Increasing Salinization of our Drinking Water

According to the Izaak Walton League of America in Virginia: “The data collected by Virginia Save Our Streams volunteers shows, without a doubt, that urbanization and development have had a significant impact on the water quality of streams in Virginia. Impervious surfaces like roads and roofs drive tremendous amounts of polluted runoff into gutters, storm drains, streams, and rivers. This water runs untreated into critical sources of drinking water like the Potomac River and reservoirs. Although this water will be treated before it enters people’s homes, some chemical pollutants are difficult to remove.”

One of those pollutants is chloride from sodium chloride. Analyses from three different studies at multiple locations have found increasing freshwater salinization in Northern Virginia. Chloride salts dissolve easily in water. High concentrations can impede the ability of freshwater animals (including humans) and plants to control their water and salt content (osmoregulation) and certainly affects taste. Concentrations in the Potomac River have risen almost 10 fold since 1940. The rise is especially noticeable since 2000 in winter months, where average concentrations have increased to 37.8 mg/L in the 2010s.

from ICPRB the increasing blue and green show the increasing Cl concentrations

Road salting during snow and ice storms is now considered the largest source of chlorides to the Potomac and its tributaries in the Washington, D.C. region (e.g., Porter et al. 2020). Concentrations are also rising in the other three seasons. According to the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin (ICPRB) this may indicate that groundwater is holding chlorides deposited during winter and slowly releasing them to the river as baseflow during drier months. Evaporation from the river surface during warm weather could also concentrate chloride in the water.

Salts are very effective at deicing roads; however, after application, the salts are washed off into local waterways or seep through soils into groundwater systems with negative impacts on water quality and the environment. Salts pollute drinking water sources and are very costly to remove. The only available technology to remove salt from the source water is reverse osmosis which is extremely costly and requires a significant amount of energy to run.   

Weathering of rocks and sediment, natural sources of chloride in rivers, contribute to the problem but high concentrations  come from winter road salting, fertilizer runoff, water softeners and oil and gas production. Due to their corrosive nature, salts also increase the costs of maintenance, repair, and replacement of infrastructure like roads, sidewalks, driveways, bridges, and pipes which are subject to stress cracking. Improved management and use of salts during winter weather events can maintain public safety and hopefully minimize the negative impacts of salty runoff. However, adding more paved surfaces to treat increases the challenge. Despite VDOT efforts to brine the roads, the salt level in the Occoquan Reservoir continues to rise. 

The ICPRB has been working with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) and the Northern Virginia Regional Commission to decrease salt levels in area streams, hoping to prevent the need to invest billions of dollars in desalination equipment in the region’s water treatment plants. The plan is to implement a voluntary management of the use of salts for roadways and walkways through the implementation of the Salt Management Strategy just published by the ICPRB and VDEQ. The central purpose of the Salt Management Strategy is to try and reverse the trend of increasing salt levels and reduce the amount of salt in area waters to ensure protection of aquatic life and drinking water while continuing to maintain public safety and accessibility during the winter. 

Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Will Account for Climate Change

On Friday Governor Ralph Northam joined Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Virginia Delegate David Bulova, Environmental Protection Agency Acting Regional Administrator Diana Esher, and the other representatives from the Chesapeake Bay watershed states at a meeting of the Chesapeake Executive Council to sign a directive that commits the Chesapeake Bay Program to addressing the threats of climate change.

In the 2014 all the parties signed the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, where the EPA set a limit for release of nutrients into the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This limit was called a TMDL at the time and now is called the Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint. Under the most recent revision to the blueprint, the Chesapeake Bay model called for about 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20 % reduction in sediment from the “base case 2011 levels.”

 The reductions in pollution were then partitioned to the various states and river basins based on the Chesapeake Bay computer modeling tools and monitoring data. Each year, Virginia, as well as the other Bay jurisdictions, report information about implemented practices to the EPA, which takes the information and runs it through the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model. The results estimate the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that would make it to the Bay under average conditions. By comparing the model results across time, EPA can see the expected collective impact of our actions under the implementation plans.

