Aquatic Life Workgroup

Meeting Summary

May 24, 2005

The Aquatic Life Workgroup met on May 24, 2005, 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m., at the Rachel Carson Room, 4300 Cherry Creek Drive South, Denver, Colorado. This memorandum briefly summarizes the major topics discussed at this meeting.

The meeting was attended by:

Jim Dorsch (MWRD), Al Polonsky (DEH), Maureen Dudley (Trout Unlimited), Lee Bergstedt (Chadwick and Associates), Amy Woodis (MWRD), Shannon Albeke (CDOW), Karl Hermann (EPA), Trisha Culp (Jackson Kelly), Esther Vincent (NCWCD), Peter Nichols (TRMWF), Laurie Rink (FRICO), Vicki Card (Colo Spgs Utility) and Chris Theel (WQCD).

Meeting Agenda

  • Update on Colorado’s 319 biological grant to develop bioassessment tools and upgrade EDAS.
  • Revised Reference Site Screening Tool discussion

Update on the 319 Biological Grant

Chris updated the workgroup on the progress of the 319 biological grant. Currently, the work plan elements that are either completed or on going include:

  • Tetra Tech provided WQCD with first cut reference criteria. The criteria were split between habitat and chemical variables. A great majority of these values were incorporated into the reach level reference site screening document.
  • Chuck Hawkins (USU) completed combining and harmonizing all macroinvertebrate datasets. He also aggregated all datasets for Colorado and assigned OTUs.
  • Chuck Hawkins graduate students are continuing work on watershed delineations for CDPHE sites. Further coordinate clarification was necessary.
  • According to Chuck Hawkins, the CDPHE macroinvertebrate dataset was identified to a very high resolution in most instances. Chuck will decide whether to run his multivariate predictive model using only the CDPHE dataset (which retains the high resolution) or aggregate the CDPHE dataset up to family level (and lose the high resolution) in order to utilize NAWQA, EMAP and STAR macroinvertebrate datasets.
  • The 319 grant will be extended until December 2005. This is intended to accommodate CDPHE EDAS and multimetric/multivariate training and the follow-up presentations to the Aquatic Life Workgroup.

Work plan elements that are forthcoming include:

June
  • Multimetric and multivariate predictive model building will begin.
July
  • (anticipated) The IBI and multivariate predictive models forwarded to CDPHE as per the work plan requirements of the 319 biological grant.

Chris mentioned that himself, Tetra Tech, USU and EPA have all been involved in teleconference calls to continually update the progress of the 319 biological grant. Another teleconference call is slated the first week of June. More clarity on the progress and products of the grant will be sought and any new info will be posted on the CWQF website as it becomes available.

Reference Site Screening Tool

Chris explained some of the background of the reference site screening tool in order to catch up to speed some of the new attendees to the workgroup meeting. He then explained the changes that were made to all three documents since the workgroup at the March 24, 2005 meeting. Changes were based on comments and suggestions received from the workgroup members at that particular meeting. Chris also explained some instances where he did not alter previous language, such as the controlled definitions of the aerial photography level of screening.

Karl Hermann and Shannon Albeke provided some useful suggestions, from an EMAP-perspective, in regards to finding reference sites in the eastern plains region of Colorado. They both emphasized that canopy density and fish cover were important elements of habitat that should not be overlooked when searching for ref sites in the plains. Shannon suggested more dialogue amongst biologists, who have a vested interest in the reference site approach (irregardless of agency), regarding the challenges of finding appropriate ref sites in the plains. A lot of back and forth discussion took place regarding the variations in the WQCD’s previous and current habitat assessments. Also, plenty of discussion occurred related to macroinvertebrate sampling methods. Karl H. suggested studying the variability in sampling protocols (ie kick net vs. surber, etc). Chris countered that he felt it best to continue with the same protocol as to provide consistency to the whole CDPHE macroinvertebrate dataset, but was open to exploring other alternatives when the time was right. Jim Dorsch, of Metro, provided some background to a similar situation with Metro Wastewater, whereby the old way of doing things wasn’t providing enough clarity for their needs. So, rather than opting to completely do away with the protocol they kept it and added another protocol to supplement and provide more depth to their overall dataset.

Chris also briefly discussed some of Trout Unlimited comments. TU’s concerns with the high conductivity value provided by Tetra Tech were assuaged when Chris explained that the reference criteria approach taken by Tetra Tech was by exclusion rather than inclusion. The high value would be of little concern given the stringent test each candidate site would have to pass before the reach level chemical and habitat screening. Other than that concern, Chris mentioned that all of the remaining TU suggested alternative language and edits were credible and he would incorporate this new language (or in some instances remove certain language) and finalize all three documents and post to the CWQF website with the stamp of approval from the aquatic life workgroup. No one person objected to this statement. So, the only step realistically left would be to test the tool out and Chris anticipated that this would likely occur in late fall and winter of 05-06.

No other comments were addressed and the meeting was adjourned.

Next meeting: August 9, 2005 at 8:30 a.m. at CDPHE Rachel Carson Rm.

Note: Depending on the volume of material to cover, this meeting will either be an email conference or not held at all. Until such time a determination can be made as to whether enough material is there to talk about, we will default to holding the meeting as listed above.