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Good afternoon and welcome to our webcast. The title of today's webcast is implementing TMDL in trading through the National [speaker not clear] Program. I am and where it ETA and I will be monitoring today's session. We will get started in a few moments. While we wait for others to join a like to cover if you housekeeping items. This is important at our seminar is filled to capacity. The materials have been reviewed by EPA's staff to ensure accuracy however the abuse of the speakers are there own and do not necessarily reflect those of EPA. When a commercial enterprise [speaker not clear] it does not mean that EPA endorses them too. When you registered you were directed to the seminars Web address. The seminars homepage as we call it has a short as abstract of today's session. If you have questions for our speakers at today's presentation presentation, send them an email email. You will find there email addresses on this home page. In a minute, will explain how to submit questions on the webcast today. On the left-hand side. The homepage, notice there is a links button. Billings page has a series of extra links and home pages on today's topics and it is archive indefinitely. The links page also has a rebroadcast session where you can access and listen to today's seminar even after today's lives presentation. The soundtrack of the seminar will also be available as a broadcast. In the near future to be able to listen to a recording of today's webcast. Also on the left-hand side bar is a plan for the feedback form. You'll be reminded of this at the end of this seminar today. For those of you joining us by phone, and that is why you are hearing the beeps, we require that you moved your phone during this seminar. The webcast has several question and answer intermissions built in at which point you are welcome to take your phone on mute and ask questions. If we had a lot of people predestining to date on line and all the -- on the phone. We may not get all of your questions today. I will put the audience on the Butte while the speakers are talking and then and you'd bought during the question and answer sessions have.

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Today we will hear the details of this story and some of the innovative approaches to pollution reduction credit-rating used to restore the sound quality.

We have three speakers today. Told Brown, the chief of EPA's coastal branch [audio not clear] and a comprehensive management plan to start off. Next, Mark will call in water quality studies in the implementation in Long Island Sound. Mark is the director of the U.S. and EPA Long Island Sound office and a speaking to us from Connecticut Connecticut.

Finally we will hear from Steve Johnson, a senior engineer from the Department of Environmental paillette protection. He will speak at length about the treatment plants and treating pollutant reduction credits. With that, I will hand you over to Mr. Darrell Brown.

Thank-you, Iran, this is Darrell Brown, and I will be starting on slide number three. I am very pleased to be here today because 2007 marks the 20 20th anniversary of the National estuary Program. So we celebrate a milestone and we are glad to be here on this presentation today. I know we have some folks from the interior portion of the country, so maybe a little definition of the estuary in. And estuary is a partially enclosed body of water form for fresh water meets the salt water water, where where rivers and streams flow into the ocean mixing with the sea water. The estuaries themselves and the land surrounding the estuaries are places of transition from land to see and from freshwater to salt water. And although estuaries are influenced by the tides they are largely protected by the full force of ocean waves and wind and storms by briefs or barrier islands or fingers of land or mud or sand that define and estuaries coastal boundary. Estuaries come in all shapes and sizes and there are called by many different names -- based, the bins, harbors, and let's talk and sounds. So why are estuaries and significant? They are important for marine and human life. The title, sheltered waters of estuaries support unique plants and animals that live at the margin of the sea, examples include course you crabs, ospreys, manatees, mangroves and sea grasses and hundreds of marine organisms including most commercially valuable fish and shellfish species depend on estuaries at some point in their life. The wetland and aquatic vegetation in and around estuaries provide habitat for a marine life and protect water quality by a bill turning up the dirt and pollution, and a lot of the upstream cried crap that we get from upstream areas. Because of our love and dependence on the water, for than half of the nation's population lives within 100 miles of the coast, including the shores of estuaries. Coastal counties are growing about three times faster than counties elsewhere in the country. And unfortunately, this love of art as juries and the increasing by position of people upsets the balance in the estuaries and threatens their health.

In 1987, Congress, realizing this unique stress on estuary areas developed the National estuary Program as a way to identify, restore, and protect nationally significant estuaries in the United States. Unlike traditional regulatory approaches, the NDP targets a broad range of issues and encourages communities to develop solutions to these issues. I will now turn to slide number two, where we are focusing on some of the four cornerstones of the National estuary Program.

The first of all, the first focus is on the ecosystem itself itself. Because of environmental problems do not conform to political jurisdictions, the the NEP defined the watershed programs to their bond boundaries and water within them. These hydrological a defined areas and help them achieve the point source and nonpoint source problems.

The second cornerstone is the integration of this science with a sound decision making. Good decision making needs to be based on that information and science that is available. Sound science provides objective information that forms debate and produces date data on the Trans of an estuary and helps burnish a base for policies and programmatic decisions.

The third cornerstone is what we call collaborative problem solving. As an environmental management approach, collaboration and balls and creating a shared division and its joint strategies to address the concerns that go beyond any particular interest or stakeholder. And by ensuring that all stakeholders are responsible for management and use of an estuary estuary, the NEP have achieved some successful collaboration. These decisions are made through a government structure that varies by NEP, there are 28 NEP around the country and many of them have different government structures.

The fourth cornerstone involves the public. The NEP are guided by the principle that stakeholders in the watershed ought to have a meaningful role in shaping the program and substance opportunities to participate in these opportunities, so the NEP strive to facilitate a constructive dialogue in which there is a range of stakeholders in the watershed have the opportunity to address some of the issues one and arrive at the solutions in the estuary. I will now turn to slide five which describes the structural formation of an an EEP. While 83. The NEP to it encourages committees to takers possibility for managing their estuaries. Governor of a statement nominates an estuary for inclusion and once accepted, they develop a management plan to address these priority areas.

Each CC MP, or address contains actions to protect the extract estuary and Resources, and many of those involved Clean Water Act activities such as TMDL activities. Once it approves ACC MP, then the partners, about implementing the management actions within the management plan itself.

Moving on to slide number six, he conceded that if there are 28 estuaries and the country country, representing 19 states and PR around the country. You can also see there and the colored dots the year they came into existence or or first into the program. All 28 of the management programs have approved management plans by EPA. Some of them are several years into the implementation stage.

Moving on to slide number seven, I want to dwell on this, just that it is another way of representing that the ecosystem is the focus of the estuary Program activities. It is a community-based program with a number of different stakeholders involved, from federal agencies not to state and local governments and the affected user groups with an the communities.

Slide number eight, there wasn't an independent study led by Mark Schneider that was published in January of 2003. Thirteen compared those estuaries that included NEP with those estuaries that did not have 83, and found that the networks and the NEP areas were much richer and more robust networks and Opportunity ID -- ID -- decision making bodies than those with no problem program. You can see some of the main points they have there including the number of spending levels of government, integrating experts and so forth.

Turning to slide number nine, the NEP are making a difference a. There is a myriad of examples of how NEP are making a difference. You can see a few of them up there from restoring and protecting habitat and working to deal with polluted runoff, working on pathogen issues, dealing with serious issues, both from sewage treatment plants as well as septic systems systems, but also the number of NEP that are very active and involved in education outreach programs or the encourage public out involvement. Two specific examples -- turn to slide a number 10 now -- to very specific examples of how measures of success for the National estuary programs. Since 2000 because the NEP have restored or protected a significant number of acres of habitat around the country. Over a million acres. One thing to point out that this is not just NEP. We celebrate the partnership of NEP, so many of these acres can only be done with the collaboration of a number of other state and local partners. The second point there is that the NEP have been highly successful in return on investment, or easing the federal dollars that the estuary programs proceed to partner with state and local governments, and also private funding. So a couple measures of success there.