However, with climate change, conditions veer away from the average conditions underlying the model assumptions. Let’s be honest, no matter what mankind does, in the next couple of decades the expected impacts from climate change are going to happen. At this point climate projections for our region forecast that on average, precipitation in the region is projected to increase by around 8% by 2040, and temperature is projected to increase by about 1 °C further.

“Because warmer air can hold more moisture, heavy rainfall events ...are projected to increase in frequency and severity as the world continues to warm. Both the intensity and rainfall rates of Atlantic hurricanes are projected to increase with the strongest storms getting stronger in a warming climate. Recent research has shown how global warming can alter atmospheric circulation and weather patterns such as the jet stream, affecting the location, frequency, and duration of these and other extremes,” says the Fourth National Climate Assessment.

To respond to climate, change the Chesapeake Bay models will have to incorporate more precipitation and more severe storms. It is stormwater that delivers the pollutants to the Chesapeake Bay. Our mitigation efforts must consider increased storm intensity and flooding frequency. Our mitigations, called “Best Management Practices” must be robust and be able to function in stronger storms.

So, the Chesapeake Executive Council has committed to increase the resiliency of the watershed, including its living resources, habitats, public infrastructure and communities, to withstand adverse impacts from changing environmental and climate conditions. To respond to the growing body of science documenting the impacts of climate change and the urgent need for action, the Executive Council has agreed to build upon previous commitments and hasten their response. Directive No. 21-1 Collective Action for ClimateChange calls for addressing the threats of climate change in all aspects of theplan to restore the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed:

• Prioritize communities and habitats most vulnerable to ever-increasing risks.

• Apply the best scientific, modeling, monitoring and planning capabilities of the Chesapeake Bay Program.

• Connect Chesapeake Bay restoration goals with emerging opportunities in climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience.

As the Chesapeake Bay Foundation stated: “Climate change is a real and imminent threat to the Chesapeake Bay. Water temperatures are warming. Sea levels are rising. Record levels of rainfall, like those in 2018, are expected to become more regular. Scientists agree these changes will make Bay restoration harder, requiring additional reductions in nitrogen and phosphorus pollution by 2025.”

2020 Dead Zone Update

Overall, the total volume of the 2020 Dead Zone in the Chesapeake Bay was the second lowest since 1985 and was estimated to be considerably lower than in the Last several years. The “Dead Zone” of the Chesapeake Bay refers to a volume of hypoxic water that is characterized by dissolved oxygen concentrations less than 2 mg/L, which is too low for aquatic organisms such as fish and blue crabs to thrive.

If your will recall, in mid-June, the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program, United States Geological Survey, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and University of Michigan scientists released their prediction for slightly smaller than average 2020 Dead Zone. This prediction was based on slightly less than average water and nitrogen flows into the bay from January – May 2020. The actual Dead Zone was smaller than they predicted.

At various times each summer the Maryland Department of Natural Resources measures the dissolved oxygen in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay main stem and the size of the Dead Zone. While the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), Anchor QEA and collaborators at UMCES, operate a real-time three-dimensional hypoxia forecast model using input of that predicts daily dissolved oxygen concentrations throughout the Bay (www.vims.edu/hypoxia) using the National Weather Service wind monitoring data.

"The average hypoxic volume of the eight 2020 summer cruiseswas 0.63 cubic miles, compared to a historical summer average from 1985-2019 of0.84 cubic miles. During 2020, every cruise except the one in late July hadbetter than average oxygen conditions for its time period. The most recentmonitoring cruise conducted in September found no hypoxic waters in theMaryland mainstem of the Chesapeake Bay. "The September cruise normally occurs mid-month but was delayed a week due to several days of high winds which, along with cool September temperatures, contributed to the increase in oxygen in the deeper bay waters. Similarly, no hypoxia was observed in Virginia Chesapeake Bay mainstem waters in September. 

