Water Quality Workplan

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I. INTRODUCTION

II. STUDY DESIGN
A. Sampling Design
B. Field and Laboratory Methods C. Coordinated Studies in Mexico

III. INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
A. Overview of Approach

IV. QUALITY ASSURANCE AND QUALITY CONTROL
A. Quality Assurance Elements
B. Quality Control Elements

V. PROJECT MANAGEMENT
A. Management Structure
B. Project Reporting

VI. LITERATURE CITED

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A. Maps of sampling sites
APPENDIX B. Station lists and assignments
APPENDIX C. Field Operations Manual for the Marine Water-Column, benthic and trawl monitoring in Southern California, August 1995
APPENDIX D. Site map and station coordinates for UABC Mexico sampling
APPENDIX E. Information management tables
APPENDIX F. Table of agencies and equipment that will be used for the Bight'98 Water Quality Study

The Southern California Bight (SCB; Figure I-1), an open embayment in the coast between Point Conception and Cabo Colnett (south of Ensenada), Baja California, is an important and unique recreational resource. World renowned for its recreational waters, more than 100 million people visit Southern California beaches and coastal areas annually to sunbathe, surf, swim, skin- and SCUBA-dive. The average number of visitors to Santa Monica Bay beaches on a summer weekend alone is more than 600,000 (Economic Resources Data, 1993).

Southern California is also one of the most densely populated coastal regions in the country, which creates stress upon these recreational resources. Nearly 20 million people inhabit coastal Southern California, a number that is expected to increase another 20% by 2010 (NRC 1990). Population growth generally results in conversion of open land into non-permeable surfaces. This "hardening of the coast" increases the rate of runoff and can impact water quality through addition of sediment, toxic chemicals, microbial pathogens and nutrients to the ocean. Besides the impacts of land conversion, the SCB is home to fifteen municipal wastewater treatment facilities, eight power generating stations, 10 industrial treatment facilities, and 18 oil platforms that discharge to the open coast.

Assessing the effects of freshwater inputs from land based sources on the ocean environment requires an understanding of plume dynamics. In most years, sewage treatment plants are the largest of these freshwater sources and they discharge several kilometers offshore in relatively deep water. The size and direction of treated wastewater plumes are well described (e.g. Jones et al., 1990, 1991; Washburn et al., 1992; Wu et al., 1994; Petrenko et al, 1998a and b); most of the larger sewage treatment plants in southern California have conducted plume monitoring programs on a monthly basis for more than ten years. What these programs have shown is that since most sewage treatment plants have deep offshore diffusers, their plumes enter the ocean below the pycnocline, remain subsurface due to the density barrier, and rarely come into contact with the public.

In wet years, stormwater runoff can far exceed the freshwater input from sewage treatment plants. In southern California, most stormwater runoff is channeled into diversion systems that flow to the ocean through point source-like outfalls that occur almost exclusively at the shoreline. Stormwater plumes remain largely near the surface and tend to flow along the shoreline with the longshore currents, putting them in prime locations for human contact. However, stormwater plumes have been studied for only a few systems and for only a few storms (Bay et al., 1997; Jones et al., 1997). They are also less predictable than treated wastewater outfall plumes. Whereas treated wastewater plumes are relatively steady in size, stormwater plumes can vary several orders of magnitude in size. Moreover, the meteorological factors that cause stormwater plume volume to vary also alter predominant water movement patterns in the receiving waters through wind and wave forcing.

The ways in which stormwater and treated wastewater plumes interact is also not well understood. At a theoretical level, the subsurface offshore plumes from sewage treatment plants should rarely interact with the nearshore surface plumes from stormwater. However, most treated wastewater plume monitoring has occurred under quiescent oceanographic conditions that may differ from storm impacted conditions. Most of the larger sewage treatment plants in southern California are located immediately offshore of some of the largest stormwater outfalls (e.g. Orange County and Santa Ana River; Los Angeles City and Ballona Creek; Los Angeles County and Los Angeles River/LA Harbor). Existing monitoring focuses on examining these sources individually, rather than simultaneously, making examination of their relative effects or interaction difficult.

Recognizing the need to look beyond the influence of an individual plume to cumulative effects and plume interactions, twenty-one organizations that conduct oceanographic studies in southern California have agreed to pool their effort during the fall/winter of 1998-99 to address the following regional-scale questions:

1. What are the contributions and spatial distribution of inputs from bays, harbors, rivers, and large storm water sources to the Southern California Bight relative to POTW (publicly owned treatment works) inputs?

2. How do these inputs vary during wet and dry seasons for near coastal areas and enclosed bays and harbors?

The study will be coordinated by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) as one component of the Southern California Bight 1998 Regional Monitoring Program (Bight'98), in which 55 organizations (Table I-1) have agreed to cooperate in assessing the overall condition of the SCB ecosystem. Bight'98 builds upon the success of a similar SCCWRP-coordinated regional monitoring effort conducted in 1994 to assess the condition of offshore ecological habitats (SCBPP 1998). It also extends the efforts of the three largest sewage treatment plant operators in the Los Angeles/Orange County region to coordinate and spatially extend their sampling in ways that will provide more holistic information about local conditions.

This document presents the work plan for the water quality component of Bight'98. Similar work plans are available for coastal ecology and microbiological components of Bight'98.