Moving on to a slide No. 11, and some of the next few slides will focus on some of the lessons learned from the National estuary Program, but let me begin that transition with one talking about the leveraging of funds through the NEP and how that has helped out. One of the things that the and NEP has learned is that they need to focus on their mission and to develop a strategic approach to achieving that mission, and that includes financial planning. In number of NEPs have gone through training process to move from -- that develops a strategic fund-raising approach that has been quite Bible for the National estuary programs in moving from an ad hoc approach to a more strategic approach. This helps them to diversify funding and kind of in years where there may be some funding lacking at the state or local or federal level, that diversity of funding certain helps buffer in some of those tough times at. But also, one of the things that we have learned is building to partnerships and the public support necessary to for the leveraging takes a significant amount of time and effort, so it is one of the things that the NEPs have learned over the years is how much effort goes into this moving into slide No. 12 and some of the other NEP lessons learned, emerged we have tried to identify why it makes a NEP a successful and some of the lessons we have learned from NEP that are transferred to other watershed groups around the country whether or not there are salt water in the system or not.

Some of these more generic lessons learned and. The first thing that one of the lessons learned in is at the community-based resource management can achieve results we have had -- and I just gave the example there -- a million acres of habitat protected or restored, and this is all happening at a local level. This community-based group is the impetus for restoring or protecting those estuaries. De second point is probably an obvious one, and that is that it is important to set measurable environmental goals and also indicators. What are we trying to achieve a out there? Many times we take a look at the output instead of the outcomes, but what is the ultimate environmental goals goal and what are those mechanisms that can help us identify those environmental goals and relate those goals to the public in an easy hob -- easily understandable way. The only way we are going to know if we measure progress is point No. three beer, and that is looking ad -- we need to make sure that we had some sort of environmental and programmatic maturing system in place that can help us measure those goals or progress to those goals. So the monitoring is critical. The NEPs have accomplished that in a number of different ways, from their own monitoring programs and internal processes to collateral collaboration with the state monitoring activities.

Going to slide 13, continuing these NEP lessons learned, we have identified -- even though East each estuary program is different and unique Cathar a number of common and rare mental problems and challenges facing the estuary's around the country country. The NEPs ended in particular in dealing with excess nutrients, pathogens, toxic chemicals, habitat loss and degradation, introduced species, natural flow alterations or regime changes there, and an emerging issue that is coming to the forefront now is identifying these personal care products and an emerging contaminants. So one of the values of the National estuary Program is be able to sit shared those common problems and looking at solutions to those problems that can be transferred from one watershed to the next. And that kind of covers point number five, two, is addressing these emerging issues.

Five years ago, aquatic evasive species was starting to be an issue. But the more we look into it, every estuary program that we are working with is facing problems with introduced species species. And this new problem with new identified problem with personal care products emerging contaminants is another issue that the NEPs are helping to address a. Climate change and potential sea level rise is another issue that a number of NEPs are starting to take a pretty serious look at. And Leslie is point number six, and I have covered that, sustainable levels of funding are critical for achieving success.

Moving on to slide number 14 the whole foundation of the National estuary Program is based on partnerships. Partnerships from the federal government funding and support and training and assistance there down to state and local partners want. Industry concerns, community groups, and a variety of partnerships are key and achieving success in the National estuary Program. One Resource document -- let's move on to slide 15 -- 13 source document had if you are not familiar with it, would be the Committee watershed management lessons from the National estuary Program, the document we put out a couple of years ago. It talks about even though it is taking lessons from the National estuary Program it has lessons yet can be applied to other watershed groups struck the country. Talking about government structures performing and involving people in collaboration and science. If there is a number of different points there, and specific examples from a number of estuary programs around the country.

Moving on to slide number 16, and kind of starting the transition into the bulk of today's presentation on TMDL, I am sure that most of you are aware of what 82 is, but it is the amount of two pollutants that a water body can receive and still meet water quality standards and it includes the point sources and nonpoint sources that the load allocation for a water body. In this case we are looking at an estuary itself. So we are looking at ways of trying to address TMDL in a National estuary Program context context. There are a number of NEP around the country, of the 28 programs. The majority of those programs are engaged in TMDL activities in some way or another some of them just from the planning process, identifying impaired water bodies and then this example here today, the Long Island Sound program where there are actively involved in the development of the TMDL and the actual implementation of the TMDL. So the NEP -- 310 -- NEPs are taking a number of different strategies. Moving on to slide number 17, the nexus for NEPs and TMDL -- TMDL -- the NEPs have developed a number of strategies to attain or maintain water quality, and a number of them are using TMDL in this context. For example, and moral Bay, moral Bay, California, kind of the central California coast, it is a local watershed organization that is looking at improving water quality and more obey and the cc MP, or the management planned is used both as a data source as well as the implementation plan for the TMDL that is being developed and moral Bay. The monitoring program has informed the trio three the listing process and is one of the primary sources for assisting -- assessing the process during implementation.

Living on two / 18, -- moving on to slide 18, TMDL and coastal waters presents a number of challenges. First of all, they contain large waters -- watershed. If you include the extra watershed for the Mississippi River basin, for the program, many of these as jury programs involve large water bodies where they are receding waters for literally hundreds or thousands of upstream miles coming down. Many of the estuary programs are mostly dear sectional and that they cover a number of either a local or county -- in some cases cases, they cross the state boundaries. Estuaries by their nature are indexing zone for fresh and salt water are very complex systems. You have to deal with the tides, stratify conditions, salt water which is, different sediment is James, a different seasonality is also critical in their. Complex task pollutants and pathways coming downstream but also an oceanic and put it particularly dealing with TMDL, for example, mercury is then oceanic elements of mercury that has to be taken into account. There are different schedules and priorities and a number of different water quality standards and data in methodology involved, and especially in some of these by eight state or Tri-State programs. Especially Delaware and New Jersey, they have a particularly tough problem.

Moving on to the last slide, No. 19, before we open it up for some questions, it is just another example there of some of the lessons that have been learned from the National estuary Program. And the National estuary Program is a watershed approach that is used in a saltwater and strain type environment. There are no different from some of the lessons learned from other types of programs that the critical nature of the monitoring and the collection, looking at the data and model development, trying to provide efficient TMDL calculations and consolidating some of that information, but it is also what we have learned in the National estuary Program is that it takes time to develop and implement these plans and to achieve environmental progress. But it is critical that the public is involved early and often in these. And, as we have shone in the National estuary Program, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. There has been some success in these areas and programs and we think that some of that success can be transferred to other areas.

I will now open it up to questions.

Thank you Beryl. , we are going to pause briefly to take some questions. I am just want to remind you that you can submit your questions online. First of all, I am going to ask a question that we received on line from Tom in Media, Pennsylvania. He asks, can you please define a cc MP, and how does it it back to the implementation of TMDL?

I am sorry, Tom caught by glossed over that. Eight CC and P is a conservation and management plan. It is one of those acronyms that Congress laid on us so we officially call it the CC MP. And in terms of how it affects implementation of 82, it depends on what is included in the management plan itself. And how specific the management plan might be. Some of management plans are extremely this specific in terms of identifying listed waters and problem balloons or priority pollutants, and looking at specific activities within the management plan, D.C. See MP, that's how that plan is going to be addressed. Other SEC MP's are more general in that they identify a more specific resource assessed as sea grass beds, and there has to be a mechanism for looking up up -- for example, Tampa Bay has a nitrogen Management plan which is addressing sea grass restoration ultimately. So there are looking at controllicontrolli ng nitrogen through a causeway TMDL for nitrogen production. So it varies by NEP.

Thank-you Carol. We have another question on line from Susan from the District of Columbia. She asked about, how do NEP sticklers coordinate with watershed management and planning groups or third party groups that developed third-party TMDL. She stated that she thinks that probably some of the goals and objectives of the some of these CC MP would probably overlap with other management groups or plans.

Good question, Susan, and I think that in many cases the NEP is the local watershed management group or activity there. So in many cases, the NEP or the stakeholders or already be involved with the coordination and activities within the watershed group. For those areas where it may be different entity, then through the NEP process, there is a -- a -- typically a science and technical advisory committee, and there is oftentimes a citizens advisory committee for those groups can become involved with the coordination activities with watershed management.