Crabs, fish, oysters, and other creatures in the Chesapeake Bay require oxygen to survive. Scientists and natural resource managers study the volume and duration of bay hypoxia to determine possible impacts to bay life. Each year from May to September, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources computes these volumes from data collected by Maryland and Virginia monitoring teams during twice-monthly monitoring cruises. Data collection is funded by these states and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program. Bay hypoxia monitoring continues throughout the year.

From the VMIS 2020 Bay Report Card:

“Springtime nitrogen inflows in 2020 were 17% below the long-term average, resulting in the prediction that the amount of hypoxia would similarly be slightly less than average... cool windy weather helped mix and aerate Bay water in the spring, resulting in hypoxia beginning later than in previous years. As summer arrived, weak winds and very high temperatures allowed hypoxia to increase considerably, resulting in a very large dead zone in late July... In 2020, hypoxia decreased quickly in early August in response to Hurricane Isaias; however, hypoxia returned in early September until stronger winds and cooler temperatures prevailed, ending hypoxia in the mainstem of the Bay earlier than in previous years. Overall, the total amount of hypoxia in 2020 was estimated to be considerably lower than in the recent past, with hypoxia both starting later and ending earlier, as was also seen in periodic ship based observations of dissolved oxygen.”

Despite the fact that the rain fall was above average in the region, and an extended heat wave struck the area in July the hypoxia was below average. This could be an indication that the Chesapeake Bay pollution diet is working, or an indication that the large number of storm that passed through the region bringing strong winds and cooler temperature were the controlling factor.

Progress Report on Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay Clean Up

Excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from waste water treatment plants, agricultural operations, urban and suburban runoff, wastewater facilities, septic systems, air pollution and other sources have impaired the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal waters. These pollutants cause algae blooms that consume oxygen and create dead zones where fish and shellfish cannot survive, block sunlight that is needed for underwater grasses, and smother aquatic life on the bottom.

Since the 1980’s the six bay states- Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York-and Washington DC have been trying to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Though the nutrient contamination levels of the Chesapeake Bay have decreased over the past thirty years, the Bay’s waters remain degraded. As a result, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, 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 for the six states and Washington DC of 185.9 million pounds of nitrogen, 12.5 million pounds of phosphorus and 6.45 billion pounds of sediment per year which is a 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20 % reduction in sediment from the 2011 levels. The pollution limits were then partitioned to the various states and river basins based on the Chesapeake Bay computer modeling tools and monitoring data.

The six states and Washington DC were required to submit and have approved by the EPA a detailed plan of how they intend to achieve their assigned pollution reduction goals. These plans are called the Watershed Implementation Plans, WIPs, and lay out a series of pollution control measures that need to be put in place by 2025, with 60% of the steps completed by 2017. While it will take years after 2025 for the Bay and its tributaries to fully heal, EPA expects that once the required pollution control measures are in place there will be gradual and continued improvement in water quality as the the nutrient and sediment run off is reduced and there is better control storm water so that the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem can heal itself.

About half of the 39,490 square mile land area of Virginia is drained by the creeks, streams and rivers that comprise the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and two-thirds of the state's population lives within the watershed. To develop a remediation plan acceptable to the EPA and likely to achieve the goals of the revised WIP, the state legislature passed a series of laws and the state implemented a series of regulations addressing among other items: nutrient management plans, septic regulations, limitations of the sale and use of lawn maintenance fertilizer, banning deicing agents containing urea, nitrogen, or phosphorus intended for application on parking lots roadways, and sidewalks, or other paved surfaces, etc.

The EPA reviews our progress every two years against milestones. The two-year milestones are short-term objectives under the Chesapeake Bay TMDL used to assess progress towards our mandated restoration goals to allow the state some flexibly to adapt the Watershed Implementation Plans to meet the goals. Overall Virginia was found to have achieved its state-wide 2015 milestone targets for nitrogen and phosphorus, but did not meet its state-wide target for sediment as a result of being off track for sediment in the Agriculture and Urban/Suburban Stormwater sectors. Reductions in the Wastewater sector remain ahead of schedule for all three pollutants.

