Review of EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program Surface Waters (1994) / Chapter Skim
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2 Specific Comments
2 Specific Comments
Pages 15-44
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From page 15... ...
EMAP-Surface Waters has designated three assessment end points for the lakes portion of their program: · biological integrity · trophic condition · fishability. The choice of these particular end points was justified in the Research Strategy document on the grounds of their societal relevance and their relationship to environmental problems already of interest to EPA.
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From page 16... ...
Although the term biological integrity seems intuitively appealing, and is part of the language of the ~ 972 Clean Water Act, there is no satisfactory technical definition of biological integrity. EMAP-Surface Waters defines it on page 9 of its 1 99 pilot report as: ".
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From page 17... ...
community with a biological diversity, composition, and functional organization comparable to those of natural lakes and streams of the region." This statement provides a clear definition of a quantifiable ecosystem attribute that would provide an additional useful and distinct assessment end point. The emphasis should be on measurable attributes of community structure, notably composition and diversity.
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From page 18... ...
. Although the committee believes that "appropriate biological diversity" is a more useful assessment end point than "biological integrity", we recognize that the application of the concept may still present some operational difficulties.
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From page 19... ...
Nonetheless, the committee concludes that further efforts are needed to refine the definitions and measurement strategies for both end points. EMAP-Surface Waters defines trophic condition (trophic state)
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From page 20... ...
Instead, they contend that statements about these categories of stress will be developed when EMAP begins "to develop associations between biological integrity and possible causes for impairment of biological integrity" (U.S.
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From page 21... ...
Of course, it can be argued that trophic condition addresses all these values a highly eutrophic lake with frequent, dense blooms of bluegreen algae has poor aesthetic quality, is not desirable for swimming, and poses economic and potential public health problems for use of the lake as a drinking water supply. However, there are other causes of impairment for these three values besides trophic condition {e.g., high turbidity caused by inorganic suspended sediment, microbial contamination, presence of toxic substances)
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From page 22... ...
Many impoundments and nature' lakes are used both for recreational purposes and public drinking supplies. Although EMAP's financial resources will always be limited, the committee believes it would be imprudent to exclude drinking water a priori from consideration as a societal value in its surface water assessment program.
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From page 23... ...
Success in selecting appropriate indicators for the other two assessment end points, fishability and biological integrity, has been more elusive. In the Lakes Pilot Study, EMAP-Surface Waters used multiple gears (gil' nets, trap nets, minnow traps, eel pots, beach and short seines, and boat electrofishers)
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From page 24... ...
The IBM approach may not be as useful in low-diversity streams nor in more hydrologically stable lentic systems. As stated previously, the committee recommends that EMAP-Surface Waters use appropriate biological diversity instead of biological integrity.
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From page 25... ...
If EMAP-Surface Waters is going to use indices, then the statistical perspectives for each index must be investigated as Fore does for Karr's Index of Biological Integrity (Fore et al., ~ 994~. SAMPLING DESIGN The design for the Surface Waters component follows the overall EMAP design.
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From page 26... ...
The EMAP-Surface Waters group is to be commended for pursuing on its own some relevant measurements on terrestrial ecosystems that may be directly related to the status of lakes, stream segments, or wetlands in the same sampling hexagon. The committee recommends that a greater emphasis be given to concomitant measures of watershed characteristics.
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From page 27... ...
These sources of variation should be explicitly addressed in the sampling protocol. The committee believes that EMAP-Surface Waters would be more efficient if the field monitoring programs were designed specifically to address more precisely defined questions.
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From page 28... ...
As pointed out previously, attention to watershed characteristics and integration with other resource groups would greatly enhance EMAP-surface water's ability to associate trends with possible causes. In addition to trends in regional mean values, risk analysis is frequently concerned with the behavior of the tails of parameter distributions (i.e., extreme values)
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From page 29... ...
Some of these sites might be selected because they are known or suspected to be sensitive indicator lakes for selected stressors. LAKE PILOT PROJECT The Surface Waters component of EMAP began its first year pilot study during the summer of ~ 991 .
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From page 30... ...
The committee applauds the fact that the pilot project appears to have been question-driven, but it has concerns about the clarity and adequacy of some of the questions. Perhaps of most concern are the questions for indicator development.
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From page 31... ...
EMAP-SW visited 92 lakes in these regions, and a reduced set of indicators (relative to the full set proposed in the Surface Waters Research Strategy document} was measured. Emphasis for the pilot was placed on obtaining variability estimates for key parameters (including water chemistry, benthos, and zooplankton)
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From page 32... ...
The analysis of the regional pilot data was cursory and incomplete. A brief section of the report presented a statistical summary of trophic conditions of the lakes sampled in ~ 99 ~ .
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From page 33... ...
Relative disturbance was determined subjectively by discussion with regional biologists and by measuring indicators of disturbance such as catchment land use and cover, shoreline disturbance, road density, and population density. We believe the scope of this portion of the pilot was too ambitious given the financial resources available.
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From page 34... ...
Data on Secchi-disk transparency, total phosphorus concentrations, and chlorophyll a levels were obtained from existing studies, and statistical analyses were performed to determine the minimum trend that could be detected in a 12-year period if the trends were: (a) regional in scale and (b)
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From page 35... ...
The Surface Waters group should be encouraged to do more analyses along the lines described in the pilot study report and by Urquhart et al.
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From page 36... ...
It is difficult for the committee to evaluate this pilot study and EMAP's overall plans for a stream monitoring and assessment program because we have received little written information about them. Some members of the committee were given a short oral briefing on plans for stream studies at a meeting with EMAP scientists in August of ~ 992.
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From page 37... ...
Second, there is no written document that defines the overall (national) objectives, assessment end points, sampling design, and indicators to be measured in stream surveys as there was in the strategy document (U.S.
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From page 38... ...
a reasonable interpretation of chemical and/or biological water quality trends. The committee doubts, however, that such analysis and interpretation would be very useful for the development of a full-scale stream program, given the current lack of clear objectives.
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From page 39... ...
They also demonstrate the feasibiiity of making eco-regional assessments of stream chemical conditions based on a large, randomly based sampling program, which was the primary objective of the NSS. One should not be misled, however, into thinking that the apparent success of the NSS can be translated into a similarly successful EMAP stream program or that the NSS results provide justification for conducting pilot-scale EMAP stream surveys.
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From page 40... ...
, and how the stream phase of EMAP should be designed. The committee received no briefings from EMAP personnel at the seven committee meetings held in 1992, 1993, and to date in 1994 related to the formation of a peer review team or the organization of a workshop to address the planning of EMAP stream studies.
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From page 41... ...
to the EPA CorvaIlis Laboratory to act as consultants for periods as short as one week to as long as 3 to 6 months; and issuing a call for proposals to develop alternative sampling-design strategies, alternative approaches to the stream pilot study (or studies) , or alternatives to the EMAP stream program as a whole.
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From page 42... ...
, but also to assess temporal and geographic trends in water quality. Closer collaboration between these two programs has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of both programs and reduce the overall cost of federal monitoring programs for surface water quality.
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From page 43... ...
Since the assessment questions define the overall direction of EMAP data gathering, it is imperative that these questions not be defined on an ad hoc basis without input from potential users outside EMAP. Questions and problems inherent in the choice of assessment end points for EMAP-Surface Waters might have been avoided if such a procedure were followed.
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From page 44... ...
Some aspects of the planning structure exist already. However, given the importance of the decisions that the panels will make, it is critical that the guidance panels include representatives of EMAP's clients, i.e., policy makers and the larger scientific community.
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