[Senate Hearing 113-761]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-761
FINDING COOPERATIVE SOLUTIONS TO ENVIRON-
MENTAL CONCERNS WITH THE CONOWINGO
DAM TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF THE
CHESAPEAKE BAY
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND WILDLIFE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 5, 2014--CONOWINGO, MD
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
TOM UDALL, New Mexico MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
Bettina Poirier, Majority Staff Director
Zak Baig, Republican Staff Director
----------
Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
BARBARA BOXER, California (ex DAVID VITTER, Louisiana (ex
officio) officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
MAY 5, 2014
OPENING STATEMENTS
Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland 1
Vitter, Hon. David, U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana,
prepared statement............................................. 26
WITNESSES
Jordan, Colonel J. Richard III, Commander and District Engineer,
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers--Baltimore District............... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Cardin........................................... 15
Senator Vitter........................................... 23
LaRouche, Genevieve Pullis, Field Office Supervisor, U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service--Chesapeake Bay Field Office.............. 26
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Responses to additional questions from Senator Cardin........ 35
Response to an additional question from Senator Vitter....... 42
Boesch, Donald, Ph.D., President, University of Maryland Center
for Environmental Science...................................... 52
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Responses to additional questions from Senator Cardin........ 59
Will, Vicky, Vice President, Environment and Safety, Exelon
Corporation.................................................... 63
Prepared statement........................................... 65
Responses to additional questions from Senator Cardin........ 77
Gray, Hon. Richard, Mayor, City of Lancaster, Pennsylvania....... 81
Prepared statement........................................... 83
Gill, Hon. Joe, Secretary, Maryland Department of Natural
Resources...................................................... 124
Prepared statement........................................... 126
Responses to additional questions from Senator Cardin........ 132
FINDING COOPERATIVE SOLUTIONS TO ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS WITH THE
CONOWINGO DAM TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF THE CHESAPEAKE BAY
----------
MONDAY, MAY 5, 2014
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife,
Conowingo, MD.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:57 a.m., in
the Conowingo Visitors Center and Recreation Office, Hon.
Benjamin L. Cardin (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senator Cardin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Senator Cardin. I'm going to do something which is unheard
of in the U.S. Senate. We're going to start a few minutes
early.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cardin. So just don't tell my colleagues that we
did that, because I know our first panel is ready to go, and I
very much appreciate everyone that's here.
This is a particularly glorious day. So it's nice to be
able to be up here on the Susquehanna on a beautiful day.
I want to thank Senator Boxer and Senator Vitter, the chair
and Republican leader on the Environment and Public Works
Committee, for allowing us to have a field hearing. I thought
it was important to have the hearing here right at the dam site
on the Susquehanna in order to provide the best setting and the
most convenient setting for a public hearing as it relates to
two very important goals that we have in our country, and that
is energy supply and environment, and the two are very much
related to our discussion today.
Senator Boozman, who is the lead Republican on the
Subcommittee on Wildlife and Water, is recovering from a
serious condition. I hope I'll see him this week in Washington.
He's the lead Republican on the subcommittee that I have the
opportunity of chairing.
So with all of those preliminaries out of the way, welcome,
everyone. And as I said, this hearing is scheduled because
there's two very important goals that we have. This dam
provides an incredible amount of carbon-free energy to our
country, which is very important--1.6 billion kilowatt hours of
zero-carbon energy annually. That's very important. It's been
here since 1928, so it's been here for a long time.
The energy needs are clear. My staff tells me this is the
second largest production of hydroelectric power on the East
Coast of the United States, second only to Niagara. So this is
a significant facility as it relates to power. It supports a
9,000-acre reservoir that I'm sure that we will be talking
about today.
The Susquehanna River is critically important to the
Chesapeake Bay and to our environment. It is the largest source
of fresh water going into the Chesapeake Bay, starting at
Cooperstown, New York, which I've had the opportunity to
personally visit. So it's an important environmental issue.
The upstream pollution is not healthy for the Bay. We know
that. The sources of the pollution is not the dam. The sources
of the pollution is upstream, and we know about the sediment
and the issues of the sediment. We also know that there are
other pollutants, including the nutrient levels of the Bay. It
can be devastating to the aquatic life, the degradation of our
oysters, our crab, our rockfish, and hundreds of species are
very much impacted by the sediment and nutrients that flow into
the Susquehanna and into the Chesapeake Bay.
The environmental problems are well known on the Bay. We've
been talking about this for a long time. I started on the Bay
program when I was in the State legislature, when Harry Hughes
was Governor of Maryland. So it goes back a long time, our
efforts to try to deal with the Bay.
The reservoir that was created as a result of the dam
provides a trapping source for a lot of those pollutants.
They're held in the reservoir. That's a good thing. But now
we're talking about reaching the capacity of what the reservoir
can handle from the point of view of the sediment control.
Therefore, we're going to talk about a term of dynamic
equilibrium. The first time I heard that term was when I was
reading the material for this hearing. So we'd like to know
what that means and what the impact of dynamic equilibrium is
on the Chesapeake Bay and what happens during scouring events,
when we have an extreme condition.
I was here a little bit early, so I drove across the dam
just to take a look at it. We couldn't help but notice the
incredible amount of debris that's being held by the dam today.
What impact do scouring events have on this dynamic equilibrium
and on the Bay itself? We'll have a chance to talk about that
and other issues during this hearing today.
Colonel Jordan, it's a pleasure to have you here. The Army
Corps has completed a study, and we thank Exelon and the Nature
Conservancy and the State of Maryland for helping facilitate
that study. That study dealt with the sediment issue, a very
important part of it, and we'll have a chance to review the
impact of that study on our work today.
We know that there is a responsibility of all the
stakeholders. I want to emphasize that. It's not just one
stakeholder, but all the stakeholders. Clearly, what happens
upstream and how we handle our waste, how we handle farming
operations, how we handle development upstream all affect the
quality of the Bay and the effectiveness of what can be done
here at this dam.
Exelon clearly has a responsibility as the operator of the
dam. We'll be able to talk about that. Vicky Will, we thank you
very much for being here today. She will be on the second
panel.
We have government partners. I particularly appreciate
Mayor Gray from Lancaster being here to talk about what you can
do at the local level. Secretary Joe Gill from the State is
here--we thank him--with the State of Maryland and the impact
it has.
This is not the only source of fresh water going into the
Chesapeake Bay. How about the other sources and the watershed
areas, their responsibility? And, of course, there are other
dams on the Susquehanna in addition to here at Conowingo.
All of our policies should be based upon best science, and
that's going to be a theme that we'll talk about during today's
hearing. Dr. Don Boesch, who is here, is a frequent witness on
Chesapeake Bay issues and has been extremely helpful. We very
much appreciate your presence here today.
And Genevieve LaRouche is here from the Fish and Wildlife.
There are other issues here that we are concerned about,
including the fish habitat issue. I've seen the fish passage
facility before, and it's very impressive. We'll have a chance
again to take a look at it today. But are we doing the best we
can for fish habitat? What is the status of that? We'll have a
chance today to talk about that issue in addition to others--
what impact the sediment has on fish habitat.
And the operation of the dam, which operates two peak
periods daily to maximize the energy production--does that have
an impact on the health of the fish habitat? That's an issue
that we will want to pursue during today's hearing. And are
there other steps that can be taken that are appropriate?
We all know that this dam was certified by the FERC process
in 1980. FERC certification expires later this year. We're now
in the process of the 401 certification mandated by the Clean
Water Act. How does that provide us an opportunity to directly
deal with some of those issues? I hope that will come out at
today's hearing.
We also need to be mindful that there is the State
watershed implementation plans and the TMDLs. How does all this
fit into those programs that are also clearly aimed at dealing
with the health of the Chesapeake Bay, generally?
I hope as a result of today's hearing we'll have a better
understanding of the circumstances as to how this hydroelectric
dam impacts the issues that we're talking about both on energy
and on the environment. What is our overall strategy for
dealing with both energy production and environment? How does
it affect the surrounding communities? And what are the
stakeholders' responsibilities?
The bottom line is we need to work together on this issue,
and I'm completely convinced about that. How can all the
stakeholders continue to work together to do what's best for
our energy needs and our environment?
One last point before I introduce formally our first panel.
I really want to thank the staff--they're sitting behind me,
the staff from the EPW Committee, both the majority and the
Republican staff people--for the work that they did in making
this hearing possible. It's a very busy time for the EPW
Committee. We're in the midst of a conference on the Water
Resources Development Act. We hope to complete that as early as
this week. And yet we're here in Maryland for a field hearing,
and I particularly thank them for the work and time that they
put in to make this hearing possible.
On a personal note, I thank Josh Klein on my staff who has
made the effort to pull all of us together.
One last apology. Obviously, we needed a larger room. I
apologize for that. I don't mind people coming in here and
sitting if you can find places. So if we can just give you a
chance to get to get in here and find a place that's a little
bit more convenient for you, that's fine. We have a little bit
more room on the sides up here.
I might also put out that the Environment and Public Works
Committee is also busy working on a reauthorization of our
surface transportation. So this is a very busy time for our
committee, and this, obviously, is a very important subject.
So on our first panel, we're very pleased to have Colonel
Richard Jordan, who is the Commander and District Engineer,
United States Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, in a
key position, and Ms. Genevieve Pullis LaRouche, the Field
Office Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service--Chesapeake
Bay Field Office.
We'll start with Colonel Jordan.
[The prepared statement of Senator Cardin follows:]
Statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin,
U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland
I want to thank our witnesses for their willingness and
interest in testifying at today's hearing.
The Susquehanna River and its tributaries is the single
largest freshwater river in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Just
10 miles downriver from where we are today, the Susquehanna
opens up to become the Chesapeake Bay, the United States'
largest estuary.
Where we are today stands the Conowingo Dam--an 86-year-old
marvel of engineering (for its time).
The Conowingo Dam is a merchant power production facility
that generates 1.6 billion kilowatt hours of zero-carbon energy
annually in the State of Maryland, powered by the magnificent
public resource that is the Susquehanna River. The Philadelphia
Electric Company, now a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation,
completed construction of the dam in 1928. PECO and Exelon have
sold power and profited from the energy generated by the
Susquehanna at this dam for nearly 90 years.
The Conowingo Dam, and the series of dams just upriver from
Conowingo on the Lower Susquehanna, effectively control the
rate and volumes of water that flow down the river, which has
an enormous effect on the river's ecosystem. Some of these
effects have been positive, like reducing the flow of sediments
and nutrients into the Chesapeake Bay. Others harm the river
ecosystems, like restricting the replenishment of natural
sediments to the river bed immediately downstream.
