Great Lakes Water Quality Board 173^rd Meeting
Summary of Discussion
By Teleconference June 18^th 2008

3. Review of Minutes and Action Items of WQB 172nd Meeting

Members were informed that the Summary of Discussions of Water Quality Board meetings have been posted on the website. The website has been updated with the Summary of Discussions of all Water Quality Board meetings available for public viewing.

4. Reports - Update

Land-Waters Linkages Report
Members were informed that an IJC student has worked on the Land-Water Linkages report in order to incorporate the recommendations provided by the members during the previous meeting in Washington. IJC staff will write up the introduction section of the report and supervise some final modifications to the report. The cover of the SAB’s Priorities Report will be used for the Land-Water Linkages report and will be forwarded to the WQB for review and comment this summer.

Action Item: Circulate the draft Land-Waters Linkages report to WQB for review and comment.

Agreement Review Contracted Reports
Members were informed that the Agreement Review Contracted Reports are in the process of being published and should hopefully be available for viewing by Labor Day. The first of such reports to be published is the Physical Integrity Report by Scudder Mackey. These are reports to the Water Quality Board and carry a disclaimer stating that the views expressed in the report are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the WQB or the IJC. These reports are going to be web publications only.

Urbanization Report
Members were informed that the third draft of the report was completed earlier this week. This draft summarizes the key findings of the first two drafts. The two original reports will be attached to the latest draft as appendices. The new draft will be circulated to the board.

Action Item: Circulate the latest draft of the Urbanization Report to the WQB for review and comment.

5. 2007-2009 Priorities – Nearshore Initiative Update

Board members were informed that there is a need for the WQB to nominate a Co-chair for the Fish Consumption priority. It was suggested that a WQB member should take up the position of the priority’s Co-chair, rather than a staff member from EPA or EC.

Action Item: Contact GLFC for representation on the Fish Consumption workgroup.

Nearshore Framework
Members were updated on progress and informed that a draft would be completed summarizing the two nearshore workshops held in Dearborn.  Drafting the summary will be given high priority in early fall.

Eutrophication
Members were updated regarding the activities of the eutrophication subgroup.  The work group met May 1st, 2008 after the LEMN workshop at the University of Windsor.  Also reported were the outcomes of the work group meeting during the last SAB meeting a few weeks ago.

Purposed actions for the IJC and/or the WQB were discussed and include:

• The creation/communication of reasonable expectations for the improvement of the Cladophora problem depending on mitigation options
• Influencing funding for new integrated models for the lakes and for other comprehensive studies,
• Influencing funding for monitoring of the nearshore environment and
• Investigating linkages between symptoms of re-eutrophication with water level changes.

The work group has proposed a number of “next steps” which are different than those originally discussed but now take into consideration parallel activities taking place in the basin. The next steps included:

• Formulate an action plan for eutrophication (mitigating P loading) out of the existing LaMP documents suggested at session
• Identify and report on “no regrets actions” that lake managers can employ in near term (particularly to lower TP for microcystin)
• Literature review for evidence to be used in “fuzzy cognitive map” exercise for Cladophora
• Review offshore fish community structure and impact on offshore P processes and concentrations
• Weight of Evidence Workshop in fall to support 15th Biennial Report

It was noted that the direction being taken by the work group is a deviation from the original work plan of writing white papers on each priority. He added that the workshop being planned will take a weight of evidence approach.

Action Item: Schedule a conference call with subgroup to discuss the results of the WQB and SAB discussions on the eutrophication priority.

Clean Beaches
It was indicated that the Clean Beaches/Recreational Water Quality work group has recently struggled to schedule teleconferences. The work of the work group is progressing well and three white papers on the economics of beaches, indicators of beach health and surveys and the management programs that can be used for best results have been contracted and completed.

Two more white papers on jurisdictional beach programs and how to manage beaches better in the Basin and on human health effects of impaired recreational water quality are currently underway.  The latter is being done in collaboration with the Health Professionals Task Force.  The reports will help the work group in highlighting some best management practices (BMPs) and recommendations that can be communicated to the Commissioners through a letter sent by the WQB or the SAB.