Thank-you Carol, since we are on track will take more -- one more on my question and then we will open people's minds. Gene from edge Mont, Pennsylvania, asks, we are concerned with the setting of realistic environmental goals that are attainable. What steps can be taken that realistic goals are set to?

That is a tough question cut gene, because of that kind of gets at the heart from and soul of what 83 is all about and any local watershed group, and the ecosystem is the focus. The ecosystem is the reason that many of these groups exist, and people concerned about those, the degradation that maybe occurring in an estuary or a lake or whatever it might be, that is the focus. And it is up to that group collectively within the NEP context to set reasonable environmental goals and -- and -- realistic goals. Oftentimes, bills roll goals may be many years out. So typically, 83 will develop an intermediate goals so they can identify progress and to what is called an interactive management process, so they can periodically evaluate their success and make changes as necessary or as new scientific information comes in. And apply the new science to what may or may not be it it -- need to be done. But I think it is the process of meeting together that the folks evaluate and set the goals and determine how realistic some of those goals might be.

Thank-you Carol. Now we are going to open the phone lines. I want to remind you that anyone that wants to ask over the phone to pleased on view at yourself and give us your name and organization before your question.

This is Sue, I work in the region side, and I work in the work waste, pesticides and toxic division but I work with a staff in the great lack Lakes National Program Office on big wide management plans and those are comparable to the Assisi MP in the National estuary Program. I was wondering what the geographic extent of the TMDL is is, where there is one in the National estuary Program. Does it extend out to ocean waters, and if so, how far?

The geographic extent is determined by the listed water itself. Most of the -- There are very few offshore boundaries support the TMDL that I am aware of other than Long Island Sound. There is a -- for example, eight -- TMDL in Santa Monica that has been developed dealing with the trash as it flows out through the river systems and contaminates some of the beaches and some of the oceanic areas there, or demote more coastal areas there. But most of the key to that I am aware of our kind of contained within the estuary itself.

Any other questions?

This is Doctor [audio not clear] New Jersey. The T3 is a successful program, thank you. It seems to be most successful helping with problems that have already arisen. The problem has to arise and then we see the problem and it is fairly obvious and we try to cope with it and we all know how difficult it is, and expensive, to try to cope problems after the fact. The pharmaceuticals and personal care products is a very good one, and we knew 10 years ago that this was going to be a problem. We knew what was going to [speaker not clear] it is only when we see fish with lesions and amphibian declined we muster our resources and try to correct the problem. And you try to talk about restoration -- that is after the fact. How can we make our programs look proactive and?

That is a tough one because I think, by its nature, we get the resources and the time and attention when there is a problem, and it is hard to take a 10 or 20 or 100 your outlook on some of these activities. Maybe one of the ways -- and I don't really have a lot of good examples there -- but maybe one example would be the Puget Sound program, which is in collaboration with the state of Washington and the University of Washington, has developed a report on how to deal with global climate changes and sea level rise. And they have to get a look at at -- even though it was long ago and we're able to forecast it, many of the attacks have not been seen yet if we do indeed have a sea level rise to. But they are trying to take a look at this program proactively and Internet address some of the environmental concerns. It is just a tough problem and we will garner the resources and attention until we see the problem. That is part of human nature, unfortunately.

Thank you. Excellent questions. Our next speaker is now Mark. He is from the EPA Long Island Sound office. Mark? You may have to -- market? -- Mark? Give me one moment, market, the mean you'd everyone and you can do or think. And on one side and. -- A hang on one second. Mark, can you speak now?

Can you hear me? Good afternoon everyone, and good morning to those of you out on the West Coast now, thank you for that background on the estuary Program. Them when to talk a little bit about the approach we have taken in the Long Island Sound study both in the development and implementation. I only want to focus mostly on the implementation of the TMDL that we have developed to achieve water quality standards for the self oxygen on Long Island Sound. But let's go to slide it number 22.

What I am going to do is what he threw for topics. The first is to provide some background on the Water Quality status and track and trends in Long Island Sound. I am going to focus on a picture vacation issues. I'm going to talk a little bit about the development of TMDL for the control of nitrogen to address the problem of low controlled oxygen and long Island Sound. I am going to talk about implementation approach through that TMDL through the use of watershed permits and trading and I am going to talk a little bit about progress, what we have been able to achieve in terms of nitrogen control and in terms of the response of the system in dissolved Osset oxygen.

Let's go on to slide 23. , there'll has already explained this two -- long Island Sound study is one of 28 national estuary programs and we functioned very similarly to the other programs. We have a to a state -- aid to states that participate namely, and that is the Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State permanent in their mental protection, but we have many other stakeholders them participate in the program.

Let's go to slide 24. This is a map of Long Island Sound. You can see that Long Island, to the bottom, Connecticut would be to the north, Westchester County in New York City to the West, and the color contours represent different concentrations of dissolved oxygen. This is from water quality surveys that we're conducted the first week of August this past summer. The black and red color areas in Long Island Sound are concentrations of less than 2 milligrams per liter, and that would be the most severe concentration that would result in a kid of facts in executes a facts. Again, these are bottom water concentrations. You can see those numbers throughout the monitoring stations, about 45 in all in Long Island Sound. But the orange and yellow represents concentrations between 3.5 milligrams per liter and 2 milligrams per it Leader. Those are also concentrations that clearly be of concern. Anything less than the standard, which is 4.8 milligrams per liter, or in this case, the EPA criteria for the chronic defects is shown in the green color. So you can see, up to half of Long Island Sound has conditions that can include -- would be defined as epoxy, less than 3 milligrams per liter, and up to two-thirds can have levels and that can result in at least some chronic effects on the living resources.

Let me want to slide 25. We have a grasp of -- the graph of to nitrogen bloats loads in Long Island Sound. The point I really want to make here is two things. One is, the natural load of nitrogen which is shown at the far right bar called precolonial it is much lower than the amount of nitrogen than Long Island Sound is currently receiving up from the watershed through runoff or through direct point sources or indirect point sources. In fact, we probably enriched the load of nitrogen by about tenfold to Long Island Sound. I am focusing on nitrogen because in the Long Island Sound Sound, that is the nutrient that is most limiting phytoplankton production and most directly related to use your vacation of the system and ultimately, though dissolved oxygen concentration. But second point I would make, I guess that is the teal color, for those of you who are color blind eye will point out the New York and Connecticut point Circuit Systems. Those represent sewage treatment plants. Those are the ones to bars to the left. We are a point source dominated system. In many places now we like to talk about polluted runoff being the remaining problem problem of concern. And Long Island Sound, that is not necessarily the case. Certainly is a problem and contributes to a lot of problems and water quality impairment, but point source wastewater discharges are the dominant source of nitrogen to on the Island Sound, and so it's really an -- lend itself to 80 Tel -- Tel -- TMDL approach to those nutrients.

Let's go to slide 26. I want to talk briefly about a little bit what we know about how the system has changed. This graphic is showing organic carbon content in the sediments of Long Island Sound. On the x axis is the timescale going up to -- from 1100 up to current conditions. And this graphic is obtained from sediment cores where the organic carbon content is measured, and the sediment is aged in using a variety of techniques to be able to identify the carbon contact -- contact -- content going back in time through the sediment cores. We have seen is the organic carbon content has just about doubled in the Long Island Sound Sound. You can see is bike around 1700 that would relate to the development of the watershed the initial colonization by of the area, clear-cutting of forests, and then we can see obviously and more recent times, the big spike relating to relate large-scale population growth and the industrial age in the region.

While I am showing organic carbon, it is also been documented that biogenic silica has shown the same pattern. That would be from diatoms to shells cut to shells up to diatoms, which is a kind of rain plant, a phytoplankton which is responsible for most of the production in Long Island Sound. And that has also increased in the sediment, showing that clearly this increase in nutrient load that I talked about in the slide earlier has resulted in increased primary production in the sound and that has resulted in increased but organic matter that is reaching the sediments and being buried in the sediments, but also being burned off in the sediments and consuming oxygen. The shells of from anaphora, which is an animal that feeds on diatoms has also increased in the Senate sediments. So we can take it see these changes are reverberating through the food web.