The dam's operational procedures that simulate twice daily
drought and flood events that are timed based on peak energy
demand also affect the health of the river as well as restrict
recreational opportunities immediately downriver.
It is incumbent upon the operators of the dam, as well as
State and Federal regulators, to ensure that the important
public resource powering this dam is also cared for and
protected while also meeting our region's energy needs.
It is this fresh water that creates the brackish marine
environment that supports Maryland blue crabs, Chesapeake Bay
oysters, rockfish, shad and hundreds of other aquatic species.
For many years the dam has provided ``incidental'' benefits
to the Bay of trapping upstream sediments and nutrients that
were flowing downstream. These contaminants travel as far away
as Cooperstown, New York, and as close as right here in Harford
County from Broad Creek.
While the containment of excess nutrients and sediments is
significant, the evidence that this benefit is ``incidental''
is evidenced by the fact that the reservoir is reaching maximum
storage capacity because it has not been maintained as if it
were a purposeful sediment and nutrient control measure. The
accumulated sediments behind the dam are not regularly dredged
the way a nutrient and sediment detention basin would be.
Frankly, this isn't surprising. The dam is a hydropower
plant, not a stormwater detention basin. But I raise this point
because now that the dam is reaching its storage capacity, a
better understanding of what a ``full reservoir'' means is
necessary.
Fortunately, Exelon, The Nature Conservancy, and the State
of Maryland came together to provide matching and supplemental
funds necessary to commission the Army Corps of Engineers to
study the effect of the loss of additional capacity of sediment
detention behind the dam.
I am looking forward to Colonel Jordan's testimony on the
preliminary findings of this study. The Watershed Assessment
should help inform the scope of the problem and the feasibility
and practicality of ``solving,'' as some have characterized
what is necessary, the conundrum of Conowingo Dam.
I think it is important to note, however, that the scope of
this study and the models that were run to generate the data
were limited to examining sediment. A more complete
understanding of the extent of the impact this loss of storage
will have on Bay water quality must also assess nutrient
pollution.
Maryland has begun the process of developing a section 401
certification for the dam. 401 certification is a regulatory
compliance authority delegated to the States by the Clean Water
Act that must be completed for any facility requiring a Federal
permit or license to operate. In the case of Conowingo, it
would be FERC license which is scheduled for relicensing in
2015.
While the Corps' completion of the Lower Susquehanna
Watershed Assessment will inform the 401 cert process, Maryland
needs more information on scoured nitrogen and phosphorous
behind the dam and what continues to come down the Susquehanna
is having on Bay water quality.
Maryland and other stakeholders, including Exelon, are
interested in helping fund this supplemental study on
nutrients. I greatly appreciate this good faith effort on the
part of Exelon to help ensure that the 401 certification, and
ultimately the FERC license, are informed by the best available
science. These regulatory decisions need to be driven by the
best science.
Many strong opinions have been expressed on the impact the
dam is having on Bay water quality.
Some have said that there is no point in doing anything to
address water quality issues on other tributaries of the Bay
watershed until Conowingo Dam is ``fixed.''
Some who hold those opinions also strongly oppose the TMDL
and the State Watershed Implementation Plans.
I've also heard Exelon's company line that it does not feel
that it is responsible for the pollution that's accumulated
behind the dam since Exelon didn't produce it.
Frankly, I take issue and would challenge both of these
perspectives. I strongly believe that all stakeholders in the
watershed have responsibilities to meet in order to restore
water quality to the Bay.
I believe it is irresponsible for one set of stakeholders
to point their fingers at Conowingo as an excuse not to make
contributions to clean up their part of the watershed. While
the Susquehanna may be the largest single source of freshwater
into the Bay, the rest of the tributaries combined surpass the
volumes of fresh water that flows down the Susquehanna.
The fact is, the excess nutrient and sediments coming down
the Susquehanna and are occasionally scoured from behind the
dam by events like the storms we experienced in the region last
week. But that same storm event caused the fresh water rushing
down the Shenandoah, the Monacacy, the Potomac and other rivers
of the Chesapeake watershed to run milky brown with sediment
and nutrients, and no ``fix'' at Conowingo Dam would've changed
the excess nutrient and sediment levels of these rivers.
The point is, we all have a shared responsibility to work
within the our portions of the watershed to improve water
quality locally which in turn will improve water quality
downstream in the Bay. This is about taking local
responsibility for the problems in our communities and avoiding
claims of innocence and finger pointing as if the solution or
panacea to these problems rest in one place--we share this
responsibility.
I want to make it clear that I support the continued and
lasting operation of the Conowingo Dam. I believe that there is
a balance that must be struck between energy production and
environmental stewardship that I want to discuss in this
hearing.
Exelon and all stakeholders in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
have a responsibility to be good stewards of the waters of the
Chesapeake Bay.
The reason I invited Mayor Rick Gray to testify today is
that he exemplifies a community that accepts its responsibility
in the watershed, and I think there are important lessons that
we should learn from his efforts and experience. And Lancaster
City does not even reap the direct benefits of the Bay that
many of Maryland's communities are so fortunate to have.
The recovery of the Chesapeake Bay is a tremendous
undertaking that we all must work together to accomplish. The
States have developed Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs)
that show a basin-wide commitment to restoring the basin's
water resources. The WIPs spread the burden across all sectors.
The pollution reduction targets set in the WIPs help
improve local water quality that in turn results in improved
water quality downstream and in the Bay. Because there is no
panacea to solving the Bay's water quality challenges.
I look forward to hearing our witnesses' testimony and
asking them questions on what responsibilities and actions
should be taken not only to address the challenges with a
``full'' dam but also where the dam fits in the larger basin-
wide effort to restore the Bay, and what responsibilities all
stakeholders have to reduce the nutrient and sediment pollution
to the Bay.
STATEMENT OF COLONEL J. RICHARD JORDAN III, COMMANDER AND
DISTRICT ENGINEER, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS--BALTIMORE
DISTRICT
Colonel Jordan. Chairman Cardin and members of the
subcommittee, I'm Colonel J. Richard Jordan, III, Commander of
the Baltimore District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Thank you
for the opportunity to testify today about our organization's
role in addressing the issues of sediment transport along the
Susquehanna River and specifically to discuss the Lower
Susquehanna River Watershed Assessment.
Throughout this entire process, we have worked with a
variety of Federal, State, and local agencies that have been
crucial in the assessment's development, as well as various
agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders
that have provided feedback and information throughout the
assessment process. The completion of this assessment would not
have been possible without this diverse and vast team.
The Corps of Engineers is a unique organization with a
diverse military and civil works mission. Included in our
mission is our role in watershed planning, which is more than
individual project planning. It is, instead, a more
comprehensive strategic evaluation of an entire watershed. This
process, starting with an assessment, makes for a more complete
range of potential solutions.
In 2011, the Corps partnered with the State of Maryland
through its Departments of Environment and Natural Resources to
conduct an assessment of the Lower Susquehanna watershed. This
watershed assessment, which will be released for public view
later this year, will characterize the very complex
relationships between river flow, sediment, and ecological
resources in the Lower Susquehanna River system, including the
series of hydroelectric dams along the river that routinely
trap sediment.
The Conowingo has the largest storage capacity of the dams
in the series and is closest to the Chesapeake Bay. The effects
of sediment on the Chesapeake Bay have been researched, but
past studies have not examined from a watershed perspective how
dams impact sediment transport from the Lower Susquehanna River
to the Chesapeake Bay. Previous studies indicate that the dams
have historically acted as sediment and associated nutrient
traps, thus reducing the amount of sediments and nutrients
reaching the Bay.
To conduct this watershed assessment, we used mathematical
modeling and watershed data to analyze sediment management and
strategies, as well as examine how the series of dams
functioned under various scenarios. These models represent the
best tools currently available for evaluating sediment and
nutrient dynamics in the Lower Susquehanna River and Chesapeake
Bay watershed and have been used extensively with good results.
These models have been peer reviewed during previous studies,
and their application in this assessment will be peer reviewed
again.
When this assessment started in 2011, the concern of the
stakeholders was that as the reservoirs behind each dam filled,
they would capture no sediments and associated nutrients.
Historical records indicate that the trapping of sediments at
the Conowingo is limited compared to decades ago. But trapping
of more than half of the sediment coming down the river still
occurs.
At the current time, each reservoir has reached a state of
dynamic equilibrium. This means that after large storm events
when mass scour occurs, sediment storage capacity will
temporarily increase. Sediment is then deposited again,
reducing the overall storage capacity until another mass scour
event occurs. As a result, we expect to continue to see periods
of trapping followed by scour events. But, overall, the storage
capacity of each reservoir is cyclical, and the inflow of
sediment will, in the long term, equal the outflow.
The assessment also considered the increased health impacts
to the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The impacts would be primarily
due to attached nutrients, not necessarily the sediment itself.
After a mass scour event, estimates showed that the sediment
settles quickly and is not the major threat to aquatic life.
Sources to include the watershed and scour from other
reservoirs upstream of the Conowingo Dam were also considered.
During Tropical Storm Lee in 2011, the Susquehanna River
watershed above the Conowingo Dam provided approximately 80
percent of the sediment load delivered to the Bay, only 20
percent scoured from the trapped sediment. These sources
deliver more sediment and nutrients and, therefore, more
impacts on the Bay ecosystem than do the scoured sediment and
associated nutrients from the reservoir behind the Conowingo
Dam.
As such, analysis done by the Environmental Protection
Agency indicates that the implementation of watershed
implementation plans, or WIPs, is estimated to have a far
larger influence on the health of the Bay. WIPs manage
watershed loads and detail how and when Bay States will meet
nutrient load allocations as part of the Chesapeake Bay total
maximum daily loads, or TMDLs.
In fact, we've already seen this positive impact. And over
the past 30 years, due to regulatory and voluntary nutrient and
sediment reduction strategies, nutrient and sediment loads to
the Lower Susquehanna River are already significantly lower
than they were in the mid-1980s.
The assessment considers a variety of sediment management
strategies, including dredging behind the Conowingo Dam. Please
note that the assessment does not assign responsibility for
implementing those strategies to any party and does not
recommend a future Corps project. The implementation of any of
these strategies by the Corps would require a specific
feasibility study.