The Water Quality component of Bight'98 will include four objectives to address the two questions presented in the introduction:

1. Determine the spatial extent and distribution of surface runoff from shoreline sources in the coastal ocean,

2. Evaluate the contribution of surface runoff to the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the coastal ecosystem,

3. Evaluate and compare the contributions of surface runoff and POTW inputs into the coastal ocean, and

4. Develop tools for integrated assessment of water quality using in situ and remotely sensed data sets.

The first objective will be addressed by measurements of the cross-shelf and along-shelf extent of surface runoff plumes from known sources of freshwater along the Southern California coast. Low salinity and high turbidity, particularly during winter storm events generally characterize surface runoff. Both of these characteristics are easily measured and will be used to estimate the spatial extents and distributions of both dissolved and suspended particulate components of runoff, respectively. These spatial characteristics will also be compared with the volume flow associated with the respective freshwater sources, where flow gauges are available, and with coastal advection driven by a combination of tidal, wind, and remote forcing where current measurements are available. In addition, remotely sensed observations of surface plumes will be used to determine plume size at larger spatial scales than can be resolved by ship-based sampling and at time scales beyond which boat sampling is available.

The second objective will be addressed using in situ collections and laboratory analyses of water samples to examine the contribution of surface runoff samples to temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, suspended particulate matter load (SPM, also referred to as total suspended solids, or TSS) which causes the turbidity, nutrient concentrations, and chlorophyll concentrations. Comparison with ambient water beyond the influence of the plume, and with water quality measurements during the dry weather study will provide a mechanism for evaluating the relative contributions of runoff to the coastal ocean. These measurements also provide possible ground-truthing for remotely sensed observations from ocean color and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites.

The third objective will be addressed by combining data from the current study with that from historical water quality surveys conducted as part of POTW discharge monitoring to assess the relative spatial distributions and effects of surface runoff and POTW discharges on coastal water quality. A large body of monitoring observations spanning several decades exists for the larger POTWs. We will use that information to determine the historical spatial influence of POTW outfalls and compare that with the influence of stormwater outfalls. In addition, we will use data from the present study, which improves the linkage between POTW and stormwater sources to help identify potential stormwater intrusions into areas of typical POTW influence during historical studies conducted under storm conditions.

The fourth objective represents an evolutionary step in the approach taken by municipal agencies in monitoring and understanding the impact of natural and anthropogenic inputs into the coastal ocean. The technology of satellite sensors, telemetered mooring observations and sophisticated software tools provide a potential for understanding, predicting and managing the coastal ocean at a level not previously possible. This new technology will ultimately provide cheaper, more spatially and temporally comprehensive system-integrated information than ever before possible. However, this technology has not yet been fully tested or integrated with conventional coastal monitoring and management practices. The mutual involvement of most local municipal monitoring agencies with state/national regulatory, scientific and technical agencies in Bight'98 provides an excellent opportunity to develop integrated approaches for understanding and interpreting the contributions of coastal sources to the coastal ocean.

A. Sampling Design

The field sampling program that will contribute to achieving these objectives contains four elements, each of which is described below:

1. CTD surveys
2. Batch water sampling
3. Surface mapping surveys
4. Remote sensing observations

1. CTD Surveys

Three CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) surveys, including one dry weather survey prior to the onset of the winter rainy season and two wet weather surveys during the winter, will be conducted as part of Bight'98. Each survey will consist of CTD profiles at 446 sites between Point Conception and the Mexican Border. Appendix A provides maps of the sample sites and Appendix B provides site coordinates.

At each site, vertical profiles will measure the vertical distribution of temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and chlorophyll fluorometry. Profiles will extend from the surface to within 2-3 meters of the bottom, except in water depths greater than 100 meters, where only the upper 100 meters of the water column will be profiled. At selected sites, CTD profiles will be supported by surface batch measurements of total suspended solids (TSS) and chlorophyll concentration to calibrate the transmissometer and fluorometer, respectively.

Site selection
Sampling sites for the CTD surveys were allocated to a series of transects perpendicular to shore. Nominal distance between transects will be 4-6 km, except in areas near POTW and stormwater runoff, where they will be closer. Near river mouths, transects will be located at the mouth and then at 1 km and 2 km in either direction. Beyond 2 km alongshore, additional transects will be placed at 4-6 km intervals. Near major POTW diffusers (>100 mgd), transects will be placed over the diffuser and at 2 km intervals for the first 4 km. Near smaller POTW diffusers, transects will be placed over the diffuser and at 0.5 km intervals within the zone of initial dilution for the facility. These distances were selected to capture the areas of maximum response gradient based on historical data records.

Each transect will be sampled cross-shelf initially at 1 km intervals beginning at the 10 m isobath out to ~2 km, then at 2-3 km intervals out to 10 km offshore. Shorter transects will be placed at the sites lateral to small river mouths and a longer transects will be placed near the Santa Clara River where previous data suggests an offshore influence as far as the Channel Islands. A summary of these criteria is provided in Table II-1.

An effort has also made to incorporate existing survey sites if they occurred close (e.g. <0.5 km) to the desired transect locations and may result in some small modifications from Table II-1. This slight modification of the design to incorporate existing sites has two benefits. First, it will ease accomplishment of the third objective, which requires integration of present and historical survey data. Second, it increases the resources for the present survey by allowing us to incorporate effort that otherwise might have had to be expended independent of Bight'98 to maintain routine sites and provide a continuing historical record for POTW discharges.

Temporal Selection

Three field sampling events are planned for the fall winter of 1998-99. The first will be a dry weather sampling event, tentatively scheduled for October 13-15. The dry weather study will occur during a period when surface runoff is low, uncoupled from specific meteorological events. By sampling close to the onset of the winter rainy season we hope to characterize the water quality characteristics of the coastal ocean into which the early storm runoff would discharge. Should a significant rain event occur prior to October 13, dry weather sampling would be deferred until later in the spring, well after the end of winter rains, or until the following summer or early fall.

