and releases from pipelines. The Department of Energy (DOE) will develop and demonstrate more cost-effective technologies to detect and reduce losses from natural gas transmission and distribution systems that is believed to represent over 22% of methane gas losses in the sector. The DOE effort will include efforts to repair leaks and develop the next generation of compressors. According to the EPA the President’s budget will propose $10 million to launch a program at DOE to examine the scope of leaks from gas distribution systems, pipelines and compressor plants to examine their contribution to global warming.

Two years ago Robert B. Jackson, Professor of Global Environmental Change at Duke University and Nathan Phillips, associate professor at Boston University Department of Earth and Environment collaborated with Robert Ackley of Gas Safety Inc., and Eric Crosson of Picarro Inc., to perform a study of gas leaks in Boston. They mapped the gas leaks under the city using a new, high-precision methane analyzer. The researchers discovered 3,356 leaks. The leaks were found to be associated with old cast-iron underground pipes, infrastructure that had not been maintained. The team went on to document leaks in Washington DC, but EPA wants to quantify the emissions of the entire wholesale and retail distribution system. In addition to the explosion hazard, methane, the primary ingredient of natural gas, is a powerful greenhouse gas that degrades air quality. Leaks in the United States are reported to contribute to $3 billion of lost and unaccounted for natural gas each year.

The White House set a new target for the U.S. to cut methane emissions in the energy sector by 40% to 45% by 2025, compared with 2012 levels. Methane emissions in the energy sector represent only about 30% of the total. Methane emissions come from diverse sources and sectors of the economy, unevenly dispersed across the nation and not well tracked. That is why the EPA wants to begin to better quantify the emissions. There is little hard data on methane emissions; nonetheless, the estimates below are the best available and the Administration has used them to develop the current methane mitigation plan for the energy sector. You’ll note that the methane emissions from natural gas systems has decreased by about 15% from 2005 to 2012 despite the production of natural gas increasing by about 50% during that time period.

Over the last two hundred and fifty years, the concentration of methane in our atmosphere has increased by 151% to 1.8 parts per million. Methane is the primary component in natural gas, methane is emitted to the atmosphere during the production, processing, storage, transmission, and distribution of natural gas and because gas is often found alongside petroleum which is often much more valuable, methane is sometimes vented to the atmosphere rather than captured during oil production. Methane is also produced from the decomposition of human and animal waste as well as garbage and is the major component of landfill gas. Methane is also released from the natural biological process of enteric fermentation which is fermentation that takes place in the digestive systems of animals. In particular, ruminant animals that have two stomachs and eat grasses (cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, and camels) produce and release methane by “passing gas” from the microbial fermentation that breaks down the grass and hay into soluble products that can be utilized by the animal. To significantly reduce the methane released from enertic fermentation it might be necessary to reduce the cattle and sheep population and the share of the American diet that is beef, lamb and dairy products. Finally, when natural gas and other petroleum products are used as a fuel incomplete combustion releases traces of methane.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), methane is more than 20-25 times more effective as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. So eventhough it is a much smaller component of the atmosphere, controlling methane emissions is essential to the Administrations plans to address climate change, though unfortunately “addressing” will not stop climate change. If you recall it is the greenhouse effect that is expected to increase the sensitivity of the climate to carbon dioxide, methane and the other greenhouse gases. According to climate scientists we have passed the tipping point and there is no stopping the climate trajectory predicted by the models that have been developed to understand and predict the climate of earth. However, detecting and reducing gas leaks are critical not only for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also for improving air quality and consumer safety, and saving consumers money.

from EPA

Dominion Power Lines through the Rural Crescent

Fighting to protect the Rural Crescent and our way of life in Western Prince William County is a never ending battle. The latest threat: a new power line controversy has emerged. This time Dominion is proposing a 230 kilovolt double circuit transmission line that would start at an existing power facility southeast of the Interstate 66-Prince William County Parkway intersection in Gainesville and go west 6 miles before turning north, and traveling west of route 15 and cutting a path through the rural crescent for about 12 miles or so. The proposed transmission line would be run on steel poles, with an average height of 110 feet, and require 100-120 foot wide path for the right of way, according to information available from Dominion Power. A Town Hall meeting at Battlefield High School on Monday evening drew about a thousand people. 