Maintenance dredging with upland sediment disposal would be
required annually or on some regular cycle to achieve any
sustained improvement to the health of the Bay and would likely
cost $50 million to more than $250 million for each maintenance
cycle with costs continuing to increase as placement sites
become less convenient. Further, the positive impacts of
dredging may produce are significantly minimized due to the
fact that the majority of the sediment during a scour event is
coming from the watershed.
Where do we go from here? We're going to continue to work
with the report. The report will undergo a series of internal
and external reviews, including a public comment period. We
remain committed to working in partnership to address the
watershed planning needs of the Susquehanna River Basin, and we
expect the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed Assessment to
provide useful information to help stakeholders and
decisionmakers better understand the very complex relationships
between the river flow and sediment and ecological resources in
the Lower Susquehanna River.
Beyond this assessment, monitoring, research, and further
modeling by involved parties can help us understand nutrient
processes and their impacts on the Chesapeake Bay and its
ecological resources.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify here
today. This concludes my testimony. I'd be happy to answer any
questions you or other members of the committee may have.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Jordan follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Thank you very much, Colonel Jordan. I
should have mentioned in the beginning that, without objection,
all the written testimony of the witnesses will be made a part
of the record. So you may proceed as you wish.
I also would like to place in the record the statement of
Senator David Vitter, the Republican leader on the Environment
and Public Works Committee, in regards to this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Senator Vitter follows:]
Statement of Hon. David Vitter,
U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for calling today's
hearing. I would also like to thank our witnesses for
testifying before the Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife this
morning.
The policy questions and potential solutions related to
Conowingo Dam, environmental concerns, and energy production
are important and deserve the subcommittee's attention. As we
continue to examine these issues, it is critical that we
understand the various legal, environmental, and economic
challenges and opportunities associated with Conowingo Dam and
its relicensing.
The Conowingo Dam is just 10 miles upstream of the
Chesapeake Bay, a body of water that has significant
historical, ecological, and environmental value for people
throughout the United States, especially those who reside in
the mid-Atlantic States. I applaud the cooperative and
voluntary efforts undertaken by many officials and stakeholders
in recent years to protect the Chesapeake Bay.
At the same time, we must recognize that environmental
policies and programs related to the Chesapeake Bay and
elsewhere must be based on sound science and law and
accomplished in a manner which does not jeopardize the
livelihoods of hard working Americans. For example, the
Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) represents a
dramatic expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency's
authority under the Clean Water Act and threatens State and
local land use authority throughout the country, as evidenced
by the numerous States that have expressed opposition to the
precedent the TMDL could set. As we consider concerns and
possible solutions related to the Conowingo Dam, the issues
related to the Bay TMDL offer a lesson to policymakers and
should lend caution to any top-down regulatory approach.
I appreciate the public and private officials and academics
that are here today to provide us with their expertise on these
issues. I look forward to the witnesses' testimony and again
thank Senator Cardin for holding this important hearing.
Senator Cardin. Ms. LaRouche.
STATEMENT OF GENEVIEVE PULLIS LaROUCHE, FIELD OFFICE
SUPERVISOR, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE--CHESAPEAKE BAY
FIELD OFFICE
Ms. LaRouche. Good morning, Chairman Cardin. I'm Genevieve
LaRouche, Chesapeake Bay Field Office Supervisor with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, and an Annapolis resident. I
appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the Conowingo
Dam.
Mr. Chairman, I want to acknowledge your leadership on
conservation of the Chesapeake Bay over the years. You were
Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates when the first Bay
agreement was signed 30 years ago. You have been an ardent
supporter of conservation of the Chesapeake Bay and a
foundational leader for Maryland's legislative agenda and
support of the Bay. Thank you for your continued support.
I also want to thank some of our other partner agencies,
including the National Park Service, the National Marine
Fisheries Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the
Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
My written testimony provides the Service's views on the
importance of the dam and its impact on migratory fish, as well
as the impact of water flow on wildlife resources. The Service
recognizes a balance is needed between hydropower, fish
passage, and improving the health of the Susquehanna River
system. We have a unique opportunity to work together to strike
this balance and restore this mighty river. My oral remarks
will provide some quick highlights, and I ask that my written
statement be submitted for the record.
It's important to remind ourselves that the Susquehanna
River is one of America's largest rivers, beginning in central
New York and flowing over 400 miles through central
Pennsylvania to Maryland. The largest tributary to the
Chesapeake Bay, the Susquehanna River provides over 60 percent
of the fresh water to the Chesapeake Bay.
The Susquehanna River was once home to large numbers of
migratory fish, including American shad, river herring, and
American eel. These fish played a vital role in the Chesapeake
region's history. During the Revolutionary War, American shad
were described as a savior fish that saved George Washington's
troops from starvation after the harsh winter of 1778. Today,
as yesterday, shad are essential to the region's economy,
supporting one of the most valuable fisheries in the region and
providing recreation and tourism opportunities that support
local communities throughout the region.
Ecologically, the American eel plays a crucial role as a
host fish for the freshwater eastern elliptio mussel. This
mussel filters gallons of water daily and is a key element to
improving water quality in this heavily populated watershed.
Populations of American shad, river herring, and American eel
have been reduced or essentially eliminated in the Susquehanna
River and other Chesapeake Bay tributaries by dams.
On the Susquehanna River, the American shad population
upstream of the Conowingo Dam is at historically low levels,
and population estimates downstream below the dam have shown a
decrease since 2001. Despite this decrease, population
estimates suggest American shad are present downstream of the
dam, and more fish would be passing upstream if more suitable
conditions were available. While the American shad population
below the Conowingo Dam is currently estimated at about 100,000
fish, only 12,733 American shad passed the Conowingo Dam in
2013.
After taking into account the dams upstream of Conowingo
Dam, only 2 percent of the American shad attempting to migrate
up the Susquehanna River actually made it to their spawning
grounds. That translates into only 200 fish passing all the
Lower Susquehanna River dams in 2013. The fish passage goal for
adult American shad passing into that spawning habitat is 2
million fish.
The day-to-day operations of the Conowingo Dam affect
wildlife and habitat downstream. Rapid cycling of rising water
during power generation, followed by falling water levels after
generation, creates unnatural river conditions. This flow
regime creates drought and flood regimes of record proportion
and degrades the aquatic habitat downstream for many species,
including migratory fish, mussels, and map turtles.
Fish passage technology has improved in recent years. The
fish passage facilities at Conowingo Dam can be upgraded to
provide the efficient fish passage we need. By building and
maintaining fully functioning fish lifts on both sides of the
river, our data indicate that we can pass the numbers of fish
needed to restore migratory fish populations to the Susquehanna
River.
Conowingo is currently undergoing Federal relicensing,
which means we have a rare opportunity that happens only once
every 30 to 50 years to modernize the fish passage at Conowingo
and advance restoration of American shad and river herring at
the Susquehanna River. Through this relicensing, the Service
works with license applicants, the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission, other agencies, and the interested public to ensure
that hydropower projects operate in an environmentally sound
manner and the Nation's natural resources are protected.
We recognize and understand there is a balance to strike
between energy production and fish passage, and we engage in
ongoing conversations with the hydro operator, Exelon, to find
that balance. This is a once in a generation opportunity to
improve fish populations and habitat in the Susquehanna River,
its tributaries, and the Chesapeake Bay.
By applying the best available science and upgraded
engineering techniques at Conowingo Dam, we will not only
improve fish populations but help to ensure their
sustainability for future generations. We believe that all of
these goals are not only possible but also realistic and within
reach.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the
importance of the dam and its impact on migratory fish. I'm
happy to answer any questions and look forward to working with
the subcommittee.
[The prepared statement of Ms. LaRouche follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Well, let me thank both of you for your
testimony, and, particularly, let me also thank you for what
you do every day to help in regards to these issues.
Colonel Jordan, I'm going to have some questions for the
record because they're kind of technical as to the manner in
which the study was done. As I understand it, it was limited to
sediment issues. It didn't deal with all of the potential
pollutants that are dealt with in the Bay.
I just want to make sure that we understand the methodology
that was used and, particularly, how it affects unusual
conditions. You already talked about scour events and this
dynamic equilibrium, which I want to get a little bit more
into. But it seems to me that there are seasonal issues here,
and they're becoming more extreme.
Therefore, I want to know how confident we are on your
findings as we go to more extreme weather conditions as a
reality of where we are as a community. If you want to comment
on that now, fine, but I will be asking you some questions for
the record.
Colonel Jordan. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say that we're
very confident because we have used models that have been
developed over the last 20 to 30 years, specifically, one of
them with regards to the Chesapeake Bay. We can talk about the
future projections in your further questions, sir.
Senator Cardin. Thank you. So let me talk about dynamic
equilibrium. I think I understand it to mean that the typical
flow of sediment coming from upstream to downstream will be as
if the dam was not there on a typical amount of flow since it
has reached its maximum capacity of storage in the reservoir.
During a scour event, there will be a disruption of that, but
within a relatively short period of time, we get back to that
equilibrium. Am I describing that right or not?
Colonel Jordan. Mr. Chairman, I would offer that 100 years
ago, the system was in equilibrium. It was without any dams,
and there was a certain amount of sediment flowing down the
river, on average, every year. In the intervening 100 years,
we've placed, in this case, four dams across the river, and
they have trapped more sediment than would normally have gone
down the river in the 1800s.
Around the year 2000, give or take a little bit, the dams
got full. So about every 4 or 5 years, when a major storm event
happens, that scour would occur and would reduce the amount of
sediment that was trapped behind the dam. So, as you just
stated, it gave another 4 or 5 years of somewhat--of trapping
capacity. And that's the dynamic nature of the equilibrium.
So we're back at steady state where we were 100 years ago.
But you still have these big scour events that are happening
down the Chesapeake Bay, which did not happen necessarily 100
years ago, because there weren't all these trapped sediments
behind the dams.
Senator Cardin. So how would you characterize what happened
this past weekend on the amount of rainfall that we received?
Would that be considered one of these 4-year scour events, or
is that just the new reality that we have to confront?
Colonel Jordan. In Baltimore, it felt like the event from
2011 or 1996, because we had six inches. But if you looked
upstream throughout the Susquehanna River Basin, there was
actually minimal impact. The average daily flow for the
Susquehanna River right here is 40,000 cubic feet per second.
We think that a major scour event occurs at about 10 times that
or 400,000 cubic feet per second. We did not reach anything
like that this past week.
Senator Cardin. So when we see all that debris that's being
trapped, that's nothing of major concern?
Colonel Jordan. I am not concerned about that at all. I see
that routinely down in the Baltimore harbor and in my dams that
are up and down this river system.