Two wet weather storm events will be sampled during the period of November-February, one during the early part of the season in November-December, and the other in January-February. If two wet weather samplings have not been obtained by the end of February, the period will be extended into March, but by the end of March the probability of having a major rain event will diminish considerably.

Storm event sampling will focus on a three-day period following the rain event, sea state permitting. A maximum of three days was selected because, depending on the size of the storm and coastal advection, freshwater plumes can dissipate rapidly, and beyond three days there is little certainty of being able to adequately observe the immediate contribution of stormwater input to the coastal ocean. This is not necessarily because the effects of the input will be gone, but because initial inputs will be diluted and may even change form beyond this period. Although a low salinity anomaly may still be present in the water column after several days, it is conceivable that the particulate load may have sunk from the water column, and perhaps even replaced by a phytoplankton bloom yielding biogenic rather than terrigenous particles. Because suspended particulates may be responsible for the transport of contaminants into the coastal ocean, measuring the initial load of suspended particulate matter in the water column is important.

While the project goal is to sample all of the SCB simultaneously, the water quality component of Bight'98 has been logistically defined into three zones that may be sampled independently depending on rainfall conditions. Rainfall decreases from north to south within the Southern California Bight from an annual average of 16.1 inches in Santa Barbara to 9.5 inches in San Diego. It is unlikely that the entire SCB will receive adequate rainfall within a single event to provide significant surface runoff simultaneously throughout the entire region. Our objective will be to coordinate sampling within zones and to coordinate sampling across zones to the maximum extent possible. The three zones are:

· Northern SCB - Point Conception to Point Dume
· Central SCB - Point Dume to San Mateo Point
· Southern SCB - Oceanside to the Mexican Border

The size of rain event that triggers sampling will differ among regions. The northern region has the largest rainfall requirement, both because it receives more rain on average and because the Santa Clara River, which is the major surface runoff source for the region, requires a sizable rain event before significant flow from the river is realized. The minimum rainfall required to trigger sampling for each region is listed below:

Northern SCB: 2 inches
Central SCB: 1 inch
Southern SCB: 0.5 inch (after the first event meeting this criteria)

The level of 0.5 inches for the southern region is driven by the concern of catching any event. Because average annual rainfall for the San Diego area is only 9.5 inches, the sampling opportunities must be taken when available.

2. Batch Water Sampling

In the transect nearest each major freshwater runoff site, surface water samples will be taken from at least three CTD profile sites for the measurement of inorganic plant nutrients, total suspended solid (TSS) concentration, and extracted particulate chlorophyll concentration. These samples will allow us to assess the effects of water quality parameters not directly measured with CTD profiling and to provide field calibration samples for the fluorometer and TSS:

· Total suspended solids are a direct measure of the suspended particulate material remaining in the water column, and within stormwater plumes the bulk of the TSS is from stormwater. Where the particle field is relatively homogenous in composition, beam attenuation, a parameter calculated from transmissometry, will vary linearly with TSS, and therefore the TSS/beam attenuation relationship can be used to map the distribution of TSS from the continuously profiled beam attenuation.

· Nutrient measurements will be used to understand the additional contribution of the runoff to the dynamics of the coastal ecosystem. Previous work has shown that there is a significant nutrient load associated with surface runoff and that the concentrations and proportions of nutrients varies between different sources. These nutrients contribute to phytoplankton blooms, especially with the stratification that results from the buoyancy added by the freshwater.

· Extracted particulate chlorophyll a measurements provide an indication of the phytoplankton plant biomass in the water column. Some of the particulate chlorophyll in stormwater may be derived from terrigenous plant material that has been washed into the ocean by the runoff. These measurements will be used to convert the chlorophyll fluorescence measurements obtained with the CTD profiling in to actual chlorophyll concentrations. Although factory calibrations are provided with the fluorometers, in practice the fluorescence yield of phytoplankton varies as a function of phytoplankton taxonomy and physiological state. Direct chlorophyll measurements from the study system are important for obtaining meaningful calibration for the fluorescence sensor. The TSS and chlorophyll observations are also important for interpreting remote sensing color imagery, such as the ocean color data obtained by the SeaWiFs ocean color sensor.

Batch surface samples will be obtained at 10% or more of the CTD sites for each zone at sites indicated on the tables in Appendix B. These sites were selected to represent major gradients within a plume, but the cross-shelf extent of a plume will vary on a storm-specific basis and field crews will be given flexibility to adjust the sites accordingly to capture the gradient.

3. Surface Mapping Surveys

The CTD survey will yield a three dimensional description of spatial patterns by sampling the vertical component continuously and interpolating the values between CTD casts to describe horizontal components in the coastal ocean. An additional, complementary approach is to use a towed array which describes horizontal patterns on a continuous basis within the harbors. Since stormwater plumes generally remain near the surface, lateral gradients can provide greater description of plume dynamics than depth-related gradients. To capture these gradients, a towed array system will be used in two harbor areas, Los Angeles/Long Beach (LA/LB) Harbor and San Diego Bay, where these gradients are likely to be largest.

The US Navy's Marine Environmental Survey Capability (MESC) will be used as the towed array in these two harbors. The MESC is a real-time data acquisition system designed to provide integrated, rapid, continuous measurement and mapping physical, chemical, and biological characteristics (Table II-2) from a moving vessel utilizing state-of-the-art sensors, computer systems, and navigation equipment. This approach allows for direct in situ measurements that avoid extrapolation, and provides simultaneous measurements at a frequency commensurate with scales of natural and anthropogenic variability. The MESC provides the near-synoptic real-time data collection necessary to effectively map the highly dynamic nature of the coastal environment.