Let me go to slide 27. I have talked about some of the impact in dissolved oxygen conditions, but there are other impacts that are expressed through an increased pick your vacation of Long Island Sound. Certainly, eelgrass have declined from historic range in the sound, that top map shows just points where there was some historical accounts of eelgrass payments and harbors around Long Island Sound. The important point was extended throughout its length right out to the eastern most count most parts of the sound right up to the western area of the sound. Use of that in the epoxy contour map and is the most heavily impact and the area of my greatest population and also because of increased stratification of the water column in that area most successful susceptible to utrification and other water quality problems. The rest in Orange is limited to the eastern. Long Island Sound, so we have lost eelgrass as a viable Habitat mainly because of impaired water clarity will no longer support eelgrass.

Let's go on to slide 28. So we see these impairment, and the big question is, what do we do it now?

Let's go on 229. Carol went over this already, certainly the Clean Water Act lays out an approach. If you have water quality limited Watters caught you are supposed to start identifying water pollutant loads that would allow us to obtain water quality and implement it through tools within the Clean Water Act using standard, criteria, classification systems, and implementing to regulations compliments, watershed management planning as well. Certainly that is an approach to doing it.

Let's go to slide 30. The challenge -- I often refer to it as the Clean Water Act bursas Clean Water acting. And I have described accurately what is outlined in TL -- TMDL guidelines and, we do water quality assessments and lived waters that are not obtaining water quality and you develop TMDL and to implement through permits and other Clean Water Act and programs. That is not really the same as an approach that we also applaud and support, which is watershed based Planning and implementation. And it is a good community-based focus and it often starts with the question that gene from Pennsylvania ask, which is how we set realistic goals to keep conditioning, consensus building building, and it tries to integrate a whole host of different social objectives with environmental and economic objectives. It tries to be flexible and incorporate active management. So we have these two approaches. The challenge that I see that certainly we face with Long Island Sound and I think most people face is how to integrate these two approaches. How to best use the tools available in the Clean Water Act, but also use some of the advantages of a community-based and watershed based program. to slide 31.

I'm going to talk briefly about some of the specific challenges we have in Long Island Sound. Dear all talk a little bit about the scale differences among the estuary programs, and certainly that is the case in Long Island Sound. We have a number of different skills that we need to think about even with our own program for call certainly we have the direct coastal development around Long Island Sound involving New York and Connecticut, but we also have a watershed that extends through Massachusetts, and includes parts of Vermont and New Hampshire that drain to the Connecticut River. We have a little. Rhode Island as well that drains into Long Island Sound, and if we think of the airshed to Long Island Sound, then we can go up to about 12 states. But all of these skills certainly need to be considered in developing 82 integrating pollution sources, control pulled potential from all of these sources. Many of them are not directly involved with and the program.

Up on to slide 32. There certainly are a number of other issues in terms of how to approach the TMDL, and some of the fundamental ones we had to deal with, or could we obtain water quality standards, that was the first question. The water quality standards at the time, when the program first initiated, the assessments, it was prior to the EPA Marine criteria which had been issued for the North Atlantic coastal region. So there was a some fundamental questions about the technical basis for the current standards which were to never go below 5 milligrams per liter in Connecticut waters and the -- the -- excuse me, but New York waters and never go below 6 milligrams per liter in Connecticut waters. It was a question about affordability, certainly the cost of upgrading waste water treatment plants, for nitrogen removal was paramount concern. If there were equity issues, again because of the size of the watershed. And we had to make a count description, it was sort of the New York versus the Connecticut River. Was it providing nutrients or was it the flow from the Connecticut River that provides 7 percent of the fresh water to Long Island Sound, Connecticut River being in the eastern part of the basin. And certainly, questions with managing many of the basin loads being the most extreme example.

Let's go to slide 33. One approach we took was to develop numerical models, both for water quality and high drama, high dramatic models. Affects the input on the oxygen balance into performing a number of what if scenarios to try to estimate the response from nitrous or oxygen to help support the development or at least to the technical basis of the development of the TMDL.

And begun to slide 34. I am when to simplify that the transition from slide 34 -- 33 to 34 jumps over about 10 years of monitoring, monitoring -- monitoring -- modeling, assessments and back-and-forth discussions. And I'm going to lead us right now to this magical place where the TMDL was approved. So there will be another talk in terms of development of the TMDL TMDL. We ultimately came down to the conclusion where the target of setting 58.5% reduction goal for nitrogen from sources in Connecticut and New York. That was broken into a 10% reduction to nitrogen run off kick from urban and agricultural land covers and the watershed, and the balance of nitrogen production than from point sources that can not to 54 percent reduction in Connecticut and 59% in the York, and certainly we looked at the potential benefits of in terms of improved water quality through water quality modeling and related that too the El criteria to try to understand potential impact, and predicted improvements would be very significant.

Let's go to slide 35. This really gets to the heart of it. We had 82, and some key implementation issues. When is the best approach to try to implement the 58.5% reduction reduction? One challenge is that we had to develop cost estimates by all the discharges, for what it would cost to upgrade their waste water treatment plants. Many of those estimates. So there was not agreement as to which the Chargers would be most cost-effective ones to target. There was also lack of incentives for discharges to initiate actions. Gary Johnson will talk about this in detail with the Connecticut training program. Disagreements over how to allocate that 58.5% reduction. There was the inner shut against the collaboration try to get different discharges in different regions to work together to achieve reductions, and also the challenge of achieving it relates such large-scale reductions, we knew that the financing and the ability to construct facilities and would require activity over a 15 year. So we said that reduction goal to be phased in over 15 years.

Let's go on to slighted 36. I will give some examples of. There are 108-point source discharges and Kit New York and Connecticut alone that affect long Island Sound. This map shows the distribution, the largest one in New York City is a mix of very large it discharges and very small ones.

The amigo on to slide through seven. The analysis we undertook was to understand the capital cost of upgrading all of those 108 facilities and compare that too the number of nitrogen production they could achieve. We very simply looked at the range of upgrade -- options options for upgrades, bolt bolt level, moderate and high level, removal of nitrogen, and we looked at the cost of the loads and calculated those purse. So you get a kind of cost curve. The big message from this is that if we get a limit of Technology, the requirement -- requirement -- the cost would be up to two and a half million dollars -- billion dollars. But they're would be an option if we only required about 80 percent nationwide of that limited technology option, the cost would only be around $654,700,000,000,000. So if we could get 80 percent of the potential nitrogen removal for only 30 percent of the cost. So we did consider cost and tried to target that level -- we had that 58.5% reduction level came from the TMDL. -- obtained from the TMDL. The challenge was, how to have implementation also follow a cost-effective approach. But how could we build that into the regulatory system in the permit system so we could actually implement cost-effective strategies and not just predict that there was a potential -- there was one cost-effective option among many that we're out there.

Let's go on to slide 38. The solution that we came upon the work for this region was again to set the reduction target capacity 15 your goal that would be phased in. We did not try to -- We did not said wastewater allocations, or low allocations that are specific for or buried for each wastewater treatment plant. The allocated equal reductions by management zone, so everyone got a 58.5% reduction target. And the key thing is, we allowed flexibility and build into the TMDL some of the means to provide flexibility to allow variable implementation so that some waste water treatment plants could achieve greater than the 58.5% level, and other waste water treatment plants could achieve a lower level of reduction, again, as long as we were meeting our watershed wide goals. There are two ways this was done differently in both states -- in its New York it was done as a bubble permitted, and in Connecticut it was done as a general permit.

Let's go on to slide 39.

One of the key elements in the TMDL that helps support this trading is that we have trading ratios Inc. right into the TMDL. These ratios for calculations of the relative impact of a pound of nitrogen from eight geographic area on in this case and dissolved oxygen water quality in its Long Island Sound Sound. And a considerable the watershed attenuation and delivery to Long Island sound. And these we're direct derived from water quality modeling and watershed calculations a. Course of good to slight 40 and I'll show you how it works.