Senator Cardin. It just doesn't look very nice.
Colonel Jordan. It doesn't. If I could offer, the main
concern is the sediment, which is actually not right in front
of the dam here. It's about a mile upstream.
Senator Cardin. So the reservoir today, as we speak, is at
capacity, and we have this dynamic equilibrium occurring on a
daily basis right now?
Colonel Jordan. That is correct, sir.
Senator Cardin. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Ms. LaRouche, let me talk a little bit about the impact of
a scour event. It's not just the sediment being released from
the reservoir, so you've got more sediment than would normally
flow into downstream. You get a surge of pollutants, more than
would happen even during a scour event. But you also get an
incredible amount of fresh water that's coming down, which also
has an impact on the environment.
Can you just tell us, in your view, how the fact that the
dam is here so you get the unusual amount of sediment coming
from a scour event plus the increased amount of fresh water--
how does that impact the habitat?
Ms. LaRouche. Well, our primary concern is with the high
flow events that come with the dam's operation.
Senator Cardin. The normal operations.
Ms. LaRouche. The normal operations, yes, and that has a
big negative impact on the habitat immediately downstream. It
scours it. It's not good for the underwater grasses, which we
need for all kinds of underwater organisms, such as oysters and
rockfish, and it's also not good for organisms such as map
turtles.
It also disturbs the fishes' migratory cues that they need
to migrate upstream and displaces them and impedes migration.
So we're hoping that we can work with Exelon to create a safe
zone of passage, so to speak, for fish to migrate safely
upstream and downstream.
Senator Cardin. I want to get to that in one moment. But
the dam has been here for almost 90 years. So the fish don't
remember when there wasn't any dam here. So tell me--just
explain to me how the--if we're dealing with such a
longstanding flow of how the water has operated, including the
daily surges, the fish never adapt to that? Is this not the new
norm for the shad?
Ms. LaRouche. We have evidence that they're hanging around,
kind of looking to migrate upstream, and time is an issue. We
need to get them--if they're going to breed successfully, we
need to get them to their spawning habitat as quickly as
possible. And although the dams have been there for 90 years,
the fish have been migrating upstream for about 10,000 years,
and studies show that they do want to go.
If we can direct them--and there's all kinds of great new
technology that directs them to fish passage ladders, et
cetera, that can safely move them upstream. But they do get
confused when the water stops and they kind of have to move
back, and then move around tomorrow, the next day, that kind of
thing.
Senator Cardin. So they haven't adapted even though it's
been a long time?
Ms. LaRouche. No, not American shad and not river herring
and not eels.
Senator Cardin. And they're the three species that you're
most concerned about as far as passage?
Ms. LaRouche. Yes. They're the ones that are not doing
particularly well with the dams, and they're also the most
important economically and ecologically.
Senator Cardin. So we have these fish lifts that are there.
Ms. LaRouche. Yes.
Senator Cardin. You seem to say that that can work. That's
working well.
Ms. LaRouche. Yes. Well, it can work. They very much need
to be upgraded and improved.
Senator Cardin. What do you mean by that?
Ms. LaRouche. Well, right now, they're at capacity. There's
a lot of fish in the river called gizzard shad which like the
Conowingo pond. They like to breed in there, so we'll be
getting higher and higher populations of them. They tend to
fill up the fish passage facilities. So we need to make it so
we can get more fish in the elevator, so we can get all the
American shad that want to pass above stream so we can meet our
fish passage goals.
Senator Cardin. So we have greater capacity than--greater
need than capacity? Is that what you're saying?
Ms. LaRouche. We need greater capacity. We need more room
in the fish passage lifts to lift them up. You'll see when we
go up there that it can get pretty crowded, and we don't have
enough volume. We can't get the amount of fish we need in there
to get the fish that we're trying to get.
Senator Cardin. I've been there before. I've seen the flow.
It's an incredible sight. I'm looking forward to again seeing
it today. I was always amazed at the number that are there. So
you're suggesting that it's too crowded and some don't make it?
Ms. LaRouche. Yes. There's a lot of--when I've been up
there, I've seen like 90 percent gizzard shad, they're called,
and they're native fish and they're fine. But they're not, you
know, something that's very desirable for fishing or for the
economy, and they're doing fine. But the American shad, which
need to reach their spawning grounds upstream, are not making
it.
Senator Cardin. And you think that's a capacity issue?
Ms. LaRouche. Yes.
Senator Cardin. It's not so much that it's not----
Ms. LaRouche. An efficiency issue, capacity and efficiency.
Senator Cardin. An efficiency issue. Is that also true with
the eel?
Ms. LaRouche. We have a different tactic with the eel now
where we trap and transport them. We trap them and then
transport them up above all the dams.
Senator Cardin. Is that adequate today?
Ms. LaRouche. We think it'll do the trick for now. In an
ideal world, we'd have natural passage for them over the dams.
But we're not thinking about that in this relicensing right
now.
Senator Cardin. Because they don't particularly like the
fish lifts?
Ms. LaRouche. They're not--they need their own eel way to
go up. We're hoping by 2030 that we'll be building passage for
eels.
Senator Cardin. And what--can you just--can you get that up
by yourself?
Mr. Sutherland. Hi. Dave Sutherland, Fish and Wildlife
Service.
Senator Cardin. Would that be a similar type of a lift, or
would that be--how would you get past----
Mr. Sutherland. Actually, I'm not the eel expert. I'm right
next to the eel expert, though.
Sheila, would you like to----
Ms. Eyler. Hi. I'm Sheila Eyler. The eels that come
upstream are small eels, usually about six inches long, and
they require a whole different kind of facility. The lifts that
you see are for much bigger fish. They actually require a
different method of passage. So it's like a ramp they have to
climb up on--a different structure.
Senator Cardin. Like the traditional type of a----
Ms. LaRouche. They go up a ramp.
Senator Cardin. More like an elevator--no, more like an
escalator than an elevator.
Ms. LaRouche. Right.
Senator Cardin. OK. I got you.
Colonel Jordan, some have suggested that the most effective
way to solve this problem of what happens during a scour event
is to just dredge and give greater capacity to trap more even
in a scour event. Your thoughts on that?
Colonel Jordan. Effectiveness can be measured in a variety
of ways. If we're just focused on the amount of sediment
trapped behind the dam, we've looked at multiple ways of
limiting the impacts of that sediment. But I'd remind anybody
listening that 80 percent of what's going down and reaching the
Bay is coming from upstream. So focusing on the 20 percent
that's being scoured from behind the dam during a major storm
event will get you some benefit, but not nearly as much as
dealing with the first 80 percent.
The benefits of dredging on the overall impact of the
health of the Chesapeake Bay are rather limited. The amount of
effort that we'd need to put into removing some of the
materials behind the dam will get you very little bang for your
buck downstream.
Senator Cardin. I understand what you're saying as far as
the amount of pollution that goes in upstream. I didn't quite
understand what you meant by dredging upstream.
Colonel Jordan. Dredging upstream of the dam itself--so we
have 80 years of trapped sediment. If I might, there's about 80
football stadiums filled worth of sediment trapped up there. To
dredge, even back to the 1996 levels, about 15 percent of
what's been trapped up there, we estimate would cost somewhere
between a half and $3 billion, and that's not just a one-time
deal, because you need to continually maintain that level of
dredging for the years to come at $50 million to $250 million a
year.
So when you look at the terms of the cost of removing that
material that's upstream of the dam, I can do it much, much
cheaper as far as my Federal navigation mission downstream in
the Federal channels that I'm required to maintain.
Senator Cardin. OK. Now I think I understand what you're
saying. So you've estimated an initial cost of somewhere
between a half a billion to $3 billion to get the capacity back
to where it was in the mid-1990s, and that would require
maintenance dredging in order to do that. The effect would be
to trap the sediment even during scour events upstream rather
than letting it come downstream. But the cost-benefit issues is
a matter that makes that difficult to justify.
Colonel Jordan. That's a fair statement. You would get some
benefit in terms of creating more capacity behind the dam to
trap sediments if you dredged it out. You're still going to get
some of the scour happening because you still have another--if
you dredge it back to 1996 levels, you've still got stuff
that's below there--85 percent of the original material that
still could be scoured would be less scoured.
Senator Cardin. So the advantage is you trap the sediments
from ever getting downstream if you have capacity upstream, and
you minimize the impact of a scour--lessen the impact of a
scour event.
Colonel Jordan. You will trap some of the sediments.
Currently, today, we're trapping somewhere between 55 percent
and 60 percent of the sediments on a given day, a day like
today.
Senator Cardin. I thought we had reached this dynamic
equilibrium. I thought that meant that it was basically equal
to--as if we didn't have a dam there.
Colonel Jordan. And we're in the period now--the last major
storm event was 2011.
Senator Cardin. Oh, so you're still rebuilding----
Colonel Jordan. So you're rebuilding a little bit, and
then, presumably, in 2016, the next storm will come,
thereabouts.
Senator Cardin. But if the storm doesn't come in 2016, you
will have reached that point where, on a daily basis, the
sediment flow downstream would be equivalent--if the dam were
not there.
Colonel Jordan. Almost, yes. I can't say with 100 percent
everything will flow over. Some will probably drop out.
Senator Cardin. Sure.
Colonel Jordan. And my smart folks are saying that there
will always be some sediment that spills over the dam,
regardless of how empty the dam is.
Senator Cardin. Oh, that I understood. What I'm trying to
judge--I understand the cost-benefit clearly has to be
discovered. I'm trying to get the benefit if we were to
increase the capacity at the reservoir on a normal basis, so
you don't reach capacity. You don't reach that dynamic. What
happens there is that in the normal flow, you reduce
significantly the amount of sediment that would go downstream,
because it would be trapped in the reservoir on a more
permanent basis. You're not just refilling. You have basically
unlimited capacity if you continue to dredge. But you will
still get some sediment, but not as much going downstream.
Colonel Jordan. That's correct.
Senator Cardin. And what you're doing now is that you're
dredging downstream, as you said, because you've got to keep
channels open.
Colonel Jordan. Yes, sir.
Senator Cardin. So you're doing it as it relates to
navigation as well as doing it in a way that's friendly toward
the environment downstream.
Colonel Jordan. That's a fair statement.
Senator Cardin. And that's less costly than dredging the
reservoir capacity.
Colonel Jordan. Extremely less costly. If you're interested
in figures, I spend about $10 per cubic yard currently to
maintain the Federal channels. If you were to do the same up
here, upstream of the Conowingo Dam, the cost is somewhere
between $20 and $90 a cubic yard, depending on where you put it
once you've taken it out.