A single MESC survey will be conducted in each harbor during the October dry weather sampling, and during one of the winter storm sampling events. Data will be collected primarily while towing near the surface (1-2 m depth) though occasional vertical profiles will performed to determine vertical structure. The planned track lines for San Diego Bay and LA/LB Harbor are shown in Figures II-1 and II-2, respectively. The track line planned for San Diego Bay follows one used on many previous MESC surveys. MESC has not previously been used in LA/LB Harbor.

Discrete seawater samples will be collected at specific locations for the purposes of calibrating MESC sensors, as well as to obtain nutrient samples not otherwise measured by MESC. The exact sites for data collection will be determined in real-time to accommodate the widest range in parameter levels as possible. However, sites previously sampled in San Diego Bay (Figure II-1), have been found to provide a sufficient data range and will be used for some of the sites on the upcoming surveys. The total number of discrete samples planned for each survey are: 12 TSS, 12 Chl-a, 12 Nutrients, 24 Cu, and 15 PAH.

4. Remote Sensing Observations

Remote sensing measurements provide a third complementary mechanism for mapping large scale spatial and temporal extents of runoff plumes resulting from storm events. Sea surface temperature, ocean color and pigment concentration, and sea surface roughness can all be mapped with satellite remote sensing at temporal and spatial scales are relevant to storm-driven freshwater runoff events. While limited to near surface layers, remote sensing observations are synoptic, providing an instantaneous snapshot of ocean conditions free from blurring or distortion by changes in the system during the time of sampling. In contrast, ship-based mapping provides greater depth resolution and more accurate parameter measurement, but takes multiple days to complete during which advection, mixing, and tides may distort the spatial resolution.

Attempts will be made to quantify runoff plumes using three satellite sensors during this study (Table II-3) and evaluate their usefulness for detection of these plumes. AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer ), which measures sea surface temperature, provides important descriptions of upper ocean physical processes, but may be of limited use for describing surface runoff plumes. First, AVHRR functions by detecting thermal radiation from the sea surface, which could be masked by clouds. Secondly, whether it can resolve coastal surface runoff depends on the temperature difference between the ambient ocean and the surface runoff water. If the temperature difference is less than 0.5°C, it may not differentiate ambient and runoff water. A third factor is the pixel size of the sensor. Because runoff plumes may have a fairly limited cross-shelf extent at times, it may be difficult to resolve the plume with a sensor having a 1 kilometer pixel size. An advantage of AVHRR is that there are several sensors flying making it currently possible to obtain up to four AVHRR images per day. Provided that the atmosphere is clear, one can potentially construct movie loops which show the time evolution of the SST field.

SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor) measures ocean color and has already proven to be useful for examining the presence and spatial extent of surface runoff plumes along the southern California coastline. The satellite provides measurements of ocean color by detecting upwelling radiance from the sea surface at 9 wavelengths of visible and near-infrared light. SeaWiFs has similar limitations to AVHRR in that it will be limited by cloud cover, and also it has a similar pixel size to AVHRR. Because SeaWiFs is a visible light detector, it requires sun light to provide sufficient illumination of the ocean to provide a measurable upwelling radiance signal. Therefore, only one SeaWiFs image per day is possible.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) provides the greatest advantage for detection of surface runoff plumes because it has the ability to penetrate clouds, and has a very small pixel size (~20 m) which provides very high spatial resolution that is appropriate for the plumes that we expect to see from various runoff sources. However, the sensor is only in a position to obtain a useful image about once every 3 days. Its overflight, therefore, may not overlap with our selected storm events.

Finally, aerial photography will be employed for at least one of the storm events in the Los Angeles region. The resolution of the photographs will be much higher than the 1 km pixel size of the satellite sensors, but the spatial area will be much more limited.

B. Field and Laboratory Methods

1. CTD Profiles

All surveys will be conducted using SeaBird CTDs equipped with auxiliary sensors to measure dissolved oxygen, pH, beam transmission (turbidity), and chlorophyll fluorescence. Each of these sensors will be precalibrated prior to the field sampling. Once the CTD is deployed, it will be lowered to 5 to 10 meters where a three minute equilibration period will be used at the first station and 90 seconds at subsequent stations. After equilibration, the CTD will be brought back to the surface, then lowered to obtain the profile for the station. The CTDs will be lowered to within 2 meters of the bottom or to 100 meters, whichever is less. The CTD data will be logged at 8 scans per second, with a profiling rate of approximately 0.3-0.5 meters/second, yielding a vertical resolution of about 6 cm. Further details concerning profiling, intercalibrations, and precalibrations, are provided in the QA/QC section of this document and in Appendix C.

2. Batch Water Samples

Batch water samples will be obtained to assess the contributions of surface runoff to water quality parameters not directly measured with the CTD. These measurements in include total suspended solids, inorganic nutrient (nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, and silicate) concentrations, and extracted particulate chlorophyll measurements.

All of the measurements will made on a surface sample obtained with a bucket or other type of non-toxic, non-contaminating water sampling device. The sample will be obtained near the surface at the CTD site, while the CTD is in the water. This sample will preferably be taken at the beginning of the downcast of the CTD. The sample will be processed as soon as possible after being taken.