The EPA review of progress toward meeting 2014-2015 milestones shows Virginia achieved most of its numeric milestones. Virginia met its state-wide targets, in part, because of greater than expected wastewater reductions achieved by having completed wastewater treatment plant improvements and expansions ahead of population growth.

Based on Virginia’s anticipated reductions for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment planned for the 2016-2017 milestone period, Virginia is expected to catch up and be on track to meet all its state-wide targets for 2017. To catch up Virginia needs to increase implementation of pollution reduction measures in the Agriculture, Urban/Suburban Stormwater and Septic sectors. The sources of pollution in these areas are non-point source pollution (NPS), diffuse sources of pollution. These pollutants do not come out of a pipe, but are carried to streams and rivers by runoff of rain and snowmelt. The way to reduce impact of this non-point source pollution on the environment is to implement what has been called “best management practices.” There are BMPs to minimize the use of fertilizers and pesticides; and BMPs to reduce runoff and slow rain water while maintaining or even enhancing agricultural production. Now Virginia is expanding these BMPs to suburban neighborhoods. Virginia’s anticipated reductions for the 2016-2017 milestone period should keep it on track to meet the 2017 target of having practices in place to achieve 60% of the reductions necessary for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution.

image from Chesapeake Bay Program

EPA will maintain “Enhanced Oversight” of Virginia for the Urban/Suburban Stormwater and will continue to monitor Virginia’s progress in closing the nutrients and sediment gap in the 2016-2017 milestone period. EPA will maintain “Ongoing Oversight” of the Virginia sectors for Agriculture, Wastewater and Offsets and Trading which are doing much better at tracking the milestones agreed to with the EPA.

Virginia's Chesapeake Bay TMDL Report Card

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 Chesapeake Bay. These pollutants cause algae blooms that consume oxygen and create dead zones where fish and shellfish cannot survive, block sunlight that is needed for underwater grasses, and smother aquatic life on the bottom.

Since the 1980’s the six bay states- Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York-and Washington DC have been trying to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Though the excess nutrient contamination to the Chesapeake Bay has decreased over the past thirty years, the Bay’s waters remain degraded. As a result, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 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 for the six states and Washington DC of 185.9 million pounds of nitrogen, 12.5 million pounds of phosphorus and 6.45 billion pounds of sediment per year which is a 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20 % reduction in sediment from the 2011 levels. The pollution limits were then partitioned to the various states and river basins based on the Chesapeake Bay computer modeling tools and monitoring data. The TMDL addresses only pollution from excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment.

In addition, each of the six 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 and the other plan) lay out a series of pollution control measures called best management practices, BMPs that need to be put in place by 2025, with 60% of the BMPs completed by 2017. While it will take years after 2025 for the Bay and its tributaries to fully heal, EPA expects that once the required BMPs are in place (and maintained) there will be gradual and continued improvement in water quality as the BMPs reduce the nutrient and sediment run off and better control storm water so that the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem can heal itself.

About half of the 39,490 square mile land area of Virginia is drained by the creeks, streams and rivers that comprise the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and two-thirds of the state's 8.26 million population lives within the watershed. To develop a remediation plan acceptable to the EPA and likely to achieve the goals of the revised WIP, the state legislature passed a series of laws and the state implemented a series of regulations addressing among other items: nutrient management plans, septic regulations, limitations of the sale and use of lawn maintenance fertilizer, banning deicing agents containing urea, nitrogen, or phosphorus intended for application on parking lots roadways, and sidewalks, or other paved surfaces, etc.