Senator Cardin. And since I've looked at your budgets
recently, I know that you're not just sitting there with bank
accounts ready to spend. It's been a struggle to get you the
dollars that you need.
Colonel Jordan. Well, we have adequate funds to maintain
the Federal channels if we stretch our dollars as far as we
can. But we don't have funds to--nor the mission to deal with
sediments that are trapped behind the Conowingo or any other
dam.
Senator Cardin. So let me just ask you a question about
pollutants other than sediment that the study, as I understand,
didn't really focus on. Can you just comment at all about the
risk factors we have on nutrient levels and toxics and others?
Colonel Jordan. The study is focusing mainly on sediments,
but it does touch on nutrients, specifically the nutrients that
are in and around the sediments that are collected. We estimate
that--and we modeled the nutrients, the phosphorus and the
nitrogen, that are churned up with this scour and how it
impacts the Bay. However, the majority of those nutrient loads
that are impacting the Bay are coming from upstream.
So we looked at the--I believe it was the 1996 event, and
we have the number of tons of nitrogen and phosphorus that were
churned up from behind the dam and scoured and put down into
the Bay. And we looked at the impacts on the environment,
specifically the sediments that mainly went to the deeper parts
of the Bay and settled out relatively quickly. The nutrients
remained much longer and impacted the algal growth which tended
to restrict the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water which
impacted plants and fish habitat.
Senator Cardin. So let me just ask you, again, about the
methodology that you used here. It seems to me when a scour
event occurs, the season that it occurs has a direct impact. I
think--1996 occurred in the wintertime. If it had occurred in
the summer or spring, it would have been a different impact.
How do you account for the seasonal variations of these events
in your study?
Colonel Jordan. You're exactly right. If an event happens
in the winter months when the algae is not growing down in the
Chesapeake Bay, there is much less of an impact as far as the
nutrients on the health of the Bay. Our models, as we ran
them--we made them run over a 3-year timeframe, so three
seasons of growth and activities in the Chesapeake Bay. And we
looked at events happening in the winter months as well as the
summer months, and we looked at the impacts of how that would
happen over a 3-year period inside the Bay.
Senator Cardin. So if these 3 years were not typical, the
results would be different.
Colonel Jordan. And we varied the--we placed approximately
14 different scenarios into this set of computer models.
Senator Cardin. I want to talk about worst case scenario.
It occurs during the worst possible season, and it occurs more
severely. What does that do to your theory of dynamic
equilibrium?
Colonel Jordan. The time of year that the scour happens,
the event happens, and the amount of the scour does impact how
much is taken from behind the dam. The difference is what
happens down in the Chesapeake Bay. So as we looked at the
events--could you rephrase the question?
Senator Cardin. Well, my concern is if you're going to have
more nutrient as the result of a scour event that occurs in the
spring rather than in another time of the year, your model is
using average rather than using extreme, as I understand it,
over the last 3 years. What risk factors do we have if we don't
have a better way of dealing with nutrient release? And I know
your study didn't deal with nutrient release.
Colonel Jordan. Well, for the part of the model that looked
at the Chesapeake Bay itself, we actually used the same model
the EPA used in 1991 and 2000. So there was roughly 9 years of
data, 9 years of equations that were in there. So during that
timeframe, it captured the 1996 event, which happened in the
January timeframe.
Senator Cardin. Right.
Colonel Jordan. So I don't think it's fair to say that we
looked at the average conditions. We consider all the
conditions within that 9-year period.
Senator Cardin. There's no such thing as average, which is
also true.
Colonel Jordan. Yes, sir.
Senator Cardin. Now, the reason I'm asking these questions
is that in regards to the Chesapeake Bay program, it depends
upon confidence that all stakeholders are being treated fairly,
and that what we're asking someone to do on the Eastern Shore
of Maryland is consistent with what's happening on the
Susquehanna. It's important that we have the scientific
information to reflect that we're making these best policies on
a fair sharing of the burden, on a fair cost-benefit analysis.
So, obviously, when you see as much risk factors that are
in the Susquehanna being trapped and could be released, it
presents concern that--are the stakeholders on the Susquehanna
doing everything they can to protect or to preserve the
Chesapeake Bay. That's the bottom line question, and your study
helps. No question it helps. It presents some findings that
were not expected, and we know that there's a lot of risk
factors that are on the Susquehanna, and we know that there are
extreme weather events. We just want to know that we're as well
prepared as we can be, based upon a reasonable cost-benefit and
science, and I think your testimony has helped us try to put
those pieces together. So I thank you.
I want to ask one last question to the both of you, and
that is the certification process under FERC. You mentioned
that in your comments as an opportunity. Can you just, both of
you, review as to how you look at the certification process as
an opportunity to update and make more efficient and effective
our strategies on the Chesapeake Bay?
Ms. LaRouche. Well, as you know, at this time of year, many
communities are enjoying, you know, shad planking and other
seasonal rights of passage. So we see this as an opportunity to
restore American shad and river herring and American eel to
this great river and to the communities upstream and downstream
of the river. We have the technology in hand, both on the new
engineering techniques, which are very impressive, that we can
make that passage much more efficient and much more cost
effective than we have in the past.
Other opportunities also exist besides improving fish
passage. We know more about water flow, and if we can alter the
regimes a little bit of how the dam operates, we can help
improve habitat downstream for many wildlife species.
There's also a great opportunity in this relicensing that
the National Park Service has been very engaged in. There's a
lot of--Exelon owns a lot of conservation land, and we're in
discussions about them providing access and trails, such as the
Captain John Smith Trail, which will allow people to see as
they're hiking on the trail how the land looked 400 years ago
when Captain John Smith was here.
So there's a lot of great conservation opportunities. I
think by working hand in hand with Exelon and all the other
partners that are here in this room, we can find a good balance
here.
Senator Cardin. Thank you.
Colonel.
Colonel Jordan. Senator, what I would offer is that I'm not
sure that the Corps of Engineers would look at this as an
opportunity. I think what we enjoy is that the focus is on the
health of the Chesapeake Bay, which has been stated by the
President in an executive order, and a lot of great efforts
that are going on throughout the Bay States on how this
watershed system is operating.
So whereas in earlier years we might not have had any
interest in doing a study similar to the one we just did, there
was enough interest and enough funding to help us better
understand the system which should then lead to future actions
taken by all stakeholders and partnership members, one of which
is the Corps of Engineers, potentially.
Senator Cardin. Well, let me thank both of you for your
testimony. It very much filled in a lot of the answers to the
questions that I had. As I indicated earlier, there may be some
questions, particularly, Colonel Jordan, to you in regards to
the methodology used so that we can have a full record for our
committee.
Thank you all very much.
We'll now move to our second panel. I welcome Dr. Donald
Boesch, the President of the University of Maryland Center for
Environmental Studies; Ms. Vicky Will, Vice President,
Environment and Safety, Exelon Corporation, our hostess for
today. And we particularly want to thank Exelon for their
cooperation in making this hearing possible. They worked with
our committee very closely so that we could have the hearing
during this time of the year when the fish lifts are working
most effectively.
We also have The Honorable Joe Gill, Secretary, Maryland
Department of Natural Resources, a person who has been very
much engaged in the Chesapeake Bay program. We appreciate him
being here. And we have The Honorable Richard Gray, the Mayor
of the city of Lancaster.
Mr. Mayor, it's a pleasure to have you here.
I will just note as a matter of historic accuracy that when
Maryland started the Chesapeake Bay program back under Governor
Hughes, the State that was the most cooperative of any State
since starting the Chesapeake Bay program was Pennsylvania. I
will always remember the legislators from Pennsylvania, because
they don't have the same direct site of the Chesapeake Bay that
we have in Maryland, and yet their understanding of the
importance of what happens in Pennsylvania on the Chesapeake
Bay was very encouraging and has been one of the real
cornerstones of the success of the Chesapeake Bay program.
So it's wonderful having all four of you here. The process
that we will use, as I've indicated earlier, will be that you
may proceed as you wish. Your full statements will be made part
of the record, and then we'll get into a dialog. We'll start
with Dr. Boesch.
STATEMENT OF DONALD BOESCH, Ph.D., PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF
MARYLAND CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Mr. Boesch. Senator Cardin, thank you very much. I
appreciate the opportunity to present perspectives on the
solutions to the risk posed by infilling of the Susquehanna
Reservoir. I am Donald Boesch. I'm a professor in and president
of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
Just as a bottom line conclusion, looking at the watershed
assessment as well as other published information based on the
available evidence and analysis, I would conclude that the
infilling of the Conowingo Reservoir has created an additional
burden of nutrients and sediment pollution to the Chesapeake
Bay that requires mitigation as we go forward. However, this
burden does not render ineffective or significantly compromise
the watershed implementation plans that the State jurisdictions
have developed, that, if fully implemented, would achieve the
Chesapeake Bay Program's restoration goals.
Now, Colonel Jordan did an excellent job in his testimony
and his answers to your question explaining dynamic equilibrium
and the whole course of events that led to the present
situation wherein this dam periodically discharges large
amounts of sediments into the Bay. So I won't go further into
that. There's more perspectives in my testimony.
But I'd just like to put it into context in terms of the
issues about what this means downstream in the Bay. I'll use
the opportunity of a captive classroom here and give you a
little understanding of the things that we know and the things
that we have uncertainties about that we really probably should
better know to understand this phenomenon.
Now, the Colonel indicated that from at least a dredging
perspective, the material that comes over the dam, the sediment
that comes over the dam, mostly stays in the uppermost part of
the Bay. So the sediment pollution, if you will, the additional
burden, is an upper Bay issue. With respect to the dredging
activities, the channel maintenance, it has to be dealt with.
But with respect to water quality, it is not, under usual
operations, a significant problem because the upper Bay is
fairly turbid to begin with.
Now, there are those situations where we have these floods,
and you've seen these pictures of the satellite photographs
showing the sediment plume going well down into the Bay, down
to Virginia water. So is this a problem for the whole Bay?
The issue, of course, is that, as was discussed, the real
challenge is not just the sediment, but, particularly, the
nitrogen and phosphorus, these two element nutrients which come
over and stimulate excess algal growth, diminish the water
quality, reduce the water clarity, deplete the oxygen in the
Bay. So does that material get down that far, or is that
picture we see from space really looking at the smoke from the
muzzle of the gun rather than the bullet?