One liter of seawater will be filtered through a preweighed type GFF glass fiber filter for TSS. The sample will be drawn with a vacuum of no more then 0.5 atmospheres. If the entire portion of the 1 liter sample cannot be filtered through the filter because of clogging, which is likely to occur in stormwater samples, the volume that has filtered through the filter will be recorded along with the date, time, and location. The filter will then be placed into a petri dish and stored chilled until it can be transferred to the laboratory for processing. In the laboratory, the sample will be dried at 60°C for 24 hours and weighed on a precision balance.

Nutrients samples will be taken directly from the filtrate of the surface TSS sample. Prelabeled sample bottles (60 mL. capacity) will be rinsed twice with the filtrate and then filled to between half and two thirds full and stored frozen. In the laboratory, the samples will analyzed for nitrate, nitrite, ortho-phosphate, and silicate. The general methods have been described in the WOCE and JGOFS methods manual (Gordon et al., 1993) but are briefly described here. Nitrate will be converted into nitrite with a cadmium reduction and then the nitrite will be diazotized using sulfanilamide and N-(1-napthyl)-ethylenediamine to quantitatively form a red azo dye which will be measured with a colorimeter (Armstrong et al., 1967) Phosphate will be measured with a modification of the procedure of (Bernhardt and Wilhelms, 1967) in which molybdic acid combines with phosphate to form phosphomolybdic acid which is reduced to phosphomolybdous acid. Reactive silicate will also be measured with a molybdate complexation to form silicomolybdic acid which is reduced with stannous chloride to silicomolybdous acid(Armstron et al., 1967). Operational standards for all of the nutrients will made in the laboratory using the following reagents: Phosphate - KH₂PO₄; Silicate - Na₂SiF₆; Nitrate - KNO₃; Nitrite - NaNO₂ . The running standards will be compared with commercially available oceanographic standards obtained from a source yet to be determined.

For chlorophyll measurements, 100 mL. of sample will be filtered through a 25 mm GFF type glass fiber filter with no more than 0.5 atmospheres of vacuum. When the filtration is complete, the filter will be place into a glass scintillation vial containing 10 mL of 90% acetone/10% deionized water solution. This sample will be stored chilled for return to the laboratory, where it will be maintained at 4°C for 24 hours in the dark to allow for complete extraction. The sample will then be measured on a laboratory fluorometer that has been calibrated with 1 mg of chlorophyll a obtained from Sigma Scientific Corporation. The sample will be measured both before and after the addition of 5% HCl. From these readings and their ratio, both chlorophyll a and phaeopigment concentration will be calculated according to (Holm-Hansen et al., 1965). A complete description of pigment analyses is provided by (Jeffrey et al., 1997).

3. Surface Mapping Surveys

The MESC employs both a towed sensor package and an all-TEFLON sea water flow-through system that provides a continuous stream of near-surface sea water, nominally 1.5m deep, to a suite of on-board sensors. Sensors in the towed package consist of a conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) profiler, outfitted with pH and dissolved oxygen sensors, a 25-cm pathlength light transmissometer (660 nm), an oil (PAH) fluorometer using ultra-violet (UV) fluorescence, and a photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) sensor. On-board sensors include multiple fluorometers for oil and chlorophyll measurements, an automated Trace Metals Analyzer (TMA) for the analysis of copper, lead, and cadmium, a PAR irradiance sensor, an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), a digital fathometer, and a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) navigation receiver. A V-Fin depressor is used to keep the instrument package stable and submerged to the appropriate depth, while a hydraulic winch is used to raise and lower the package to the desired water depth.

Data will be collated at a nominal 4-Hz sampling rate, pre-processed, displayed in real-time, and stored on magnetic media using IBM compatible personal computers and the acquisition/control hardware system. A software package designed specifically for this purpose will be used to perform these tasks. Data from the ADCP will be averaged over 10 seconds, while the TMA collects data at 6-minute intervals. Integration of the DGPS navigation system allows all data to be directly linked to a location in latitude and longitude coordinates.

Real-time sensor data will be intercalibrated with discrete sample measurement data to derive absolute calibration and/or to provide correlation data that can be used to enhance the spatial resolution of the more limited, more costly, and time consuming traditional analyses. In the case of Chl-a, discrete samples analyzed with traditional laboratory methods described above provide an absolute calibration for the real-time flow-through fluorometers. Similarly, discrete analyses for dissolved Cu will provide an absolute calibration for the real-time TMA Cu data. Discrete samples analyzed for PAH data will be used to develop a regression equation with UV-fluorescence data, a relationship that previously was found to be well correlated with total PAH (Katz et al., 1991). Discrete samples analyzed for TSS data will be used to develop a regression equation between TSS and real-time light transmission data (Katz 1998).

The intercalibrations will be performed by comparing the average value of the real-time sensor data collected during each sampling interval with the discrete sample value. Hose lag will be taken into consideration when computing the average value. In the case of Cu, split samples taken during sampling and analyzed directly on the TMA in discrete mode will be compared to the analyses performed by the contract laboratory using EPA methods. The regression equations developed are then applied to the real-time data to derive TSS, chlorophyll a, Cu, and TPAH values for the entire data set.

The discrete water sample data for these calibration exercises will be collected and processed as follows:

· TSS, Chl-a, Nutrients: Twelve samples for TSS, Chl-a, and nutrients will be collected on each survey. TSS, and Chl-a samples will be filtered and processed as described above for batch water samples.

· Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons: Fifteen seawater samples will be collected on each survey for PAH and kept refrigerated until analysis. PAH samples will be analyzed using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Status and Trends version of the EPA Method 8270M. Samples will be acidified to pH 2.0 with 6N HCl, spiked with PAH surrogates, then solvent extracted in dichloromethane using a method similar to EPA Method 3501B, Separatory Funnel Liquid-Liquid Extraction. The extracts will be dried using sodium sulfate and concentrated to approximately 1 mL using Kuderna-Danish concentrators followed by nitrogen evaporation. The concentrated samples will be analyzed by Gas-Chromatography-Mass-Spectrometry run in Single Ion Mode. Forty-one individual PAH analytes will be quantified at a detection limit of 5 ng/L.