The community is up in arms about running the above adding this level of infrastructure in the form of ground transmission lines through the bucolic Rural Crescent. This will not only damage the beauty and integrity of the Rural Crescent, but we will have to pay for the infrastructure in our monthly power bills. According to the Prince William County Planning website, these power lines are for a data center at 15505 John Marshall Highway in Haymarket called "Midwood Center" and it is rumored to be built for Amazon. Data centers are the massive banks of computer servers that hold the internet together. Data centers create and operate the “cloud,” specifically, Amazon and others lease computing capacity. These facilities are primarily powered from the grid, but generators and batteries are always necessary to provide backup power if the grid goes down.

Though we do not generally think of it that way, a data center is an industrial use, not a commercial use in its need for square footage and power with a very large carbon footprint, diesel generators and fuel storage tanks. The grass roots group Protect PWC should not only be concerned about the appearance of the power towers, they should also be concerned about what this will ultimately do to our power costs. We all get to pay for the infrastructure in our monthly electric bills. Data centers may be industrial in their energy and environmental footprint, but they employ very few people and pay only limited taxes.

Amazon already runs data centers in Northern Virginia. Reportedly there are eight. In Manassas alone Amazon has two data centers that are run out of three buildings that look like large warehouses with green, corrugated sides. Air ducts big enough to accommodate industrial cooling systems run along the rooftops; large diesel generators sit in rows around the outside to ensure an uninterrupted power supply and internet. In 2010, Amazon was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for installing and operating diesel generators without the required permits. Great, so they are not even good neighbors.

Data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy. According to the New York Times data centers are typically run at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand, so capacity is always available. As a result, data centers can waste the majority of the electricity they pull off the grid. The New York Times had the consulting firm McKinsey analyze energy use by data centers and found that, on average, they were using only 6 - 12 % of the electricity powering their servers to perform computations. The rest was essentially used to keep servers idling and ready in case of a surge in activity that could slow or crash their systems.

In 2013 data centers used 2.25% of the power generated in the United States, and data center power use is reportedly growing at 20% a year and expected to reach 153 billion kilowatt hours in 2020. Energy costs (and security) are the biggest decision factor in locating energy-hungry data centers. Virginia, with its low cost nuclear and coal powered electricity is an attractive location for a power hungry use. However, the arrival of the data centers combined with the new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on electrical power plants, our cost of electricity will not be low for long.

In June 2014 EPA announced their Clean Power Plan; carbon emissions regulations for existing power plants. A state-specific compliance plan is due to the EPA for review and approval in June 2016. Virginia is currently at 1,438 lbs. of CO2 emitted per megawatt hour of electricity generated and we need to be at 991 lbs. of CO2 per megawatt hour in 2020 and 810 lbs. of CO2 per megawatt hour of electricity generated in 2030 to be in compliance with the EPA Clean Power Plan mandate. In the proposed regulations, 2012 is the actual baseline year chosen by the EPA to calculate the interim and final CO2 goals for each state. However, with Amazon building data centers that each use more power than thousands of homes, added since the base year, we will have to accommodate their demand in our plan.

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, the State Corporation Commission, worked with a consulting team to determine whether Virginia could comply with the proposed EPA Clean Power Plan. They identified four scenarios that allowed Virginia to meet the 2020 goal of 991 lbs. of CO2 per megawatt hour. All four of the successful scenarios include major increases in the use of natural gas fueled electrical generation and a need for expansion of the existing natural gas pipeline network into the Commonwealth and reduction in coal generated capacity as well as significant increases in the amount of renewable energy in the power generation base.

Our existing coal fired power plants will have to be replaced. The simple truth is that coal emits 2,268 lbs. of CO2 per Megawatt hour while the natural gas fired turbines emits 903 lbs. of CO2 per Megawatt hour. As the EPA mandated cap in CO2 emissions assigned to us is forcing us to build new low CO2 power generation capacity, Amazon and other data centers reeves up the demand for electricity without creating more than a handful of jobs or significantly paying for the infrastructure necessary to provide that low CO2 electricity: the power lines, lower CO2 electrical generating capacity, the gas pipeline necessary to generate more power at lower CO2, the renewable no CO2 generation etc. Virginia gets to pay for that in increased power costs.

