Scientific, Technical Assessment and Reporting (STAR) Publications

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In March 2021, the Principals’ Staff Committee (PSC) requested a study and recommendations on how to improve Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) monitoring networks. The monitoring networks include (1) CBP core networks supported primarily by EPA Chesapeake Bay Program funding, and (2) partnership networks supported by multiple federal and state agencies. The monitoring review was guided by leadership from the CBP Scientific, Technical Assessment and Reporting (STAR) team, the CBPO Monitoring Team, with input from the CBP Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) leadership.

The report is organized into 4 major sections:
• Section 1: Chesapeake Bay Program Network Portfolios. Provides a summary of the existing CBP core networks (most with a focus on water quality) with recommendations and potential investments to address development, maintenance and improvement of these networks.
• Section 2: Chesapeake Bay Agreement Goals and Outcomes Monitoring Needs. Summarizes the partner-led monitoring and broader needs of the 10 goals and associated outcomes in the 2014 Watershed Agreement.
• Section 3: Partnership Opportunities to Enhance Chesapeake Bay Program Monitoring. Provides potential approaches for partners to collaborate on addressing the vast number of monitoring data needs to support decision-making requirements of the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership.
• Section 4: Principals’ Staff Committee Charge to the Monitoring Review Team and Foundational Assessment Results. Provides an overview of methodology used to conduct the monitoring program assessment for the Principal’s Staff Committee request and details of input from the collective monitoring representatives to inform the information in the previous sections of the report.

Key Findings
1) Monitoring is critical to assess progress towards meeting goals and outcomes of
the 2014 Watershed Agreement.
2) Monitoring is insufficient for many CBP outcomes.
3) Opportunities for enhancing the networks exist but funding is a challenge.

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The purpose of this document is to provide field and laboratory methods and associated quality control requirements for use in Chesapeake Bay water quality monitoring programs, which will result in the generation of known and comparable data quality. State agency staff or subcontractors will conduct field measurements and collect and analyze water and sediment samples for specific physical, chemical and biological parameters according to the procedures in this document.

Conformance with these procedures provides a solid foundation for a wide variety of scientific and management investigations, e.g., attainment of water quality standards, characterization of the health of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, evaluation of long-term trends, effectiveness of management actions, ecosystem processes and water quality model development and calibration.

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A total of seven addendum documents have been published by EPA since April 2003. Four addenda were published documenting detailed refinements to the criteria attainment and assessment procedures (U.S. EPA 2004a, 2007a, 2008, 2010) previously published in the original April 2003 Chesapeake Bay water quality criteria document (U.S. EPA 2003a). One addendum published Chesapeake Bay numerical chlorophyll a criteria (U.S. EPA 2007b). Three addenda addressed detailed issues involving further delineation of tidal water designated uses (U.S. EPA 2004b, 2005, 2010) building from the original October 2003 tidal water designated uses document (U.S. EPA 2003b). Finally, one addendum documented the 92-segment Chesapeake Bay segmentation scheme (U.S. EPA 2008) after refinements to the Chesapeake Bay Program analytical segmentation schemes were documented (U.S. EPA 2005) building from the original U.S. EPA 2004 document (U.S. EPA 2004b). This 2017 addendum is the eight addendum document developed through the Partnership and published by EPA.

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The hydrologic calibration of the phase 5 watershed model was evaluated through 9 published acceptable criteria used in HSPF Expert system. The specific flow characteristics evaluated are: Error in total volume; Error in low flow or base flow recession; Error in 50% lowest flow; Error in 10% highest flow; Error in storm volumes; Summer volume error; Winter volume error; Summer storm volume error; and Storm peaks simulated verses observed for selected storms in inches. One Phase 5 base flow statistic was also used.

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This document is intended to address the inconsistency between parts of the CBP in the sampling and analytical methodology for the determination of particulate concentrations, and offer alternative sampling and analytical procedures to be implemented to eliminate these inconsistencies.

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