This shows a different management zones that we're developed, we have 11 land-based management zones. Number 12 is Long Island sound itself. In numbers and people boxes are the training -- trading ratios for each son. Each zone has its own trading ratio. Was good to slide 41 and I will show you how did works. Let's show there is 100 pounds of nitrogen generated in the eastern portion of Connecticut. We could calculate that only 80 pounds of that would make it through to Long Island Sound. Some of that cost 20 pounds would be attenuated within the watershed within the stream bolt flow or ground float within Long Island Sound, and of that 80 pounds entering eastern Long Island Sound it would have an impact of only 20 pounds, that is the through mixing processes, much of that nitrogen might exit out into open waters or not contribute to production that would impact hypoxia and the hot spots of one Island Sound. Meanwhile, if the to the other example and looked at 100 pounds of nitrogen generated by a discharge in southwest Conn, we would estimate the full impact of those 100 pounds would be observed in Long Island Sound. So the trading ratio there would be five to one. In this case, a pound removed by that southwestern discharge would have five times the impact of a pound removed in the northeast portion of the sound.

Let's go to slide 42. I am going to talk briefly about the permiting approach in New York Mets and leave it to carry Johnson to go into detail about Conn. New York has used what we call bubble permits. What that does is take all the discharges within one of those management zones, and they get a permit to where there is an aggregate annual limit for all the point sources within that zone as long as and the discharges from that zone are meeting their aggregate limit limit -- they're considered to be in compliance. And they don't meet the aggregate limit, then the individual limits for that individual discharge your would come into play for compliance purposes. Been what this does is to fold fold -- one is it encourages facilities in -- the state to work with facilities in that region to try to work together to try to identify the most cost-effective technology. For example, in Westchester County of New York, the county operates for Waste Water Treatment Plant. By having an aggregate limit, rather than them looking at meeting a 58.5 percent reduction for each plant, they can look at them in total and say, what is the most cost-effective way of meeting these goals, and if they want to invest more money -- it may be less expensive for them to invest more money in one or two plans then invest equally in each plant. The second thing it does is allow reallocation between management zones. So again, there can be trades between one son and another.

The get go to slide 43. I will give you an example. In New York City there are two management's own to. To have a trading ratio between those two sons. New York City has looked at achieving greater reduction at the management non that has a greater impact on water quality in a long island sound. It's what they will do there is exceed the 58.5 percent reduction, to last at a management zone that has less of an impact on Long Island Sound. But by doing so on their own estimates and could save dollars in terms of some of the construction of a great cost. For example some of these with orders to the plants I am talking about are up to 300 million the gallons a day. So they are very large. Six facility overall discharging over 1 billion gallons a day. So obviously upgrade to these facilities are enormous investments in time and capital. And, if there are any opportunities to obtain water quality goals, and that is the key here, you still have to achieve reductions that are consistent with the water quality and prevent it objected objected -- objections, but doing it and a way that could save them money and that is certainly a way for everyone.

Let's go to slide 44. This is my one slide on the Connecticut program, and I will only say that in Connecticut, they have formed a more formal training program passed through legislation and again, Gary will go through that in detail. Let me transition now to the last point that I wanted to make which was progress. We have this program, de TMDL and approach, are we seeing some benefits to do this chart shows the total nitrogen from wastewater treatment plants discharging to the sound from 1994 to 2005. Piquancy, we read a peak discharge in 1994, but reductions started to be phased in and we have upgrades to treatment plants, we have had actually a little, up from 2003 and 2004, and in some ways because that is a good thing and what it reflects is that some of the waste water treatment plants that had implemented and nitrogen removal at their facilities on an interim basis, those interim upgrade have been taken offline because they are being reconstructed for state of the art nitrogen removal. So we do expect to see a bump upward in the next couple of years has plans -- plants are taking tanked out of service and going Offline, but through the express purpose of redesigning the construction to enable them to achieve a state of the art nitrogen production levels.

So we have overall achieved approximately about a 25% reduction in the point source close to Long Island Sound. Let's go to slide 46.

Certainly, is with every system, point sources are not the only source of nutrients. It is true for Long Island Sound Sound. While they are a dominant source source, this slide shows nitrogen from combined .. sources and direct coastal runoff and river runoff and into the sound and major tributaries. And this shows the two big tributaries and loading to Long Island Sound related to rainfall primarily and we hope as we continue to track this to see some reduction as well based on land management activities. Land Management activities are not -- obviously not the focus of this talk but certainly there is concerted efforts in that area as well.

to slide 47. A one to talk briefly and this actually relates to a presentation made last week on the webcast, if any have you sought the nemo telecast, we actually work with a group in trying to track changes in land and cover and a new service in the region of Long Island Sound. Again, it it gives us obviously a feel for how Development intend to meet continued development pressures in the watershed in fact stressors and nutrient load to the sound. The two things I want to point out -- if you look by those red arrows, the percentage mob of land cover that is defined as the developed has increased from 18% in 1985 to 21% in 2002, and that is mainly at the expense of forest cover. It decreased from 62 percent down to 57%. The map B.C. at the left is the composite satellite image of those different land covers with and beat New York and Connecticut portions of the watershed. Certainly we see continued pressure from watershed development on nutrient loading and other pollution sources.

Let's go to slide 48. Another way of looking at that, those changes, here we are just comparing the present increase in population per 60% increase in development. We are breaking it out to different portions of the watershed -- long island, New York City, Westchester, and all of the New York and Connecticut portions of the watershed. The main point I would make and especially illustrate and the Connecticut example is the increase in development has far outpaced the increase in population, and what that shows is that we continue to develop at a rate that is using up the land, we saw the decrease and that forested land cover, and sell it suggests that the continued sprawl development. Would suspect it was in field development or the development of urban areas that you would get more of an increase in population representative -- representative -- relative to be changed and developed land covers. >>

It will depend on conditions that occur throughout the year that could increase both the two turn -- the delivery of new transit and set up in persistence of slated stratification in Long Island Sound, but certainly we expect as we continue to see nitrogen reductions to continue this monitoring and hope to see responses to the system. It is suggesting here that we are seeing a slight long-term reduction in both the area and duration of hypoxia, but obviously there is a lot of year to year variability.

Let me go to the last slide, and I'm just going to try to some of some of the changes that we see in the system. Total nitrogen followed, the trend is down by 28%. So we have a decreasing trend in total nitrogen load to Long Island Sound. We have a decrease of about 14% in total service nitrogen concentration. We are observing a decrease of 24% in the bottom told nitrogen concentration. We have observed 816% reduction in service corps Phil age, and we haven't seen -- we have seen a reduction in bottom oxygen. Obviously that is the Cascade we are trying to see to waste treatment upgrades and we want a reduction in nitrogen boats to the sound and expect to see it that served in large concentrations that will reduce the phytoplankton production and obviously improved dissolved oxygen conditions.

Last slide isn't just to sum up my point of view in terms of the lesson, and that is that we really need to have flexibility in how we try to pursue or obtain the water quality objective. Certainly, we need to focus on the outcome and build support for that outcome, strong public support is critical. We need to really think about how to develop practical solutions that can be supported at the state level, the local level, need to think about how financing it is going to come together with the planned reductions. And obviously, we need to be able to have acted monitoring and Assessment Program to relate progress to the program and back to the public and ourselves, and recheck and rethink our purchase purchase. With that, I will stop and see if there are any questions?

Thank you Mark, we are going to break now for some questions. First of all, I am going to take the only questions and you are welcome to continue submitting those on line.

The first question we have from corn in its new bid for Massachusetts is, does EPA have a legal mechanism to enforce state TMDL? If so, what is that mechanism and if not, why not?