Keystone XL Pipeline: the Latest

On Friday, January 9 the Nebraska State Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of landowners opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, but under Nebraska law, five judges are needed to declare a statute passed by the legislature and signed by the governor unconstitutional and therefore, the court said, the measure passed in 2012 “must stand by default.” The law under question was Nebraska law LB 1161 that Governor Heineman used to sign the January 2013 recommendation to the U.S. Department of State for a Presidential Permit for the Keystone XL pipeline to cross the international The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) had recommended approval of the revised route for the pipeline that had been selected with their guidance

Under LB 1161 a pipeline carrier submits a route for evaluation by the Nebraska DEQ and receives the Governor's approval instead of obtaining approval from, the Public Service Commission, PSC, under the requirements of an older law called the Major Pipeline Siting Act (MOSPA) that was actually went into effect after the Keystone XL Pipeline application was submitted to the United States Department of State. The newer law LB 1161 was an amendment to MOPSA to exempt any major oil pipeline that had submitted an application to the United States Department of State under Executive Order 13337 prior to MOPSA's effective date. The only oil pipeline to fit within this exemption was the Keystone XL Pipeline.

The MOSPA process includes review by the Nebraska DEQ, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Revenue, and Department of Roads, the Game and Parks Commission, Nebraska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Nebraska State Historical Society, State Fire Marshal, and Board of Educational Lands and Funds and also requires the PSC to schedule a public hearing within 60 days of receiving an application. LB 1161 allowed the Keystone XL project to shorten this process for their revised route.

A Judge in a lower court had found that under the Nebraska’s State Constitution, exclusive regulatory control over pipelines like the Keystone XL must be exercised by the Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC), and cannot be given to the Governor, and that LB 1161 must be declared unconstitutional and void. Though the Judge stated in her opinion that “such a declaration should not be misconstrued as an indictment of the work done by NDEQ in conducting the comprehensive evaluation required by LB 1161, or the conclusions reached by the Governor after reviewing NDEQ's Final Evaluation Report and approving the Keystone XL Pipeline route.”

The three Plaintiffs in the case are residents and taxpayers of the State of Nebraska. Each Plaintiff owns land or is the beneficiary of a trust holding land that was, or still is, in the path of one or more proposed pipeline routes for the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Defendants were the Governor, the Director of the Nebraska DEQ and the Nebraska State Treasurer. The Defendants argued that the Plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge LB 1161 and the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, and should have dismissed the case. The Nebraska Supreme Court had three of the panel judges conclude the landowners did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit. As a result, they declined to address the larger constitutional question. Though four of the judges concluded the routing law “violates fundamental constitutional limits on government power in Nebraska,” a supermajority of five judges is required to declare a law unconstitutional and the law stands.

On April 18, 2012, TransCanada submitted a new "Initial Report Identifying Alternative and Preferred Corridors for Nebraska Reroute" to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, NDEQ, for evaluation (paid for by TransCanada) of new route for the Keystone XL Pipeline project under the requirements of LB 1161. This application for a NDEQ review of a new route was followed in May 4th 2012 by a new application to the United States Department of State for a Presidential Permit to construct and operate the Keystone XL Pipeline.

On January 31, 2014, the U.S. Department of State released the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL Pipeline. The executive summary states that Keystone XL is “unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States based on expected oil prices, oil-sands supply costs, transport costs and supply-demand scenarios.” In other words, no matter what action the Administration chooses to take on this portion of the pipeline-approve, reject, or stall- the oil sands are not staying in the ground in Canada.

The Department of State opened a 30 day comment period on February 5, 2014 then in April the administration announced that they would be delaying the decision until after the Nebraska Supreme Court decided the case. There has never been a timeline for making a decision, but the time has come to fish or cut bait. Secretary Kerry is empowered to make the final decision, though the White House has always controlled the process and now will be forced to make a decision because congress is taking action. Now a bill that authorizes the Keystone XL pipeline to cross the international boarder has passed the U.S. House of representatives 266-153 and is headed to the U.S. Senate where it is expected to pass, but does not have the majority necessary to override a Presidential veto. The bill should arrive on the President’s desk next week.