· Copper: Twenty-four seawater samples will be collected on each survey for dissolved Cu and kept refrigerated until analysis. Dissolved Cu samples will be analyzed using EPA Method 1640. In the laboratory, samples will be filtered through a 0.45-µm capsule filter and acidified with 10% HNO3 to bring the sample to a pH <2. The filtered samples will then preconcentrated by tetrahydroborate reductive precipitation (Nakashima et al.,) and determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry. The method detection limit for these analyses will be 0.1 µg/L. Discrete seawater samples will also be collected for analysis of Cu on the TMA in discrete mode. While the TMA collects data while underway about every 6 minutes, the discrete samples will allow direct comparison of the Cu data analyzed by EPA methods. In either continuous or discrete analysis modes, the TMA automatically analyzes the seawater for dissolved copper using a potentiometric stripping analysis method. A 3-mL aliquot of water is drawn into an electrochemical cell along with chemical reagents to facilitate the analysis. A negative potential is applied to the solution using a mercury film electrode that binds the Cu in solution. The electrode potential is then reversed and the Cu is driven off at a characteristic voltage. The concentration of copper is then determined by the length of time it remains bound to the film at its characteristic stripping potential.

C. Coordinated Studies in Mexico

While the focus of Bight'98 is on the US side of the border, a comparable, coordinated study will be conducted in Mexican coastal shelf waters. The Mexican component will share the same objectives as the US study, and will assess the area between the Mexican border and Ensenada. The sample sites, shown in Appendix D, were selected using the same criteria as in the US portion of the study.

The Mexican component is presently limited to the CTD survey element, which may not include use of a fluorometry sensor, though additional funding is being sought to add the sensor, as well as other program elements. All sampling effort and laboratory analysis for Mexican sampling sites will be conducted by Mexican scientists, who have helped prepare, and will follow, the procedures outlined in Appendix C. Mexican scientists have also participated in all intercalibration exercises conducted by their US counterparts.

Coordinating these programs will allow the first comparison of relative condition of the coastal waters of the two countries. Joint participation in intercalibration exercises also provides an opportunity to establish comparability that can be utilized in cooperative programs that extend beyond the tenure of Bight'98.

A. Overview of Approach

Information gathering in Bight'98 will be based on the principle of partnership; all participating organizations will have equal and complete access to the data collected during the project. Historically, data sharing between agencies performing monitoring programs has been impeded because each agency organized and managed its own data using its own information management system. Bight'98 will address this challenge by developing and implementing an integrated, uniform, and well-documented information management system (IMS).

The core of the IMS will be a set of standardized data transfer protocols (SDTP) for data submittal. These protocols will detail the information to be submitted for each sample. Data will be submitted in defined column comma-delimited ASCII format. Information will include collection or processing elements unique to that particular sample, the units of measure and allowable values for each parameter. Use of SDTP allows each participating organization to retain their existing data management system, yet output the data in a manner that allows merging the data into a single data base.

A second attribute of the IMS will be centralized data storage. The water quality component of Bight'98 includes almost twenty collaborating organizations responsible for sampling and/or analyses. Many of these groups have limited internet capacity, which precludes a distributed system. The centralized location will be at SCCWRP, where data will be stored on personal computers in Microsoft Access.

Standardized Data Transfer Protocols (SDTP)

Four types of data entry tables will be used for the water quality SDTP in Bight'98. The first is the station table (Appendix E) which will be entered once for each station that is sampled in the survey. The table includes station descriptors, such as location in latitude, longitude and landmarks that can be used to locate the site.

The second table is the station occupation table that will include one entry for every visit to the site. This table includes sampling date, time, and environment descriptors such as wave height and weather conditions that will provide information on the sample from that particular day. It also includes information associated with batch samples, such as the volume of water filtered to achieve a chlorophyll sample.

The third table is the CTD cast table which includes a single record for every depth sampled. Each record will contain measurements for each of the channels on the CTD (temperature, transmissometry, etc.) normalized to an 8 Hz scan rate (1 Hz = once per second). Records in the CTD cast table will be related to the station occupation table through the StationID and date parameter fields.

The fourth table is the discrete water sample table which will include results of the laboratory analyses for chlorophyll, nutrients etc. Each record will include the result for a single parameter. Records in this table will be related to the station occupation table through the StationID and date parameter fields. The SDTP are based on a relational structure in which these four data tables containing different types of data are linked by one or more common fields. Use of four data tables allows temporally independent data (e.g., lab vs. field data) to be entered at the time of data production, minimizing the possibility of data loss. Linking tables that contain data recorded at different frequencies also minimizes redundant data entry.

Data Flow and Quality Assurance

Each laboratory/participant generating data will sample the water column at a rate of 8 Hz and subject it to quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) procedures outlined in Appendix C. After each sampling event, all data is submitted to SCCWRP in proper format (Appendix E) for review from the program manager, or appointee, and the project Information Management Officer (IMO).

Upon receipt, the IMO will check the data for errors, such as inclusion of all required fields, range checks, and proper naming conventions for text fields. Most of the error checking will be automated, conducted by a computer program developed specifically for Bight'98. The program will identify potential errors in the data by comparing the submitted values to expected ranges and formats specified in the information management plan. Small errors will be corrected by the IMO and the submitting lab will be notified of the corrections; data sets with larger errors will be returned to the submitting lab for correction, along with a list of corrections that the organization needs to make.