There is pop probably a couple of ways to vote at that. The first question is, if there is the key to develop as the EPA have a mechanism to enforce it? Certainly as part of the TMDL there are controls on point sources. The EPA has the authority within the Clean Water Act to enforce those point source the Mets. Announced that -- limits. Now that is not necessarily an easy process. Many states are not delegated the police -- pollutant discharge system, the permitting program -- it is one option for the EPA to take back that program that doesn't work very well. But certainly, EPA can work to enforce permits to make sure that they are consistent with obviously the TMDL, and that the TMDL are designed to help achieve water quality standards. It is a harder question when we are talking about how to implement TMDL that rely primarily on nonpoint source blowed reductions, where there is not necessarily a regulatory tool within the Clean Water Act EPA can enforce, certainly I think EPA can take an active role in trying to encourage that implementation, but I think -- think -- It is the challenge that everyone has, neither do the states have the ability to enforce some of those reductions reductions. And this may be related to your question -- does EPA have the authority to enforce the element of 82? So if one has not been developed developed -- supposedly the Clean Water Act, the EPA is supposed to review and approve TMDL, and if a state doesn't modify the TMDL Scott EPA has the recourse of developing it on its own. That approach is one that probably is not practical on any large scale. So the approach has been for the EPA to collaborate with States and others to try to develop TMDL. That is my take on it.

Thank you Mark. I think in the interest of time we're going to on the nude the phone lines and let people ask any specific questions they have of Mark.

Questions on the phone?

My name is Mary, and it sends you have been sick experiencing some significant success and reduction in the estuary program cut into you know if EPA is making any movement toward some inland waters said trading program in light of this success success?

There'll, I don't know if you want to comment on that, certainly the EPA is encouraging trading throughout the country and certainly not focusing on this program. The kilt key element to that is that any water quality trading Billy requires that there be a good base of data to support those trades, and the estuary programs by their nature often have developed -- have done the background work that is necessary to support water quality trading.

There are a number of other areas around the country Interior. [audio not clear] coastal areas.

I'm sorry, could you repeat that please because there were a lot of beach.

There are a lot of areas around the country that are pursuing trading. As Mark indicated, a lot of times you need the source of information and quality data to do trading. There are other areas around the country that are working on it. And I don't have the specific reference but I know there is an had EPA Web site that deals with some of the trading issues.

Well, with the 28 national estuary programs I know the the Long Island Sound has a lot of the reason to have a successful trading with all of the point sources, but are there other estuaries where more aggressive trading is being looked at because the layout may be ideal?

I am trying to think of an example right now. The Tampa Bay situation might [audio not clear] trading going on but it also involves a lot of voluntary activities, too, where at 10 but they are concerned concerned about the ultimate goal of restoration of sea grass to the 1950 level, but sea grass is impacted by water will clarity with which deals with too much nitrogen. So we are not only try to reduce the amount of nitrogen but also help to achieve [audio not clear]

Do we still have a connection connection?

We should be there -- is everybody there?

Thank-you Carol and Mark, before continuing with today's presentation, I want you all to turn to slide 53. , just a quick word about our next webcast. Now we all know there is power and information, but a critical step is you have to be able to get that and permission. EPA.

And stores information on the various aspects of the nation's water bodies databases. But surprisingly, many people are unaware of how to take advantage of these tools that EPA has made available to anyone with Internet access -- they can create it or have access to the information and map it and use the information. We urge you to tune in next month to get the power of the information to learn how to greet and get reports on some of the key E.P.A. data bases such as the 303 listed compared waters, the assessed waters store which is our water quality when entering data base and discharge from monitored discharge. This will also cover the face of an online mapping application for water and other resources for watershed related networking including the MP's to minimize when faced pollution and self-paced training on watershed topics and much more. So please tell your friends and attend this informative webcast on March 28. Registration will open on March March 19th on the watershed Academy web site. As usual, visit our web site at Mom's www.epa.gov.epa/webcast.

So let's continue with our webcast, Gary Johnson from Connecticut is our next speaker.

Gary?

Thank you can. Hopefully everyone can hear me now. I am going to skip over my first flight after the introduction because Mark had done a good job of explaining problem and location of Long Island Sound and get into the mechanics of our trading but program works, and our initial TMDL starting point -- which are TMDL was completed and approved by EPA in April of 2001 -- zero legislative give us approval in 2002 to a general trading permit permit. Switch kicked off our trading program in January of 2002 and we are just entering our sixth year of trading now and Conn. But our initial starting point was just about 50,000 pounds, or a little bit over 400,000 -- 400,000 -- 400 billion gallons per day of wastewater discharge. We are obviously smaller than New York City but still we have 79 facilities that are part of our program. And I will be jumping now to slide 57. That will give the ending point of the program of about 17,700 pounds. If you do the math on that quickly eight you'll find out it is a little bit more than 50% which is what the TMDL had for the entire Long Island sound base in. Will be getting connected because we are so point source driven is above that out to about 64% reduction that we are requiring out of our 79 municipal wastewater treatment facilities in the program. So in other words, we had to get get, by 2014, down to of little under 18,000 pounds of total nitrogen discharge.

Moving to slide 58, how are we going to accomplish this? The traditional way would be to go out and issued orders to all said in a press -- facilities and get them into a schedule, and it would be there individual programs problems to get a solution. They are going out and hiring consultants and attorneys to fight us, so the options were to go with the traditional program, which you see in this light it would be there permit and problem and high cost for compliance because everyone would be building to a high level of compliance and treatment because the litigation would go on and in all likelihood reward the guy that hung out the Long Kiss before he had to do anything. So there is an option to that in Connecticut, we develop an alternate training program on slide 59 which was the general format to cut the heart of the program. We had to establish loads loads -- based Loews for everyone in the waste load allocation process, and then we put together a training program with the setting and. Facilities under one general permit. We went out in fall 2001 with this permit and had a couple days of hearings, but at the end of the day, all 79 communities agreed to participate in the program and unbelievably, also a night are still participating in the program after five full years. Essentially, it has a lower cost because it allows people to trade and where it is to their advantage. It allows people too, in the more significant areas, to build a treatment and it awarded to some degree to the sale of credits. And it provides that incentive. So the program provides a number of benefits and in essence, protect the communities as long as everybody participates in the program. Moving on to slide 60, you will see the trading sounds. Mark talked a little bit earlier overall about the Long Island based trading systems. We did in Connecticut is we have management zones one through six. We took them in equated the highest in the lower southwestern Connecticut, the Stanford Greenwich area or if you look at the lower left-hand side of Connecticut, the highest value one, and that decreases as to get further to the East and further to the northeast to the lowest town of about .14 way up in the northeastern. The state. So in other words, if you consider the value of a pound of nitrogen and look at it, you would see that the lowest value of nitrogen is in that lower Bataan tide and the highest value is in the upper right hand corner. This sets a value for what kind of plants people will build and what kind of money they will invest, because it is up for habitation -- advantages to sell credits and a higher selling. When you look at the benefit you get from a district down in that one to one of zone is the maximum benefit that one could deprive in equalize Los.

So our program is set up in a general permit table with values for each year and is based on an acute sense of where you are located. And have the training works, we have a setting of a permanent fix permit, and we are and that general permit the second cycle now for the next five years. One has to determine the value of the credit which I will talk about a little bit and then you go into a execution of trades on an annual basis. Our program is a very rigid program, managed by a nitrogen Credit Exchange Board which is opponent appointed by the Legislature and governor, and it is set up to formulas that are put into the trading statute.