Though the President will veto the bill, it is just  a pipeline, the crude oil is not staying in the ground it will come by pipeline, boat, truck or rail road. As Marcia McNutt, the editor in chief of the AAAS journal Science stated in a recent editorial moving the Canadian crude by pipeline is the least environmentally damaging and safest method of transporting oil. There is currently a pipeline Keystone I that runs east from Hardesty Saskatchewan to Manitoba and then south through the Dakotas to Steel City, Nebraska. It is a less direct route and is a lower volume pipeline. Keystone II runs from Steel City to Cushing, Oklahoma at the Oklahoma storage facilities. Keystone III running from the Cushing Oklahoma to the Nederland, Texas began delivering crude oil from Cushing, OK, to the oil refineries in Texas on Wednesday, January 22, 2014. The Gulf Coast Project, Keystone III, did not require a Presidential Permit because it does not cross an international border.

The Bay Report Card

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation's 2014 State of the Bay Report has been released. This report uses 13 indicators in three categories: pollution, habitat, and fisheries to offer an assessment of the health of the Chesapeake Bay. According to the report the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay is unchanged since 2012. The 2014 report notes improvements in dissolved oxygen, water clarity, oysters, and underwater grasses. Nitrogen, toxics, shad, resource lands, forested buffers, and wetlands were unchanged. Declines were seen in rockfish, and blue crabs and the phosphorus score. The 2014 phosphorus score dropped because annual phosphorus loads were higher in 2014 compared to 2012, particularly in the Potomac and James Rivers and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore home of all those poultry confined feed lots. According to a Maryland state study, each chicken generates approximately 0.41 lbs. of Nitrogen per year and around 0.35 pounds of phosphorus per year. (Human waste contains around 0.15 pounds of phosphorus per pound of nitrogen.)

The 2014 State of the Bay Report scores the health of the bay at 32 out of 100, a D+ according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. When I was in school anything below a 60 was an F. However, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation grades on a curve. The current goals of all the Environmental Protection Agency mandated Watershed Implementation Plans is a grade of 70, which would represent a saved Bay according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. If you recall the EPA mandated a contamination limit called the TMDL (total maximum daily load for nutrient contamination and sediment) to restore the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. The TMDL sets a total Chesapeake Bay watershed limits for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that were then partitioned to the various states and river basins. Each of the states and Washington DC were required to submit and have approved by the EPA a detailed plan of how they intend to achieve the pollution reduction goals assigned to them. These plans are called the Watershed Implementation Plans, WIPs, but the Chesapeake Bay Foundation refers to them as the “Clean Water Blueprint.”

In case you are wondering what constitutes a 100, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation says that the unspoiled Bay ecosystem described by Captain John Smith in the 1600s, with extensive forests and wetlands, clear water, abundant fish and oysters, and lush growths of submerged vegetation would rate a 100 on their scale.

Reducing pollution from agriculture is the goal of the Watershed Implementation Plans and the key to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. An often stated fact is that agriculture is the largest source of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. What is usually not reported is that agriculture is the largest source of nutrient pollution because it is the largest active land use in the region not because agriculture is more polluting than other land uses. According to the Chesapeake Bay model, agricultural land represents almost twice the land as the developed areas. Bay-wide, agriculture is not on pace to meet the 2017 WIP benchmarks, though Virginia is on track thanks to a very successful implementation of a stream exclusion fencing program that has the state paying 100% of the cost of the fencing. However, urban and suburban stormwater runoff is heading in the wrong direction.

Farmers have made progress, especially in Virginia, but not enough. Reducing pollution from agriculture and converting acreage to stream buffers and restoring wetlands is the cheapest way to reduce pollution, and the states WIPs expect to get 75 % of their nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution reductions from agriculture. Even with using the agricultural lands to achieve most of the pollution reductions, the costs of the Watershed Implementation plans are astronomical, about $13.6-$15.7 billion in Virginia alone.

from Chesapeake Bay Foundation report

With budget shortfalls throughout the region, it is important to maintain and expand the cost-share funding for agriculture and the budgets for the Conservation Districts that implement and monitor these programs. If we fail to meet the EPA mandated reductions in nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution EPA has threatened to enforce reductions using litigation and enforcement actions to achieve the reductions using point sources (waste water treatment plants and stormwater permits). Using stormwater retrofits to achieve reductions would bankrupt the state.