Well, as it turns out, this requires a little understanding
of the biology and chemistry of the Bay. And I want to
introduce you to another friend of ours, another element,
sulfur, which you have to understand to answer this question.
Now, as opposed to nitrogen and phosphorus, which we're putting
in--it comes from the land, it comes from the sky--sulfur comes
from the ocean. It's part of the salt in sea water as we have
the brackish Bay.
So as the nitrogen and phosphorus comes over the dam,
mainly in the form of particulate material, it's associated
with that sediment that's being disrupted. The question is is
that material released and it becomes available to the algae or
not? Nitric phosphorus tends to bind very tightly to the
sediment particles, and if it were not for a little bit of
salinity that it could run into, it would probably do no harm.
It would just be buried into the Bay.
If it gets down far enough so that the next year or the
next season, as brackish water gets mixed into the situation,
sulfur plays a role, because it fuels the decomposition of
organic matter by certain bacteria in the sediment, and that
really causes a release of a lot of phosphorus from the
sediment. So that's very important.
The other issue we have to think about in the particulate
nutrients is nitrogen. The models that the colonel referred to
show that there was a down Bay, at least mid-Bay, reduction of
water quality, because of when these periodic releases took
place, manifest in lower oxygen levels in the deeper parts of
the Bay, around Kent Island, you know, in that part of the Bay,
and in the lower Chester and Eastern Bay, those areas, which
would be slightly reduced in the oxygen levels. Below that, we
think that we are on the pathway to attain.
So that pattern suggests to our scientists that that's
probably a nitrogen phenomenon, so there is an issue of whether
that nitrogen associated with particles is also available. So
we try to understand all of these complex phenomena and
represent them. And, of course, these models that the Colonel
talked about--and you'll hear more discussion of--they're
really the state of the art. They're the best in the world.
But as the famous statistician George Box said, models are
not perfect. All models are ultimately wrong. Some are useful.
The Bay Water Quality Model is a useful model, so it could
provide guidance. But when we have a special set of
circumstances, like we're talking about now, we need to better
understand scientifically the processes going on so we can
continue to improve our models and our use of them as we move
forward.
So we're hopeful that we in the scientific community get
the opportunity to help resolve some of these questions. We
think there will be better assurance of exactly what we're up
against in terms of additional impacts and also what we need to
do to mitigate the impacts by upstream source control. So
thanks very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Boesch follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Well, thank you very much for that
testimony. I feel like I'm getting a continuing legislative
credit for your presentation.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cardin. Ms. Will, I want to once again thank you
for your hospitality here and for making this possible.
STATEMENT OF VICKY WILL, VICE PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENT AND
SAFETY, EXELON CORPORATION
Ms. Will. Thank you, Senator, for holding this hearing and
inviting Exelon to provide this subcommittee with an overview
of the licensing process for Conowingo Dam and certain related
issues.
Exelon Generation is one of the Nation's largest
competitive power generators with approximately 35,000
megawatts of owned generation. Our fleet is one of the Nation's
cleanest and low-cost generators of electricity. Included in
that fleet is the Conowingo Hydroelectric Dam and the Muddy Run
Pumped Storage Project, which is about 12 miles upstream of
Conowingo. The Conowingo Dam is the furthest downstream of the
five hydroelectric projects in the Lower Susquehanna River.
To us, Conowingo is more than just a power plant. It is an
economic engine for the region, providing vital clean energy
while protecting the air and the Bay. As outlined in the
written testimony of Exelon, in 2013, Conowingo provided about
$33 million in capital and operational spending and $3.9
million in Maryland property taxes.
Conowingo and Muddy Run employ 62 full time employees and
over 100 contracted workers annually. The projects inject $273
million into the local economy and create 298 local jobs. And
through their recreational facilities, they attract more than
250,000 visitors to Cecil and Harford Counties annually.
Environmentally, Conowingo is Maryland's largest source of
renewable energy, producing more clean energy than all other
sources in Maryland combined. Conowingo electricity displaces
generation from fossil fuel fired sources and prevents 6.5
million tons of greenhouse gases each year, which is the
equivalent of taking 1.2 million cars off the road.
Conowingo has provided fish passage since 1972 and operates
two fish lifts used for research and to pass American shad,
river herring, and other migratory fish during the migration
season. We share U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's interest in
improving and enhancing fish passage at the dam.
The current licenses for the Conowingo and Muddy Run expire
in the third quarter of 2014, and Exelon formally initiated the
FERC licensing process in 2009. Since then, we have conducted
32 FERC approved studies relating to Conowingo and 15 related
to Muddy Run. These license processes and associated studies
have cost $34 million to date. Throughout this process, Exelon
has engaged in extensive outreach to resource agencies and
stakeholders, and we continue to work cooperatively to develop
solutions and resolve differences.
Earlier this year, Exelon reached a settlement with the
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection on the
relicensing of Muddy Run. The settlement provides for trapping
and trucking of American eel from below Conowingo Dam to
locations above all five of the hydroelectric projects on the
Lower Susquehanna River, funding of over $8 million for fish
habitat restoration and sediment mitigation, and establishing
an eel passage advisory group which will include
representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
Maryland Departments of the Environment and Natural Resources.
Exelon has also reached a settlement with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service to address fish passage concerns at Muddy Run,
which we anticipate will be finalized this quarter. Exelon has
been and remains an active participant in the Lower Susquehanna
River Watershed Assessment.
Exelon's written comments describe a number of significant
licensing issues. In the interest of time today, I just want to
talk about the sediment issue. The issue of Susquehanna
sediment and its impact on aquatic wildlife and vegetation in
the Chesapeake Bay has become a significant issue in the
Conowingo licensing.
Susquehanna sediment originates from upstream point and
non-point sources, and the dam does trap some portion of the
sediment and nutrients generated by these sources. It is
estimated that Conowingo has trapped two-thirds of the sediment
generated since Conowingo was constructed in 1928. The
preliminary results from the Army Corps study indicate that the
impacts of Conowingo scour on the Chesapeake Bay may have been
overstated, the overwhelming impact of sediment on the
Chesapeake Bay is from upstream sources, and that more study is
needed to identify and understand better the nutrient loading
aspect of storm scour, as well as feasible cost-effective
solutions to address these impacts.
As you've recognized by convening this hearing, the
Susquehanna sediment issue is a complex problem, and
identifying a practical and cost-effective solution is
difficult. This is a basin-wide problem that demands that all
of the Susquehanna River stakeholders work together, including
Exelon, to reduce sediment from point and non-point sources and
identify strategies to address.
As a result, Exelon is working with the State of Maryland,
U.S. EPA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Army Corps of
Engineers, and the University of Maryland on designing
additional studies relating to the Susquehanna sediment and its
impact on aquatic wildlife and vegetation in the Chesapeake
Bay. These additional studies will build on the significant
work already done by these agencies and are anticipated to take
several years at a cost of approximately $2 million, which will
be funded by Exelon.
Exelon recognizes that the Susquehanna River and the
Chesapeake Bay are treasured environmental resources that need
to be protected and preserved, and we commit to continue to
collaborate with agencies and other stakeholders to do this.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Will follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mayor Gray.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD GRAY, MAYOR, CITY OF LANCASTER,
PENNSYLVANIA
Mayor Gray. Thank you, Senator. My name is Rick Gray. I've
been the mayor of Lancaster now--I'm in my ninth year as mayor
of Lancaster. We appreciate you inviting us here today on an
expert panel--I'm not sure I'm an expert--but to tell you what
we're doing in the city of Lancaster.
First of all, we appreciate your efforts to improve public
understanding of the environmental challenges presented by the
Conowingo Dam. We look forward to working together to improve
the ecological health of the Chesapeake Bay.
This is not a new problem in Lancaster. In 1906, the city
council debated whether or not to separate our stormwater and
wastewater system and decided at that time that $2 million was
too much to spend on it. Minutes from a 1927 Lancaster city
council meeting noted that ``The meandering course of the
Conestoga Creek formerly was a source of pride and largely used
for recreational purposes. The continually increasing
discharges of untreated sewage and industrial wastes have
polluted this stream to a serious degree.''
The minutes cite sludge deposits, oil slicks, and other
pollutants that ``do not disappear'' before reaching the
Susquehanna River and flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. That was
in 1927. No one did anything.
Nationwide, industrial pollution has been largely
eliminated because of the Clean Water Act. That said,
stormwater continues to be the main source of pollution of the
majority of the 40,000 water bodies that are documented as
impaired. Our stormwater engineering practices have not changed
in four decades since the Clean Water Act went into effect. It
is time to rethink how we approach stormwater management and to
protect our most precious resource, clean water.
Today, the city of Lancaster is responsible for between 750
million and a billion gallons of polluted water flowing into
the Conestoga River and eventually into the Chesapeake Bay.
This is common in historic cities that rely on combined sewer
systems to collect and transport both domestic sewage and
rainwater flowing from downspouts, streets, sidewalks, parking
lots, and over impervious surfaces into storm drains.
There are 50 combined sewer communities in the Chesapeake
Bay watershed alone. Eighty-five percent of the time, the
city's treatment facility is able to manage and clean the
volume of water flowing through this combined system. Still,
during heavy rain storms and other wet weather events, the
system becomes overwhelmed and, by design, untreated stormwater
and sewage are allowed to overflow into the rivers.
The problem of stormwater runoff and combined sewer
overflow is not going away, nor will our responsibility to help
clean and restore the Bay. To address these issues, we began
with two important questions: One, can the city realistically
eliminate 750 million to a billion gallons of stormwater runoff
in 25 years using green infrastructure? Two, can this approach
provide more benefits per dollar than traditional gray
infrastructure alternatives?
We've found that the answer to both questions is yes.
Lancaster's experience shows that green infrastructure can be
used to manage and reduce stormwater runoff in a way that is
both cost effective and responsible. Simply stated, green
infrastructure prevents stormwater from entering the sewer
system using natural systems such as absorption or infiltration
into the soil or into the atmosphere. This allows stormwater to
be treated as intended.
Over the past 3 years, the city of Lancaster has invested
in green infrastructure projects to demonstrate the
effectiveness of this technology. Lancaster currently, per
capita, has more square feet of green roof than any other city
in the United States--advantage of being a smaller city with
that type of statistic. Still, we're there.
Basically, green infrastructure lets the stormwater go
where it would have gone prior to our paving the planet and
preventing its absorption into the ground. Efforts are underway
in our neighborhoods to engage the community, and the question
is how do we pay for the green infrastructure. We've instituted
a stormwater utility with a stormwater management fee. The fee
is levied on property owners based on the amount of
uncontrolled impervious area on their property.