From moving onto slight 62, we will talk a little bit about setting the permit limits. When the program was first put together, the attempt was to put together a program with the buyers and sellers would be equal. Now in theory, this is beautiful. It is like trying to set a stock price and seeing it come on at the end of the year. It doesn't quite happen that way way, there is usually a positive or negative cash flow at the end of the year. But you have a pipeline from the 99 in the set the value as a starting value and you have been equalized factor that comes in as you showed in that earlier map of where you are located in the state as to what your E Q factor will be. For some, the equalized bowed State wide and set permit limit for each POW unassigned per-share percentage of allocation on a statewide vote. We said this original load in the waste load allocation by their three year average closed from the years 97, 98 and 99 times a statewide average discharge of nitrogen that was occurring at the beginning of the program, which was about 15 and a half milligrams per liter. So it was sent over a three year period because it represents a high and will apply that by 15 and a half times per milliliter and you come up with a mass based load for nitrogen for each facility at the starting point and you start the permit program out for that five-year period based on what we felt for going to be planned completed projects. One thing we always have to do with our seven and facilities is be looking three years ahead with projects because it generally takes a three to four years to plan and design a medium size project a could take up to six years to complete construction of a large project.

And then we checker project progress to see how we are moving along to meet the 2014 goal for the TMDL.

Let's move onto slight 63. The value of the credit. What is the value of a credit? The value of its credit is the cost of nitrogen treatment / the pounds of nitrogen proved. Now, we have to values we look at -- we look at the operating cost of these facilities to remove nitrogen. What is actual cost for them to operate, electricity, labor, chemicals and then the capital cost what it cost to build the facility. And if we move on 264, -- .

If we move on 264, the capital cost is the annual cost of with the amount of clean water fund loan for repayment. We have in Connecticut is, most of these projects are funded to err Conn clean water fund which is our state revolving loan fund plus a grant, and the grant grants anywhere from 20 to 30% of capital cost of the treatment plant. And recap calculate that capital cost in the program for the community support training -- training -- purposes kind of like your mortgage payment would be and is based on our own interest loans which run for about per million dollars borrowed, $661 a. The second. The cost of the credit is the operation maintenance cost. We go out and survey Oliver treatment facilities each year and look at a detailed operating cost for those facilities and that is based on what a cost for them to operate from. With the two of them together and it comes up with the operation the net cost. That cost, in the first year of the program, 2002, was $1.65, and in the most recent year it is $3.40. And that is protected -- protected -- projected to increase each year in a range of about 75 per cent per year for the next five years. Some of those variables are uncertain namely in the cost of fuels and electricity, which in the case of Connecticut State's go up in the -- 30 to 40% in the cost per year which had an effect on electric motors. The second most variable cost is some of our plants are using now methanol as 8 feet nitrification chemical and that cost very significantly from year to year also. Plus cost from the O and M cost and capital cost which is $3.40 per equalized pound removed in the year 2006. And to give a little idea of what that credit costs relates to people on the buying and selling, the largest for 2006, the largest purchaser of credits with the Hartford district plant plant, which is about 860 million-gallon per day plant plant. Is paying about a million dollars and purchase credits for 2006. And the largest receiver of selling credits is of the Bridgeport treatment plant which will get back about $360,000 per year through the selling of credits for 2006.

If we go on to slide 65, we can see where we are progress lies from 2,000 to 2,005 going into 2006. I didn't have the final amount for 2006 and I put this presentation together, but where we are in Connecticut right now is the are about 50% to our 2014% -- requirement. So we are overall a little ahead of the programs that had a 20% 20% -- 20% reduction in overall from all sources. And where we are on a mg per liter Strand at discharge, we start out at 15 and a half and we are a little bit under 10 overall across the board now. But we still have a lot of work to go, obviously the next eight years will be harder nitrogen to remove any more significant projects and one of the keys to our program is always trying to be three or five years ahead of where we are today so we hope we can get there on the right schedule.

Living on to slide number 66, when we have done today, had a total of 37 nitrogen removal projects projects that have been completed in Connecticut, and 37 of those we have completed. We probably at this time have about 10 that are either in design or construction. Additional to those. And these projects have ranged all the way across the board from the simplest low-cost retrofits to pull facility reconstructions. I think our lowest cost project was in the range of a couple thousand dollars to our most significant and most expensive project was a little over $100 million. And at $100 million project was pork nitrogen removal and the balance of that $104 million project was for other treatment improvements. In number of those facilities and, as they get into a full-scale rebuilds will also be looking at Order Control and other instrumentation across the board for facilities. To date, we have used from our state clean water fund program in the form of grants , and for nitrogen removal.

Let's move on to slide 67. A couple of examples of different projects that have taken on over the years these are the pictures of the New Haven Connecticut waste water treatment facility, it got a $4,400,000,000 -- 400 million ga $4,400,000,000 -- 400 million ga llons a day facility. This was done as a record retrofit, date modified existing tankage at that facility and it has served very well since it went on line in 1997. It has reduced nitrogen consistently to a little under 7 milligrams per liter. However, that will make the long-term 2014 nitrogen number, and as we move on to slide 68, I have an overlay of the years 2002 through 2005. Performance of the facility -- facility -- and as you can see, the load and discharges in pounds per day, the red line that you see all the way across was 2014. The multicolor declined each going down from the food to the bank to the grain to be killed killer is each year's limit, and as we can see as we get a little folk further out with a facility like New Haven, we see some variability that has occurred occurred -- a lot of it due to cold weather operations. The Haven is a sea as a community so we see some variability that occurs, and in fact at some point in the next five years in New Haven will be building additional tankage, but the training program has certainly allow them to move forward in the first five or six years of the program by being able to sell credits. And that is one of the beauties of the program, it allows flexibility for a community to make decisions over a long period of time.

Let's go on to slide 69. Other projects that have required a full reconstruction reconstruction -- this is the town of Branford's facilities, you can see it is located next to a nice arena. This was a poll rebuilt that occurred that cost about $21 million. Is designed to operate below the TMDL number of 5.6 milligrams per liter to an average load of less than 4 milligrams per liter, which would be what we consider in our area, the limits of technology. And if we go to slide 70, he can see this 5 million gallons a day facility, how it has been running since its start up in 2002 and the exception of a couple of ascriptions that occurred one in 2002 and one in 2004, it has stayed pretty much below the 2014 limit. And the facility does have the capability if it is creeping up to add eight additional chemical methanol to help with the Dee nitrification. Although it is designed in the facility, they have not had to choose its yet as a cost saving measure. They are staying well below that number but if they get above, they can use that to remove nitrogen.

Moving on to slide 71, of one of the peace of our tree program is that it has allowed an innovation that we probably wouldn't have seen under traditional program, specifically under traditional permit and then in administrative or consent order to a committee would bring on a consultant to would then design a system that would probably operate at the lowest level all the time with a huge safety factor that would probably cost two or three times more than what was really necessary to do the job. So the state could not approve approve -- afford to spend the amount of money that would be necessary to take of 79 facilities and make them limited technology facilities. Some of the interesting things we have seen, at this particular picture is an activated sludge media which allows more organisms to grow on this media and thus put more treatment into an existing tank. We were able to operate these programs as energy-saving programs which in some cases they wouldn't have been able to do under a traditional approach. Again, the next picture on 72 will show the tank actually operating with the media and it. We can't see it, but I will move to 73 where you will see what that media looks like when the tank is in drained down. As you can see is said in racks and allows this facility to save money because they were assessed at situated in a lower? Said on. They went ahead with the program delicate them down to about 8 milligrams per liter, that probably about one-quarter of the costs it would have been to rebuild the facility. If we move onto slight 74, a little bit of a retrofit cost scenario, where we are for our smaller plants the one to $3 million -- million gallons per day facilities, it was about half a million dollar per million gallant metric and capacity of the larger plant. Became not a glass in it the $160,000 for capacity for retrofit cost. On the other hand people rebuild cost were considerably higher than that.

If we move on 275, one of the things we have done in Connecticut as. Our program is we have asked all of our 79 municipalities, which I think we are about 276 now, have actually considered a Facility study for nitrogen removal and that is the first step to assessing their needs, and these studies have been done over a period of time of six months up to one year. And one thing that has received a lot of time is the use of computer simulation models which require as part of our study and scope Conn. We can really do a lot with the scenarios and what these plans can do with the existing tankage and what would be needed for the future. So the use of these models have really given us a good tool to work with the across the state.