In Praise of Nutrient Trading in Virginia

In mid-December Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy and the Secretary of Agriculture all gathered in Fairfax County Virginia to applaud the expansion of the Virginia Nutrient Trading Program to meet the requirements of the U.S. EPA approved and mandated Watershed Implementation Plan. The nutrient trading program is an appealing, flexible and cost effective way to meet and maintain water quality goals. So, let’s back up and explain what is going on.

Volunteers in planting trees to reduce erosion along a stream

The Chesapeake Bay and its tidal waters have been impaired by the release of excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment. The EPA mandated a contamination limit called the TMDL (total maximum daily load for nutrient contamination and sediment) to restore the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. The TMDL sets a total Chesapeake Bay watershed limits for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that was about a 25% reduction from 2011 discharge levels for the six Chesapeake Bay watershed states and Washington DC. The pollution limits were then partitioned to the various states and river basins based on the Chesapeake Bay computer model and monitoring data. Each of the states and Washington DC were required to submit and have approved by the EPA a detailed plan of how they intend to achieve the pollution reduction goals assigned to them. These plans are called the Watershed Implementation Plans, WIPs. The Virginia WIP outlines a series of pollution control measures and strategies on how we are going to achieve and fund the pollution control necessary to meet the EPA mandate.

One of the key strategies was expansion of the Virginia’s successful nutrient trading program. Legislation passed in 2005 created the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Nutrient Credit Exchange Program and provides Virginia’s regulated pollution sources in the Bay watershed with the opportunity to meet required nutrient reductions through trading. The legislation also allows “point sources” like waste water treatment plants to purchase nutrient reductions from “nonpoint” sources like farms to offset new or increased nutrient discharges in excess of established load caps. Until recently the program had primarily been used by waste water treatment plants to offset the additional pollution loads from population growth. The Virginia nutrient trading program is based on the successful cap and trade program that was created to comply with the Clean Air Act’s Acid Rain Program limits for sulfur dioxide.

Virginia has managed to find other ways to utilize nutrient trading to reduce compliance costs for large point and non-point generators of nutrient contamination. The example cited by EPA Administrator McCarthy was the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) who used banked pollution credits generated from farmers implementing Best Management Practices and riparian buffer stream bank plantings to off-set storm water pollution during road construction under increased Federal and State stormwater regulations that would have required building stormwater retention ponds and sediment filters for each construction section. VDOT did install permanent stormwater management infrastructure (using both traditional stormwater management and low impact strategies for the completed road, but using traded credits allowed them to avoid the wasteful building of temporary structures for the construction process yet reduce stormwater pollution on streams during construction.

Waste water treatment plants have predominately treaded among themselves. New expanded waste water treatment plans trade the excess credits that result for years after an expansion until the community “grows” into the plant, while those plants that have outgrown their facilities or need to meet more stringent standards by the credits. Some waste water treatment plants also created multi-year contracts with farmer to install nutrient reduction Best Management Practices during periods before expansion and improvement projects to meet tighter regulation or growth in the population served. There are critics of the program who oppose pollution trading because it allows polluters to buy their way out of controlling their pollution or restoring their degradation. The critics see only that entities are paying to pollute. However, with a growing population only a trading program can provide a framework to offset the inevitable additional pollution loads that come with more people.

Some critics are concerned about the potential for fraud or abuse. However, as you can see in the examples cited above this strategy allows for offsetting a short lived environmental impact without a huge and ultimately wasteful capital expenditure. There are limits to resources including capital, and a trading framework allows for cost effective temporary or longer term solutions. In the examples above in Virginia the permitted entity is required to verify and report the offset credits. Since most permitted facilities are VDOT, public waste water treatment plants and municipalities with storm water permits one hopes their veracity can be depended on to a greater extent and they have the ability to partner with Conservation Districts who have the expertise to evaluate the Best Management Practices in place.

Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed Nutrient Credit Exchange Program requires a level of Best Management Practice implementation called for in the nutrient tributary strategies to achieve nutrient reductions. You must achieve this level of nutrient reduction (known as the baseline) before you are allowed to generate and sell offsets to potential trading partners. Once the baseline level of nutrient reductions is achieved, additional reductions using approved Best Management Practices or land use conversions are eligible to generate offsets for trading. Cost share dollars can be used to implement the BMPs that achieve the baseline, which must be completed on the entire USDA Farm Services Agency tract before generating tradable credits. The program uses the incentive of earning additional dollars and cost share to further push all farmers to implement Best Management Practices on all their lands.

For a trading program to succeed there needs to be a regular and predictable demand for credits and a fairly straightforward and simple way to obtain the needed credits. Realistically the program will be limited to meeting the compliance needs of county and township stormwater permits, VDOT construction projects and if counties participate in facilitation and mandate the use then for construction projects large and small. The need for credits could be reasonably projected by county staff.

To allow for future population growth there might be a permanent demand for offsets by newer communities. The annual payments, maintenance of Best Management Practices or and use conversions and verifications could be funded by homeowner association fees. Every acre of development requires many more acres of supporting infrastructure development, schools, roads, shopping centers, churches, and public buildings. All this development increases runoff and additional nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment loads from sewer and septic systems and stormwater runoff from pavement and yards. Virginia has plans to “seed” the program to install some eligible credits in the Water Quality Improvement Fund for each watershed. In order for this to work the Conservation Districts in each watershed must have adequate funding, training and incentives. The dollars spent on these programs are the cheapest way to comply with the EPA mandate and cleanup our rivers and streams.


Full disclosure: In another part of my volunteer work I am a Director of the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District. You should check out all that the Conservation District does at their web site.

Depleting the Ogallala

The High Plains aquifer commonly known as the Ogallala aquifer (because the Ogallala formation makes up about three quarters of the aquifer) became news and burst into public awareness due to the protests associated with the Keystone XL Pipeline. Concern for the porous soils of the Sandhills and fears of a possible oil leak into the Ogallala aquifer is one of the reasons the route through Nebraska was changed. The High Plains aquifer underlies about 175,000 square miles in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming which make up one of the primary agricultural regions in the United States. There is a much bigger threat to the Ogallala; the aquifer is being depleted because the groundwater within it is predominately non-renewable. This groundwater aquifer is the primary source of water for the High Plains. This was open range land until the groundwater from the aquifer was used to turn the range land into irrigated crops. However, according to John Opie in “Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land” this is essentially fossil water that was generated 10,000-25,000 years ago by the melting of the glaciers of the Rockies.

The High Plains aquifer is the most intensively used aquifer in the United States and 97% of the water is used for irrigation. Groundwater withdrawals from the High Plains aquifer represent about 20% of all groundwater withdrawals within the United States and have turned the dry range land in the center of the country into the breadbasket of the world. There are only about 2.5 million people living on the 175,000 square miles of land covering the High Plains aquifer.

The High Plains aquifer is being depleted by irrigation. The grains we grow for consumption, ethanol and export are slowly depleting our water reserves. Farmers and ranchers began extensive use of groundwater for irrigation in the 1930s and 1940s. Estimated irrigated acreage was 2.1 million acres in 1949, 13.7 million acres in 1980, and 15.5 million acres in 2005 (U.S. Department of Agriculture).

About every 5 years, groundwater withdrawals for irrigation and other uses are compiled from water-use data and reported by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and State agencies. Groundwater withdrawals from the High Plains aquifer for irrigation increased from 4 to 19 million acre-feet from 1949 to 1974; fell slightly and then reached 21 million acre-feet in 2000 and an estimated 19 million acre-feet in 2005 (USGS).

According to a recent report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), total water stored within the aquifer was about 2.92 billion acre-feet in 2013 a decline of about 8% (or 266,7 million acre-feet) since irrigation began. Water stored within the aquifer fell 36 million acre-feet from 2011–13. The water depletion was uneven, the decline in Texas alone was 13,2 million acre-feet, while over the same period there was no change in water storage in South Dakota and Wyoming. According to Virginia McGuire the lead author of the report and a water scientist with the USGS, “The measurements made from 2011 to 2013 represent a large decline. This amount of aquifer depletion over a 2-year period is substantial and likely related to increased groundwater pumping.” This level of groundwater use is also unsustainable. We need to rethink our agricultural policies and environmental regulations in terms of sustainable water.