In closing, we can have clean water if we want it, not
because of Federal mandates but because we have an ethical and
moral obligation to do right by our children and grandchildren.
I would say this, Senator. Maryland is extremely important to
us from this perspective, those of us who want to do something
about it in Pennsylvania. If the people in Maryland don't
indicate an urgency with the Chesapeake Bay, the people in
Lancaster are not going to care at all about it. They really
aren't.
So what happens in Maryland directly affects our political
ability to do these things in Pennsylvania, and we look to
Maryland for leadership and really being out in front on these
types of issues. So, again, technology has given us the power
to preserve our water resources and at the same time create a
more livable, sustainable, and economically viable future for
generations to come.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Gray follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Mayor Gray, I particularly appreciate your
testimony and your leadership on this issue. You're absolutely
right. Maryland is going to do what's right, and what you're
doing in Lancaster is really commendable. So I'm glad I take my
grandchildren there frequently to see Lancaster.
Mayor Gray. I'll be sure to come downtown when you do so.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cardin. Secretary Gill.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOE GILL, SECRETARY, MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF
NATURAL RESOURCES
Mr. Gill. Thank you, Senator. I'm Joe Gill, Secretary of
Natural Resources for the State of Maryland. I'm here with my
colleague, Dr. Bob Summers, who is Secretary of the Maryland
Department of the Environment. You can guess which one of us
drew the short straw.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Gill. I'd like to provide a context and a framework and
one closing remark on next steps. Here's the context. I heard
earlier that even during large storm events like Tropical Storm
Lee, which occurred September 2011, even then, only 20 percent
of the sediment that comes into the Bay comes from behind the
dam, even during those large storm events. The rest of the
sediment that comes into the Bay comes from the surrounding
watershed.
The land area that drains into the Chesapeake Bay, as we
all know, is 64,000 square miles. Therefore, it is critically
important that all of the jurisdictions and all of the counties
move forward with their watershed implementation plans to
address the very issue of upland sediment loading that
contributes the majority of the sediment to the Bay.
In my written testimony, I submitted a picture, which I
think might illustrate the point. There's a famous photo of the
sediment plumes that occurred just after Tropical Storm Lee in
the middle of the Susquehanna. This is a picture of sediment
plumes occurring from the bottom up on the James River, on the
Rappahannock, and on the Potomac. There are no dams on any of
those rivers.
This was not a major storm event. This was sometime in
February 2013, after an ordinary storm event that occurred in
the watershed. I think this picture shows that sediment loading
is going to occur throughout the year, throughout the
watershed, and that all of us must take steps to address that
and not simply what's behind the dam.
You mentioned before about the opportunity that we have
with respect to the relicensing process. It's a great
opportunity--not only issues involving migratory fish passage,
recreation lands, minimum flow of waters, but also, of course,
sediment and nutrient loading.
One of the tools that the Clean Water Act provided Maryland
with, along with other States, is something known as a clean
water certification. Prior to receiving a license to continue
to operate the dam for the next 46 years, the dam operator has
to certify that continued operation will not impair Maryland's
water quality.
The need for that certification is what has called into
play the additional studies that have been done to actually
quantify the nutrient loading that is occurring that must be
addressed for continued operation of this dam not to impair
water quality. So we do have a very good opportunity here with
the relicensing process that is now ongoing.
Second, Exelon is correct. We are moving forward with some
additional work to quantify the nutrient impacts, working with
the Corps of Engineers and our other Federal and State
partners. We are confident that that work will build upon what
has been done in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed
Assessment Study, and that we will get to a place where we
address these impacts while at the same time continue to
implement our watershed plans to get the Bay back to the
healthy position that we hope it will be 1 day soon.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gill follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Well, thank you all for your testimony.
Secretary Gill, I want to start with the point that you
made about the fact that most of the pollutants, whether it be
sediment or whether it be the nutrients, are coming into the
Bay not from behind the dam. They're just coming into the Bay
as a part of our way of life.
Mr. Gill. Yes.
Senator Cardin. And the weather conditions that we are now
confronting, more extreme weather conditions. So the question
is: How do we deal with nutrient planning and programs? How do
we deal with our watershed improvement plans? How do we deal
with the implementation of the Bay program under TMDLs? How is
that fairly shared? And what impact do the Susquehanna and the
dam have in regards to that overall strategy?
I think that's the real challenge that we have in dealing
with this, so that all stakeholders are treated fairly. I think
that was the point that you were stressing in your testimony.
Mr. Gill. Yes. I think it's actually interesting, when you
look at the watershed plans, at least for Maryland, that
basically assess across sectors, across agricultural, septics,
stormwater, point source pollution. We basically assess
responsibility for pollutant loading and responsibility for
putting in place plans to reduce that loading. That is true of
Maryland, and it is true of other jurisdictions as well.
The real question is: What is the impact of the dam on all
of this? The TMDL, the Total Maximum Daily Load, when EPA
issued it several years ago, assumed that the dam would reach
capacity in the year 2025. We know now that, basically, that
has changed, that this notion of dynamic equilibrium has set
in.
So what do we do? Well, I think what we do is we adaptively
manage by understanding what the impact of more frequent
scouring is and by seeking to assess responsibility for that
impact on the dam operator, where that's the case, and upstream
where it's not the case. So I think that's the process we're in
right now.
Senator Cardin. Will that require us, as we revisit the Bay
agreement, to understand that the assumption on the capacity of
the dam is different today than it was before?
Mr. Gill. One of the elegant points of the way the whole
TMDLs were put into place, however inelegant it may have seemed
at the time, was that there is a midpoint assessment that will
be done by EPA in 2017. And along with that midpoint assessment
is ongoing assessment of how effective our water quality
management tools are. So what I would suggest, Senator, is that
this process of assessing and evaluating and making changes is
already in place in terms of our managing our resources going
forward.
Senator Cardin. So that'll be part of that process in
revising, perhaps, even the TMDLs.
Mr. Gill. Yes, it will, Senator.
Senator Cardin. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mayor Gray, your testimony is very compelling about the
fact that if we can reduce the amount of pollutants going in
upstream, the problems at the dam are going to be more
manageable.
Mayor Gray. Absolutely.
Senator Cardin. And it's a lot more cost effective to do it
at the local level than it is to try to figure out what happens
now that we have all this trapped sediment.
Mayor Gray. Yes. On the other hand, Senator, it's a cost
that financially strapped cities and communities in
Pennsylvania have a difficult time realizing. For example, in
Lancaster County--and we're considered one of the biggest
polluters of the Bay, the county--the farmers will tend to
point at the city and say the city is the problem. We've
resisted doing the same. Rather than that, we say, ``You have a
problem. We have a problem. You deal with yours. We'll deal
with ours.'' So rather than point fingers at people, let's just
take care of it and get it done.
But other communities in Pennsylvania have looked at our
green infrastructure plan, which is about 250 pages long. And
it was developed with the idea in mind that smaller
communities--not Pittsburgh and Philly, but the rest of our
cities--could look at it and use it, not even just in the
Chesapeake Bay watershed, but in the entire State.
We're promoting that through the League of Municipalities
in Pennsylvania. They've recently started a sustainability
program that includes looking at green infrastructure and
looking at stormwater disposal. So it's happening upstream, but
it's a difficult battle.
One final thing. We don't talk about the Chesapeake Bay,
generally, when we go out and talk to neighborhoods. If we
green a park--at one park we have, almost 4 million gallons a
year was put into stormwater--or with stormwater disposal
underneath some basketball courts with a drain field. What we
do is put a big sign up for the new park, ``Green
Infrastructure at Work,'' so that people equate green
infrastructure with a new park or a new intersection.
We use what's called integrated infrastructure. Any public
improvement we do, we look at it from a green perspective. How
can we incorporate greening into this? And again, even an
intersection change--how can we make it green? So it's been
successful, and people see improvements in the community. They
might not care about the Chesapeake Bay. They care about the
park down the street. So it's been working for us so far.
Senator Cardin. You're absolutely right. People identify
with their own community, and the way that you've done that is
very successful.
I should point out that when Colonel Jordan was talking
about up to $3 billion for the dredge project, I was thinking
of how we could use that money in the State revolving fund to
help in regards to dealing with wastewater treatment or how we
could perhaps put more money into the new regional conservation
programs under the Farm Act that help the Bay farmers in
dealing with their nutrient control issues. Putting money into
those programs will help us a great deal in reducing the
ingredients that are going into our fresh water that's causing
the problems on the Susquehanna as far as the dam is concerned.
Dr. Boesch, I want to talk a little bit more about--I
really do appreciate your explanation. As I understand it, we
really don't have good hard evidence on the nutrient issues
coming in from the Susquehanna, particularly during scour
events, as to the impact it has on the overall health of the
Bay. At least, that was not the focus of the study that was
done by the Army Corps.
As I understand it, there are two factors here that seem to
be coming into play. When you get a rush of fresh water, that
sort of mitigates the negative impact of the nutrients. It
doesn't quite have the same negative impact because there's not
as much brash. Is that accurate, or am I saying that wrong?
Mr. Boesch. No. I think when you do have one of these
floods, it introduces nutrients and it introduces sediments and
fresh water into the Bay. That changes a lot of things. It
moves the salinity down so that sulfur is pushed away that can
release the nutrients, and it also is turbid so that the plant
life that would photosynthesize and create the organic matter
which degrades water quality is inactive.
So that's why in the analysis that EPA and the Corps did in
terms of a winter flood--remember, that was one of the
scenarios the Colonel put--it has much less of an impact than
if it were a spring or summer flood, when conditions were
right, just in terms of the temperature and the metabolic rate
of organisms and so on.
However, this doesn't mean there isn't--and this is where
the important questions and unknowns come in. There is a
residual effect. So if this material comes down, and if it's
nutrients associated with sediments and falls down and is
deposited on the Bay, does it stay there? Or when it gets warm
next year and it gets salty again, the salinity moves back up
the Bay, is it released? So these are the questions that have
to be addressed that aren't yet adequately addressed in the
level of detail necessary in the Bay model.
I was just reflecting on your questions and the discussion
thus far. The Susquehanna River is responsible for about 47
percent, on the average, of the fresh water coming into the Bay
and about 41 percent--slightly less but almost the same--in
terms of the nitrogen. Nitrogen is more soluble. It goes where
the water goes. But it's only responsible for 27 percent of the
sediment, total sediment, coming into the Bay and, therefore,
only 25 percent of the phosphorus.