In closing, I have a slide number 76, which just gives you a picture of Connecticut, of the red dots that you see on the slide scattered around mostly in the left or lower left-hand side of the state are the highest level treatment facilities, the ones that achieve that TMDL and the yellow dots are projects that we're of an interim basis which cut down to about 8 milligrams per liter. We have had a lot of great success and the most important thing in closing that is so important is, we have kept the 79 towns all working. They have all bought their credits when they needed to and move product projects for it when they needed two, and we have yet to have have had to shoot a consent order administrative order to anyone to build new systems. In fact one of the problems we have right now is that we have more demand for project moving toward them we have funds within our clean water fund, and hopefully the legislature in his next project session will increase the funding to our program so we can reach all of those that want to move ahead. A number of committees have actually gone out on their own and in some cases spend three or $4 million to design facilities so they are ready to move ahead. So we have seen a tremendous amount of cooperation with in our municipalities and a lot of them, me go to the operators of these facilities to run them of the best of their capability. And with that, I will keep keep -- ask -- the questions.

Thank you very. We do have a few minutes to answer questions but first of all wanted to move to slide 78. Here is weakened by the speakers information -- if you are online you can simply click on the home button at the top of your screen and will be returned to the seminars main page which has the speakers email address and phone number. , on the left hand side bar is the things button which has an additional resources identified by today's speakers and that is on slide number 78 also. Also on the left-hand side bar is the feedback button. Please consider online feedback form as we do consider it more comments to improve our webcast. Now we have time for some additional questions. First of all and quick to take some of the it excellent questions we have received online. And perhaps cut this is one Gary Gary, you can help answer.

The question is prompted in Canada, men and went to facilities and buy or sell or trade credits, it appears that your program describes what the cost would be for these credits. If this understanding of the process is correct, have used considered the alternative practice of letting the buyers and sellers negotiate the price among themselves including the possibility of buying and selling options to trade such as when those are higher or lower than predicted?

The program in Connecticut when we originally looked into the program, we looked into trading human with anybody for any value. And one of the issues that pushed us into the more structured program was added to the fact that the immigration immigration -- demographics of the state cut generally the towns to the southwest part of the state which made the improvement should be receiving money and to the north and eastern. The state cut the poor towns which would be buying the credits, and there was a lot of feeling of getting a fair deal in the program. And I think that pushed the Legislature to Pat -- crafted the program to have the exchange with representation from small communities and large communities and buyers and sellers across the board so that everyone would be getting a fair approach. There has been a number of times we have been asked that question question, when if the free market approach had worked on, and it may have but it may have left people on the outside and as we have managed to keep them all participating.

Thank you. Another question here, did the Long Island Sound to consider growth in setting allocation and load reduction goals? This is from Andrew and Oklahoma.

I can answer for Conn. Conn is statewide when I said we were looking at in and the 1990's. We were looking at a barely steady growth statewide that had accelerated growth. But I felt overall we could manage this through advances with technology. It may tweak as to go to instead of the victim .6 it might be a little bit less than that if there was a lot of growth. But the beauty of the program is if you are in the community that grows a lot you can still buy credits. I don't know if you want to elaborate a of a more on the bigger picture?

Certainly, buy nature, the TMDL has a cap on the discharge. We can only consider growth and the extended, as Barry had mentioned, we did some modeling scenarios with projected growth, but the key really comes back to the implementation side, that in planning facility upgrades and what would be necessary to achieve that cap on production, certainly growth in communities, population increases, would need to be considered and planning the capacity of facilities and planning there long-term viability of the meeting some of their waste load allocations.

Thank you. Have another question from hell Dora in Kansas City, Kansas. The question is where does your population and Development data originate from?

Is the specifically for Conn?

You could answer for Connecticut.

Certainly we had pretty good data as far as flows and loads from our treatment facility as. They're existing facility program. We have a flow of checks and balances to make sure that what they're projecting was accurate data. We had a number of years of monitoring data from these facilities so that give us a good idea of what they were discharging as far as population population, like anything else to come from senses [audio not clear] for all of our communities.

Thank you. I am going to ask one more questions that we received from William in and not Pennsylvania. The question is, regarding personal care products and prescription drugs that are flushed into sewer systems entered waste water treatment plants, what steps can be taken on a local level to help mitigate the discharge of these harmful items into the environment?

I don't know. That is a difficult question because it comes down to pick in many cases, again, you are not going to control those products, or at least it would be difficult to control those products at in terms of their use. They will ultimately make their way, whether it is septic systems or organ systems that are squirted into wastewater discharges, and then the question is whether there are any methods of treatment side to try to remove some of those products. And Gary, you may be able to better answer that. I tend to think that would be an enormous challenge.

There is a lot of research going on right now, the Water Research Foundation has put out some grants for that and certainly EPA has been involved with that. The traditional treatment plant as we know it doesn't do the best job in the world at treating these products, and I think it is going to be a number of years until systems can be made so they can be done on a large-scale basis for that. So I guess from purely -- once it enters the system is going to see a limited treatment by the ability of the organisms within the activated sludge process to assimilate and these men pharmaceuticals.

Med think you've got this is an emerging issue that was mentioned that will require some attention. At this point I am quick to unamused the bonds and ask for any questions from the audience.

I have a question my name is Stephanie and I am with the U.S. Forest Service. I have a question regarding the nitrogen trading programs that were discussed and I was wondering if there was any discussion or consideration to extend these programs to extend to the one point programs in the trading scenario, where you do not point to points trading that would include agriculture practice changes and forestry changes as well?

Teewun me to take that from Connecticut to kill?

Connecticut's program when it was set up was set up as a point source program but there was the flexibility there to non ad nonpoint source. One of the key stumbling blocks are now, although we have pre good napping statewide to determine usages of land, we would have to bring in 169 partners purses the 79 which we have now. Meaning that there are 169 towns in Connecticut. That is probably the stumbling block got the thing we are looking at and wrestling with is looking into our storm water program and trying to develop it in that phase. We have recently just added a couple of industrial partners from a point source into the program and that has taken quite a bit of time but I believe it will get there. It is just a matter of getting the Department the wherewithal to try to bring into a public process 169 towns on the land use and develop a load allocation for those communities communities. Cox to add to what Carey said, there was a study conducted conducted in Connecticut trying to look at the potential liability of trading between point and nine-point sources, and the conclusion is, because we are talking about predominantly urban and suburban land cover and some storm water runoff from those covers, that the cost of controls for many of those sources would be so costly to make trading between the points and nine-point sources prohibited. Usually we think of the trading not doing a point source activity because of the lower-cost nonpoint activity and that may in fact not be the case when you're talking about urban watershed. But certainly there could be opportunities for other systems where we are talking about agriculture early or forestry based sources.

Thank you. We have time for one more question and a quick answer.

This is Robin in Boise. I have a question for Mark concerning the cost information and how that affected the twist for the TMDL goal. You indicated that the total cost was two and a half billion dollars and 82 quote West said that the cost was about $0.6 billion. Can you explain more than that?

It came right from that court suburban analysis or we looked at the cost versus nitrogen removal. We're also able to using some of the quote water product modeling information. We picked a level of reduction that was not limited technology, but was -- if you could think of in terms of 5 milligrams per liter throughout the watershed, five or 6 milligrams per it Leader as opposed to say, 3 milligrams per liter. So it is just literally doing that kind of cost curve scene where you get the break in the curve, and using that as a basis for a signing what we felt where feasible and cost-effective levels of treatment.

Thank you Marc. At this time I would like to conclude today's webcast, I would like to especially thank Gary, Carol and bark for presenting today and of course thanks for everyone who joined us. Reminder that our next webcast is scheduled for March 28. Registration opens March 19th on the watershed Academy web site. Finally, be sure to check out EPA oceans website. They're you'll find pools on funding and training and technical assistance. One of those pictures on that page is the watershed tool of the month and this amount is this the watershed and book which there'll mentioned. Them into our webcast for today.