Many of these laws and regulations address non-point source pollution (NPS) which is a major factor impacting the quality of the water supply. The rate at which diffuse sources of pollution are generated and delivered to water resources is greatly affected by human activities and natural processes. These pollutants do not come out of a pipe, but are transported to surface water bodies by runoff, which results from rain or snowmelt. The way to reduce impact of this non-point source pollution on the environment is to implement what has been called “best management practices.” BMPs minimize the use of fertilizers, pesticides, etc. to achieve a desired level of performance and quality while protecting the environment. BMPs are also designed to reduce runoff and  benefit water quality while maintaining or even enhancing agricultural production. EPA has never had the authority to regulate non-point source pollution, but through the TMDL and WIPs that is exactly what they are doing.

Recently, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and the Choose Clean Water Coalition (CCWC) issued their report reviewing the results of the 2012-13 pollution reduction milestones against the states’ WIPs and found that pollution is being reduced in every state and Washington DC. They report that “Virginia met its overall pollution reduction goals for 2013. Of the eight practices assessed, the Commonwealth met or exceeded its goals for fencing cattle out of streams and urban stream restoration, and was very close to meeting the goal for agricultural practices such as nutrient management, pasture management, and cover crops. Virginia fell short of its goals for forest buffers, conservation tillage, stormwater practices, urban nutrient management, and composite urban practices.”

Virginia remains significantly agricultural and has used the voluntary agricultural cost share program implemented by the state’s conservation districts to reach out to farmers to educate and assist in the implementation of BMPs and verify their maintenance. There has never been a program designed to educate and implement BMPs in suburban communities. In the past several years Virginia has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade wastewater treatment plants and utilized its Soil and Water Conservation Districts to expand the utilization of stream exclusion fencing by offering to have the state pay for the total amount of the fencing. Conservation districts were very successful in giving away fencing to farmers and are working to count the fencing that already exists and is effective and might not meet current cost share program guidelines.

In the first two years of the WIP, Virginia has struggled to build programs and methods for data gathering to address the problems with managing and tracking implementation of what is essentially remedial programs for farming operations both large and small and for individuals. EPA is using the WIPs to reach down and manage what is called non-point source pollution. Much of the urban stormwater management in Virginia is suburban and is a house by house, street by street series of plans that will be implemented by builders and existing homeowners, and maintained by homeowners and some will have to be retrofitted to existing communities. It is not clear how that will be accomplished, nor tracked as the new stormwater regulations have been delayed due to the challenges of implementation. Given these challenges it is not at all surprising that the first steps taken towards the TMDL were the ones that could be most easily implemented and tracked. The steps taken had the programs in place to both implement and track progress.

from CBF

It was noted by CBF and CCWC in their review that conservation tillage acres had actually declined since 2011. This is probably not true; the cost share incentives for conservation tillage have declined as the practice has become more widely adopted by farmers without the need for financial incentives. However, the farming practices that are not part of the cost share program have not been routinely tracked. So, the decline in conservation tillage acres may simply be a reflection that the Commonwealth does not track nor document every activity of every farmer in the state. Though, this may become necessary to satisfy the requirements of the EPA to require the implementation of resource management plans on most agricultural acres.

from CFB

Virginia also has a lot of work ahead to develop the infrastructure for the implementation of Virginia’s new Stormwater Management Regulations especially in smaller communities. Ways to work with existing homeowners and communities to address these diverse small sources of contamination will require the development of programs, education and outreach. The time and difficulty in implementing septic regulations on alternative septic systems and having the homeowners comply with regulations to inspect and maintain their systems is a challenge that is yet to be solved. It is not clear what level of data collection and tracking will be necessary for the individual homeowner. EPA is mandating to counties and towns actions that will raise property taxes, and require changes to properties and behavior. Citizens will first have to be convinced to support these programs.

To meet the demands of the WIP, the total amount of stormwater runoff will have to be reduced. This means that there will have to be implementation of improved stormwater management in existing developments to meet reductions in nutrient and sediment loads. The Commonwealth needs to reduce pollution from stormwater running off urban streets and parking lots by mandating reductions in state permits for large city stormwater systems and requiring some implementation of improved stormwater management in suburban developments. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation stormwater runoff remains the only source of water pollution in Virginia that continues to increase and must be aggressively addressed if restoration of the Bay is to succeed.