So we have to look at these other sources. Secretary Gill
showed you how the James and the Potomac can contribute
particulate matter, the sediment. The other sources, of course,
are local sources from erosion of soils that we don't protect
properly or urban runoff from Baltimore. If it runs down some
of these streams, it just erodes the sediment from the stream
bed, degrades the stream--and also shore line erosion as we
have sea level rise. That's causing more sediment to come into
the Bay from eroding shore lines.
So the challenge is that we can't just look at one source.
We have to look at all of these sources. So a place like the
Choptank or the Patuxent is not going to attain its water
quality from managing the Susquehanna. It requires work in the
watershed improvement plans around those tributaries. So all of
those tributaries need to work to achieve their goals. Surely,
they're influenced by the open Bay itself, but the primary
outcomes, not only oxygen but also water clarity, submerged
vegetation, harmful algal blooms is going to be determined by
the actions taken on the subwatersheds around the tributaries.
Senator Cardin. Well, I think you're right. I think the
watershed improvement plans are going to be critical in the
TMDLs as to how we manage the most effective, most efficient,
most cost-effective plans based upon best science to achieve
our objectives.
I started the hearing by saying we're very much interested
in expanding, not only maintaining, but expanding clean energy
sources. That's good for our energy. It's good for our
environment. But we also need to have the most cost effective
and efficient way to deal with the Bay, and there's so many
stakeholders that deal with it.
Let me just relate that on Friday, I was in Frostburg. I
mention that because there's two things they're doing there.
First, they're building some new buildings for the university,
for the college, and they're doing it in a way that will do
exactly what Mayor Gray was talking about, with the living
roofs and trapping water and dealing with our runoff as,
particularly, a public partner should do when they do their
construction.
I will be urging as we reauthorize the Surface
Transportation to have more sensitivity to our transportation
construction as it relates to the runoff issues that we're
talking about.
But second, they have a sustainable agricultural project
that takes a former strip mine site and is converting it into
agriculture, which is very interesting. They have no water,
they have no power, and they have no soil, and they're turning
it into agriculture.
The way they're doing it is they're trapping the water,
using the water. Rather than having it run off and having to
have supply water, they're using nature, using that water in a
more constructive manner. They're using solar power for the
power that they need, and they're composting the soil from
waste.
Mr. Boesch. Senator, about the ability of natural systems
to help us, you know, we tend to be focused on problems. And so
that we not be discouraged, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out
that just downstream here, not far, where the Susquehanna flows
into the Bay, is a remarkable success story, and this is the
resurgence of submerged aquatic vegetation on the flats at the
mouth of the Susquehanna.
In 1972, the storm of record, Tropical Storm Agnes,
basically destroyed them--it was such a large event--both the
fresh water as well as the sedimentation. It was almost 30
years when there was no vegetation there, very little
vegetation.
Now, in the last several years, it's come back remarkably
well, and it's withstood the kinds of stresses that took place,
like, for example, Tropical Storm Lee. It managed to survive
and keep on ticking, because it's now built enough inherent
resilience because of the density of those plants that it can
still the water, you know, keep the light--cause the sediment
to fall out and keep light intensity.
So we should be thinking of recovering the Bay, not like
you were titrating it, you know, in a chemistry experiment, but
rebuilding the natural system that has the capacity to
basically take a licking and keep on ticking, if you will, and
to have that inherent resilience back into the system. That's
what we're trying to achieve, and I think as scientists, we
have confidence that if we can achieve the water quality over
the years, this resilience will improve and return.
Senator Cardin. Yes, I agree.
Ms. Will, you talked pretty freely about the FERC process
and how Exelon has assumed responsibilities to do certain
improvements, particularly to fish passageways during the FERC
reauthorization process or recertification process. It's
interesting that when the dam was originally built, there was
very little done for fish passage. Over time, that's been
changed and modified. Obviously, we want this based upon best
science and cost-benefit analysis.
Can you just tell us how you look at the recertification
process and the Clean Water Act as to the areas that Exelon
would be interested in working with the community, working with
us, in order to take advantage of this recertification to make
our community stronger?
Ms. Will. Certainly. There are numerous issues. We
initiated the process, actually, in 2007. We started preparing
for our filing in 2009, to notice our intent to relicense
Conowingo and Muddy Run. And we identified stakeholders and had
a number of stakeholder meetings.
First of all, we know what the water quality issues are and
fish passage and such, and we designed studies with stakeholder
input that we conducted over a 3-year period to understand the
current impact and what the opportunities are for improvement.
But then during the course of discussions with stakeholders,
other areas of interest have come up, such as land conservation
and such.
So it is our desire to come up with a comprehensive
settlement that factors in all the information our studies have
provided to us, as well as new information we get as additional
studies are completed, to help enhance the environmental and
recreational benefits provided by the dam.
Senator Cardin. I think it's absolutely key that we have
the best science judge what we can do. The cost issues are
clearly going to be a dominant issue. We understand that as one
of the realities of limited budgets, generally, for everyone.
But the best we can do on science would be helpful.
As I listened to Dr. Boesch, it points out the advantage of
the Corps study but also that additional information is needed,
that we don't have all the technical information necessary. And
we know the Bay is complex. We know that. We know that it's a
national treasure, but it's complicated to figure out how we
provide the best protection for the Bay for future generations.
We know some of the things that work, but there's still a lot
of mysteries out there.
So I just would encourage you and thank you for supporting
as much of the science information as we can get so that we can
make the right decisions. We like to focus on it every year. We
do have a Bay program. We do have watershed implementation
plans. But this recertification gives us another tool in our
toolbox to try to advance this process forward.
Ms. Will. We agree, and we are committed to funding the
study that you heard Secretary Gill and the University of
Maryland discuss to inform the 2017 EPA midpoint assessment for
the TMDL.
Senator Cardin. Secretary Gill, on the recertification
process, how do you see the State of Maryland in regards to the
Clean Water Act with the recertification of this plant moving
forward?
Mr. Gill. Well, Exelon filed its water quality
certification application at the end of January, this past
January. The State has a year from now to decide whether or not
what's been filed is complete or incomplete or what-not. We're
in the process of reviewing all of that in discussions. So
that's the process.
Senator Cardin. Well, I would appreciate it if you would
keep us informed on that. We're very interested, and we have an
excellent relationship with the State and with Exelon on this
issue.
Mr. Gill. Certainly.
Senator Cardin. Dr. Boesch, what other types of studies
would you like to see in regards to the----
Mr. Boesch. Never ask a scientist that.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cardin. No, I understand. I'm trying to help you.
Mr. Boesch. I think we've tried to think through the issues
and think through where the question marks are, and we've done
this in a way with partnering with the State agencies and with
EPA who have the responsibility of converting complex science,
as you said, to management decision tools. But there are some
things that we can point to and say, ``Well, you know, that
would make a big difference if we knew that better.'' So that's
what we're trying to focus on.
I spoke mainly about the downstream impacts and
understanding them better. But if you think about it, and you
pivot, this is really an upstream problem. So there are all
sorts of questions here about our most effective land
management practices.
The other thing I think we should point to--and Secretary
Gill made the point of having--this is just one more speed
bump, if you will, in the road, and we're going to have many
more. Even if we're successful and by 2025 achieve the
reductions of nutrient inputs, pollutant inputs, that we want,
there'll be some surprises. You alluded to one in your
questioning, that is, climate change.
You know, we don't know fully what it is. We know the Bay
is going to be warmer, and it's going to have more volume
because sea level is going to rise. But we don't know that much
about the changing in the rainfall regime, the precipitation,
and the net result in terms of downstream flow. So I think as
we look down the horizon in managing the water resources that
we have, but also the pollutant loads we have, that's, I think,
a critical question that we should be addressing as well.
Senator Cardin. It's an interesting point. I hadn't focused
on that when the original projections were--as to how long the
reservoir would be able to sustain the sediments. It was for a
lot longer period of time than it was able to do. So those
projections clearly were not accurate, didn't prove to be
accurate in reality. As we are seeing more extreme weather
events, they may not hit the flow levels that the Colonel was
talking about, but we are seeing a lot of extreme conditions.
Mr. Gill. And that's actually part of what we found that
has led to the conclusion of dynamic equilibrium, that the dam
is scouring at lower level storm events. Formerly, the thought
was that the dam would scour when the rate of velocity of water
reached 400,000 cubic feet per second. We now know that the dam
scours at much lower rates of 100,000 to 200,000 cubic feet per
second.
So we're in the process of measuring what the impacts are
from those lower level, more frequent scouring events to
understand the impact downstream. That's the nature of the
change.
Senator Cardin. So here's the challenge on the
recertification process. We get this chance every 40-something
years. Is it----
Mr. Gill. Forty-six.
Ms. Will. I can explain the rationale for that, actually,
and that is because there's five hydroelectric projects on the
Lower Susquehanna River. Three of them are up for relicensing
now. The two between--the ones just above Conowingo are not up
until 2030. But if you really want to address the sediment and
fish and eel passage in the river holistically, it would be
very helpful to have all five dams working in concert. So their
relicensing--a 46-year license for us, plus a 30-year license
for them would put us all on the same schedule.
Senator Cardin. Right. That was explained to me once
before, and I appreciate you explaining it for the record,
because I had lost that concept. And Exelon has proven to be a
very sensitive partner in our community, as far as community
needs. I say that as a compliment to the commitments that they
made in regards to the merger, and carrying out those
commitments have been of the highest caliber, and we thank
them. We know that they want to do what's right for the
community.
But I also point out that when you only have a
certification process every 30 years, and this is an
opportunity to do something in regards to clean water, we want
to make sure it is visionary and it takes into consideration
what we know are challenges, and that we now have an
opportunity to deal with it, so let's take advantage of it and
get it done right. So the fish passages--absolutely. This is a
chance for us to upgrade and to take care of those shad that
are particularly important to Maryland's history.
So, once again, let me thank you all. The record will be
open for questions for the record if there's any to be asked.
And if we do, if you would respond, we would appreciate it.
And once more, I want to thank the Environment and Public
Works Committee for allowing us to bring the hearing here in
Maryland so that we could make it convenient for the people
that are here to talk about an issue, where, as Mayor Gray
said, the more information people know about, the more they
understand what they're doing, and the more they understand how
it affects their lives, the better the policy will be. And I
think this hearing has helped us achieve those objectives.
With that, the subcommittee will stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:33 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[all]