Once the IMO has certified that the data is consistent with the SDTP requirements, the data will be sent to the Water Quality Committee Chair (B. Jones) for data review and processing. The committee chair, with assistance of the Water Quality Committee (WQC), will review the data with respect to scientific content. This review may involve plotting of data and examining interrelationships among individual parameter responses and will address more extensive data quality issues which cannot be accomplished by range checking alone. Technical issues or questions of scientific content will be resolved by the WQC.

All corrections to the data will be made by the IMO who alone will have authority to modify the database. All other users will only receive the data in read-only form. Prior to making any changes, the IMO will document the changes and receive (written or electronic) concurrence of the organization that generated the data. The IMO will only make changes in the centralized data base; originating organizations will be responsible for making corresponding changes in their own internal data storage systems. All changes to the data will be documented in a computerized file that is available to all data users.

Data Availability

All data from Bight'98 will be made publicly available, though the schedule of availability will vary by user class. The different schedules recognize the differing levels of quality assurance and data documentation that will have been completed at various stages in the project. Four classes of user have been identified:

· Information Management Officer: All organizations will submit data to the IMO within one month of completing their assigned sample collection/processing task.

· Water Quality Committee Members: The Water Quality Committee Chair (WQCC) will be provided data from all labs immediately following certification by the IMO that the data follows the SDTP formats. The WQCC will work with the WQC members to conduct scientific content review.

· Steering Committee Members: All project participants will have access to data once the WQCC has conducted initial scientific review for data quality. The WQCC will be asked to complete this review within three months.

· General Public: Data will be released to the general public once a draft report documenting the study has been prepared and presented orally to the Steering Committee. The WQCC will be asked to prepare the report and make the presentation within six months of releasing data to the Steering Committee.

Each release of data will include comprehensive documentation. This documentation will include a lookup table used to populate specific fields in specific tables, access control, and database table structures (including table relationships). It will also include quality assurance classifications of the data (flags, as appropriate) and documentation of the methodologies by which the data were collected (metadata).

A quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program is an important part of any environmental monitoring project. A carefully planned QA/QC program ensures that the data collected are scientifically valid, comparable, and adequate to meet the goals of the study. QA/QC is particularly important for large monitoring projects like Bight'98 that involve many participants.

The QA/QC program for Bight'98 consists of two distinct but related activities: quality assurance and quality control. Quality assurance includes design, planning, and management activities conducted prior to the study to ensure that the appropriate kind, quantity and quality of data are collected. Quality control activities are implemented during the project to evaluate the effectiveness of the QA activities in controlling measurement bias and error. QA activities are emphasized in Bight'98 due to the distributed implementation of the project.

A. Quality Assurance Elements

Two types of QA activities will be conducted prior to the implementation of the program:

1) Standardizing methods for those activities that can be standardized given differences in the underlying measurement methods, and

2) Intercalibration exercises to assess and control the variability introduced by inclusion of multiple laboratories and measurement methods.

Methods standardization

Participants will ascribe to common guidelines regarding equipment and instrumentation, calibration, and data handling. Much of the standardized procedures for CTD measurements that will be followed during Bight'98 are given in Appendix C and follows from standardization of methods established during the 1994 SCBPP.

All participants will use a SeaBird CTD. The CTDs will carry probes for measuring pressure, temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH, beam transmission (660 nm), and chlorophyll fluorescence. The CTDs will be capable of recording at rates of 8 Hz or faster. The temperature and conductivity sensors are to have a current factory calibration from SeaBird Electronics, Inc. that has been obtained within 6 months of the intercalibration date. The other sensors will be calibrated using appropriate standards and calibration methods as described in Appendix F.

Intercalibration exercises

Data comparability among laboratories will be assessed prior to the survey through an intercalibration exercise to be held at SCCWRP on September 29, 1998 (Table IV-1). The intercalibration will consist of simultaneously immersing all project CTDs into in a single freshwater tank at constant temperature and dissolved oxygen to assess variability among the instruments. All participating organizations will precalibrated their CTDs within 24 hours of the intercalibration exercise using the procedures to be used during the survey. The chlorophyll standard (coproporhyrin standard at 50 µg/l) will be prepared by a single laboratory and distributed to all participants during the exercise.

All participants probes will be required to meet the following performance criteria in the intercalibration exercise prior to participating in the survey: the equilibrium data for each probe (temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, beam transmission, and chlorophyll must be within the 95% confidence limits for the group mean. Participants failing to meet these acceptance criteria, will work with the QA Officer to troubleshoot the problem, and will be required to successfully perform an additional intercalibration test prior to participating in the project.

Laboratory nutrient analyses chemistry will be calibrated by using standards made with measured amounts of nutrient standards as listed in Table IV-2. These running standards will be made for each run from primary standard stocks and will be run prior to and after each set of samples. Extracted particulate chlorophyll measurements will be measured on a laboratory fluorometer which has been calibrated with pure chlorophyll a obtained from Sigma Scientific. The fluorometer will be calibrated at the before running the first set of dry weather samples, and after running the last set of wet weather samples.

B. Quality Control Elements

Quality control procedures will be implemented during the project to quantify whether the water quality measurements obtained during the project continue to the meet the measurement criteria above.