Given the challenges of developing programs for addressing non-point source pollution to meet the TMDL pollution reduction goals one home and a few acres at a time, it is not surprising that Virginia has used the big nutrient reduction numbers from waste water treatment plant upgrades and a big push in stream exclusion fencing by having the state pay the full cost to achieve the first round of benchmarks. The CBF Virginia Executive Director, Ann Jennings, says in the report: "Our analysis of the 2012/13 milestones indicate that reductions from wastewater treatment plants will not carry us across the goal line. The McAuliffe Administration has a unique and important opportunity to put Virginia on course for success by taking more aggressive steps to confront agricultural and urban pollution." I am very interested in seeing what those aggressive steps might be.

Fairfax County, Collecting Real Data to Model the Watershed

Potomac Watershed Round Table met on Friday, April 4th in the Fairfax County Herrity Building. The meetings are open so you are welcome to attend. As usual there were several stimulating presentations about programs operating in the Potomac Watershed and threats to our watershed. Shannon Curtis an Ecologist with the Fairfax Count Stormwater Planning Division spoke to the group about the evolution of the water monitoring program in Fairfax County Virginia and the long-term monitoring partnership between Fairfax County and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that began in 2007.

Back in the 1980’s ecosystem monitoring by Fairfax County and others discovered that there is an ecosystem response time lag of 10-15 years (either positive of negative) to changes in the landscape. Traditional development practices cover large areas of the ground with impervious surfaces such as roads, driveways, sidewalks and buildings. Slowly, but surely this changes the ecosystem. The paved and impervious surfaces prevent rainwater from infiltrating into the ground, causing it to runoff site at velocities and volumes that are much higher than would naturally occur, carrying with it pollutants, oil and grease, and litter.

The collective force of high velocity rainwater scours streams and over time erodes stream banks carrying sediment and other pollutants into the streams, rivers, estuaries and bays. The US EPA believes that sediment and nutrient pollutions contained in runoff from urban areas is the largest source of water quality impairments to estuaries (areas near the coast where seawater mixes with freshwater) in the United States and has turned its water quality focus on these areas starting with the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and moving forward with the Gulf Coast estuaries.

Nationally, billions of dollars are being spent to implement stormwater best management practices and low impact development strategies based on computer simulations and models. In Virginia alone millions upon millions of dollars are expect to be spent on stormwater best management practices in the next 10 years. Fairfax county programs are helping to understand how well these programs work. The Fairfax County Stormwater Planning Division performed a baseline study of the condition of all the streams in Fairfax County in the late 1990;s and found at the time that three quarters of the streams were in fair, poor or very poor condition. The deterioration of the streams had resulted from the development of the county over the previous 40 years.

This finding was used to develop the stream protection and management plan. Then in 2007 Fairfax County Stormwater Planning Division and the USGS began a long-term monitoring effort to identify countywide conditions and trends in stream water quality and quantity. The first five years of data has been accumulated by the program. The information collected will be used to evaluate the benefits of past and future watershed improvement projects. There are currently twenty monitoring stations (recently expanded from 14) in the county collecting data. Fifteen of these sites are monitored manually on a monthly basis; the remaining five sites are equipped with automated stream gages which are monitored continuously.

Stream gage in Fairfax from USGS

Instruments at the five automated gages measure six indicators every 15 minutes and during storm events: water temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, specific conductance (a measurement of the dissolved solids in the water), turbidity, and during the storm events sediment and nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) concentrations. The manual stations are sampled monthly. These gages cover and area of less than six square miles. It is hoped that this data will allow the USGS and Fairfax County to observe small and subtle changes over time.