Emerging Chemicals
It was reported that the work group is making good progress and have held four conference calls and two face-to-face meetings to date. Initial work is ongoing and the main objectives are to identify the current scientific information that is available on chemicals of emerging concern and to identify current chemical regulations, policies and impacts. An annotated bibliography of available studies and data is being created. The intent is to develop a database for this information showing concentration, trend, frequency of detection and location and presenting the information in a GIS format. Along with this work, the work group has begun to review policy and programs in both countries with respect to management and control of emerging chemicals. These reports will be available for review at the October meeting. It was indicated that this will lead to an expert consultation in early 2009 and a work group report in spring 2009 in time for use in the 15th Biennial report.

Fish Consumption
WQB members were updated regarding the activities of the work group. Members were informed that the topics of two potential contracts that are proposed for the fall of 2008 are: the examination of the levels of contaminants (focus on PCBs and MeHg) and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs) in Great Lakes fish; and the review of health effects of contaminants and PUFAs.
Some of the questions that the work group is seeking to answer are: what are the fish consumption patterns in the Great Lake basin? What are the levels of contaminants in fish of the Great Lakes?

The work group has also been awaiting the availability of a recently released publication entitled: The Relationship Between Prenatal PCB Exposure and Intelligence (IQ) in 9-year-old Children by Paul W. Stewart, Edward Lonky, Jacqueline Reihman, James Pagano, Brooks B. Gump, Thomas Darvill

Action Item: Forward the link of the publication to the WQB members.

AIS
The work group is focusing on binational rapid response actions, strategies to eliminate introductions of new aquatic invasive species and address those species that have already managed to invade. Strategies may include eradication, containment, or control.

A Request for Proposal should be posted on MERX, an internet based public contracting system, as soon as the end of next week.  This RFP seeks a contractor to provide strategic and specific policy direction that can be used to facilitate the development and implementation of bi-national rapid response plans. The intent is to identify, to the greatest extent practicable (within the scope of this project), the range of rapid response options, the level of success of past or current rapid response activities, the current rapid response activities occurring in the Great Lakes basin, and the legal and regulatory actions that must occur prior to the implementation of any rapid response plan. The goal is to provide policy makers with as much information as possible so that rapid response plans can be developed and “pre-approved” prior to an invasion.

6. Other Business

WQB’s response to the SAB’s “Recommendations and Rationale Concerning the Structure, Operation and Staffing of Agreement Institutions”
It was noted that in the document, the SAB recommends that the Health Professionals Task Force and the Council of Great Lakes Research Managers should be folded into the SAB in the short term. A long-term recommendation suggests the consolidating of the SAB and the WQB into a single “Great Lakes Science and Policy Advisory Board”.

The WQB sent a letter on July 21, 2006 to the Commission stating that there is value in maintaining a separate Great Lakes Water Quality Board. The Council of Great Lakes Research Managers also sent a similar letter to the Commission around the same time supporting its own position. This prompted further discussion about the organization of the GLWQA Boards.

It was noted that, in their advice to governments on the GLWQA review, the Commission indicated that all GLWQA advisory bodies be retained, but there should be some changes in the structure and membership, as well as the provision of a mechanism for the advisory bodies to work together.

8. Next Meeting

Lake Ontario LaMP/AOC/Watersheds/Nearshore Consultation
Members had previously indicated that they would like AOC consultations to be different from similar activities that have been organized in the past. Members believed that consultations should continue working on how to better link upper watersheds to downstream AOCs and look for strategies to better deal with the nearshore, as just a focus on the AOC’s is not sufficient. At the last WQB meeting there was interest in focusing on large urban RAPs, using Toronto and Hamilton Harbour and the Lake Ontario LaMP as an example.  A few people volunteered to be on the Steering Committee to organize this consultation.

Action Item: Communicate with WQB members to determine the most suitable dates for the Lake Ontario LaMP/AOC/Watersheds/Nearshore Consultation.