The first five years of data (when there were only 14 gages in operation) has recently been accumulated and analyzed by the USGS and provides a baseline of the condition of the watershed based on real data and not US EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Model. The Urban loading modules of the Chesapeake Bay Model are believed to have the greatest uncertainties and this is a great opportunity to perform a “reality check” on the EPA’s oversight of the water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. EPA is using the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment mandated to the six Chesapeake Bay Watershed states (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) and the District of the Columbia to manage contamination in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The TMDL sets a total Chesapeake Bay watershed limit for the entire region of 185.9 million pounds of nitrogen, 12.5 million pounds of phosphorus and 6.45 billion pounds of sediment per year which is a 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20 %t reduction in sediment from the current levels. The pollution limits are then partitioned to the various jurisdictions and river basins based on the Chesapeake Bay modeling tools. Now, the data that the USGS Gages Partnership with Fairfax County can provide a baseline of the condition of the watershed based on data not modeling by the EPA. So far they have discovered that high phosphorus in the western portion of the county is a naturally occurring deposit that was formed about 200-250 million years ago during the Triassic period and unlikely to be remediated by any stormwater or agricultural best management practices.

In addition, the monitoring has shown that stream conditions within the county have not changed much since 1998 when the Stream Protection Strategy base study was performed, though Mr. Curtis pointed out that there might be a subtle improvement in the data, but it could be a function of weather conditions, time will tell. However, during the past 15 years the county has grown in population and development increasing the pressure on the streams, so a steady stream condition might be a small victory.

Cleaning stormwater runoff is very expensive. Preventing stormwater runoff using green infrastructure and low impact development strategies appears to be effective, but is difficult to implement and maintain. Low Impact Development and green infrastructure are a series strategies for stormwater management emphasizing water capture and conservation using natural features to mimic as closely as possible natural hydraulic properties of a site. The idea is to reduce runoff with strategies like green roofs and rain gardens and move water slowly through open unpaved areas to allow infiltration of rain water into the earth. This reduces the quantity and velocity of stormwater as it leaves a site reducing the damage that uncontrolled stormwater runoff created by building roads, sidewalks, playgrounds, and structures and compacting soil can cause.

Nonetheless, the data gathering and work performed in Fairfax raises the question of whether it is possible for urban streams to ever fully recover. Those cleanup goals may not be realistic or attainable. Fairfax County is looking to discover what is the “best attainable conditions” for its streams. In addressing pollution from runoff each step requires consistent and sustained behavior modification of individual citizens working with government. Human behavior is very slow to change and maintaining stormwater best management practices is something each individual must do for the plan to succeed.

Don't Frack the Potomac Watershed

The 1.1 million-acre George Washington National Forest sits on the eastern portion of the Marcellus shale formation. Now, as reported in the L.A. Times and Washington Post, the U.S. Forest Service is deciding whether to open up the national forest to oil and gas leases allowing hydraulic fracking at the source of the Potomac River, the lifeblood of our region. The Forest Service proposes to revise the 1993 Land and Resource Management Plan for the Forest. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement on file, describes seven alternatives and the Forest Service has identified Alternative G as the Agency’s Preferred Alternative. This alternative as can be seen in the chart below would allow further development of the oil and gas resources in the Forest. This should not happen at this time.

from US Forest Service

The Potomac is the major source of drinking water for more than 4 million people, and the headlands and watershed are within the eastern edge of the forest along the edge of the Marcellus shale formation. The entire Chesapeake Bay region is under a mandated pollution diet from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to restore the Chesapeake Bay. Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service is considering allowing activities that could increase sediment runoff and potentially release pollution to the Potomac River.

The Washington Aqueduct Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Fairfax County Water Authority and the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission furnish about 95% of the metropolitan region's water from the Potomac River. For more than two centuries the waters of the Potomac seemed unlimited, but regional growth, pollution and drought proved that was not true. Congress created the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, ICPRB, to address the pollution of the river, but now their primary job is to manage the allocation of the Potomac’s Waters especially in times of drought. The idea of diverting millions of gallons of water to be used in hydrofracking and even the smallest risk of pollution to the river from spills and leaks is an unacceptable risk to the water supply for the region.

Drilling requires large amounts of water to create a circulating mud that cools the bit and carries the rock cuttings out of the borehole. After drilling, the shale formation is then stimulated by hydro fracking, using 2-5 million gallons of water mixed with chemicals. For gas to flow out of the shale, all of the water not absorbed by the formation during fracking must be recovered and disposed of. Though less than 0.5% by volume, the proprietary chemicals used in fracking represent 15,000 gallons of unknown chemical compostion in the waste water recovered from the typical hydro fracking job. The chemicals serve to increases the viscosity of the water to a gel-like consistency so that it can carry the propping agent (typically sand) into the fractures to hold them open so that the gas can flow.

The oil and gas industry has failed to determine proper methods for the safe disposal of the large quantities of this fracking fluid that may also contain contaminants from the geological formation including brines, heavy metals, radionuclides and organic contaminants. This must be accomplished before even considering expanding fracking into important watersheds. In addition, the impact of so much waste water on our water resources must be monitored and addressed.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently engaged in a review of hydraulic fracking and that should be completed before fracking is further expanded into ecologically sensitive areas.

While geologists and engineers believe that in hydraulic fracturing the intervening layers of rock prevent a fissure from extending into the water table, they base this on the “typical” geology where there are thousands of feet between the water table and the fracking location and does not account for any potential impacts from human error or carelessness or on the hydraulic balance in a watershed. The problems seen in drinking water wells near hydro fracking jobs have typically occurred when fracking fluid seeps into drinking water wells through improperly sealed or abandoned drilling wells and from accidental release or improper storage of recovered fracking fluid.

The oil and gas industry has outpaced regulators and knowledge of the consequences from forcing oil and gas from the earth. It is essential to determine the vertical and horizontal separation that is necessary to protect the drinking water aquifers and watersheds from the environmental impacts from fracking before watersheds are damaged or destroyed or the U. S. Forest Service allows vastly expanded development of oil and gas resources in the National Forests. The oil and gas will still be in the ground when we have more knowledge, then fracking can be expanded with increased oversight to ensure that this separation is maintained, improved well-design requirements are developed and ensure their consistent implementation and require the appropriate handling, treatment and recycling of drilling waste water.

The deep well injection commonly used in Texas to dispose of fracking water may have consequences beyond small earthquakes and is not appropriate in all geologies. Sewage treatment plants are designed to separate solids and use bacteria to treat biological waste. They are not equipped to remove or neutralize the contaminants in used hydro fracking fluid. In 2009 and 2010, public sewage treatment plants in Pennsylvania directly upstream from drinking-water intake facilities accepted wastewater that contained radionuclides at levels hundred even thousands of times the drinking-water standard despite the fact that these plants (and most sewage plants) were exempt from monitoring for radiation. Local regulators and gas producers believed the waste was not a threat because it would be diluted by treatment in the sewage treatment plants or the river itself, without sampling to verify this. They guessed at the environmental impact and safety of the public drinking water supply. Water resources are primary to life, energy resources are secondary.

Finally, care must be taken to avoid degradation of watersheds and streams from the equipment, machinery and operation of the oil and gas industry as large quantities of heavy equipment and supplies are moved on rural roads and placed on concrete pads changing the runoff quantity, velocity and quality while exposing the watershed to potential sources of hydrocarbon contamination. The watersheds that supply the water that is the life of our region must be protected first and foremost. Over the years there have been reports from several states noting contamination of drinking water wells in association with fracking, though no definitive proof because of lack of adequate testing and difficulties in understanding groundwater, the full extent to which hydro fracking fluids have contaminated or might in the future contaminate groundwater is unknown. However, many cases of associated contamination have been confirmed.

The Potomac River is an irreplaceable source of drinking water for millions of people and should be protected. All of the Potomac River watershed needs to be designated by Congress as withdrawn from availability for oil and gas leasing until such time that we know how to ensure with certainty the availability and purity of the Potomac.