Drift of the temperature and conductivity sensors will be assessed using a factory re-calibration by SeaBird Electronics. Drift should be minimal as these sensors are generally stable. The oxygen and pH sensors will be calibrated before and after each cruise with the procedures described in the CTD field manual (Appendix C). The transmissometer will be calibrated before and after each cruise by measuring the output voltage in air with cleaned windows, and the blocked path voltage as described in the manufacturers' instrument manuals. The fluorometers will be calibrated before and after cruises using coproporphyrin standard (50 µg/l check this) to check for instrument drift and degradation.

The nutrient analysis will be checked with nutrient standards obtained from a commercial vendor yet to be determined to provide an independent check on the nutrient calibrations performed in the laboratory. This comparison will be performed during the run prior to running the first set of samples from the dry weather field study. If more than one laboratory is involved in nutrient and chlorophyll measurements, two methods of intercalibration will be used. For nutrients, the two laboratories will interchange their routine nutrient standards and run them as samples on their respective machines. In addition, a small number of samples (5) will be split and sent to each laboratory for comparison of results. The difference between laboratories is to be less than 5% of the full measurement range for each analyte on their analysis systems.

Laboratory comparisons for chlorophyll analysis will consists of field samples which are split and submitted to all laboratories. Measurement differences between the laboratories should be less than or equal to 0.2 µg/l chlorophyll a.

A. Management Structure

Almost a thousand people from more than 40 organizations are involved in the planning and implementation of Bight'98. Success of the program depends largely on an effective management structure to communicate project objectives and coordinate the effort among participants to produce data that are reliable and comparable. This is being accomplished with a three-tier management structure; the three tiers have distinct roles and provide the opportunity for participation by different levels of personnel from within each participating organization.

At the center of the Bight'98 management structure is the Steering Committee, that is composed of scientifically trained, mid-level managers from each of the participating agencies (Table V-1). The Steering Committee is responsible for overall planning of the project, including establishing project objectives, developing the sampling design and selecting the indicators to be measured. Steering Committee members are responsible for defining the resources their organization bring to the project and for ensuring that the objectives set forth for the project are consistent with the cumulative set of resources available. The Steering Committee also serves as a point of technical review for all documents that are produced by the project. Participation on the Steering Committee ensures each participating organization the opportunity to direct the program through a consensus building process.

The Steering Committee is supported by eight technical subcommittees, which are responsible for recommending technical approaches to accomplish the objectives set forth by the Steering Committee. For the Water Quality Component of Bight'98, the Steering Committee is supported by the Water Quality Technical Committee (Table V-2). Members of this group typically manage, or are technical experts, for various water quality monitoring programs of receiving/recreational waters throughout the region. Many also are involved in the development of regulatory policy associated with the safety of swimmers and the quality of receiving /recreational waters.

The Water Quality Technical Committee is responsible for preparing methods and quality assurance procedures for the project, implementing the quality assurance procedures (e.g. intercalibration exercises) prior to the study and the quality control assessments during the study, and for preparing the reports that summarize the water quality data. The role of the Water Quality Committee differs from that of most other Technical Committees in that they have also been asked to develop a recommended sampling design for the water quality component; this work plan was produced primarily by the Water Quality Committee for Steering Committee review. The Water Quality Committee has a larger role because the questions and habitats to be sampled in the water quality component differ from those being addressed by most other technical committees.

The third tier of project management is the SCCWRP Commission, which is the primary audience for the products of this project. SCCWRP is a joint powers agency, that is coordinating Bight'98. The SCCWRP Commission is a nine-member board that is composed of the highest level of management from each of the largest municipal dischargers to Southern California Bight and from each of the agencies responsible for regulating discharge to the Bight. Reporting to the SCCWRP Commission, which meets on a quarterly basis, ensures that the questions addressed by Bight'98 remain relevant to current management issues. Reporting to the Commission also maximizes the likelihood that the project results will be incorporated into the southern California environmental management decision-making arena.

Logistics

The large scale grid of stations which is based on the design criteria presented in section II (Appendices A and B), will be subdivided into three management zones (northern, central, and southern) rather than being executed as a single Bight-wide study as is being done for the other Bight'98 components. The Water Quality component is being approached in a zonal fashion because the most appropriate rainfall events to study may not occur simultaneously throughout the SCB. A zone structure provides greater flexibility to respond to the proper conditions, but also requires an additional layer of management and decision-making.

Each of the three zones has been assigned a zone coordinator who has the responsibility of determining when sampling should begin (Table V-3). The zone coordinator will constantly check long-range forecasts and be required to notify sampling organizations within their zone about the possibility of a sampling event, and ask about availability of their vessels and crew, at least 72 hours prior to the potential event. The event criteria for deciding whether or not to sample a given storm in each zone are discussed in Section II.A.1.b. Zone coordinators are required to make a decision about whether to sample at least 24 hours prior to sampling. The zone coordinators, the organizations they coordinate, and the station commitments of each organization are listed in Table V-3. Our Mexican colleagues will collaborate with the southern zone in coordinating their field efforts.

Two black-out periods have been identified in an attempt to prevent inconveniencing field crews during the holiday season. No sampling will occur during the periods of:

Thanksgiving, November 25-29, 1999
Christmas and New Years, December 23, 1998 - January 3, 1999

While each of the zone coordinators are permitted to make independent decisions based on the anticipated weather conditions and the timing of personnel/equipment availability within their zone, they are encouraged to keep in close contact with other zone coordinators. Sampling of the Bight as an entirety is the preferable option. Zone coordinators are encouraged to coordinate their efforts, particularly if conditions are marginal in a particular zone.

The individual field studies will be considered a success if the participating organizations are able to occupy 75% or more of the stations that they have responsibility for sampling. If fewer than 75% of the stations are not able to be occupied for a given event, the sampling will be considered incomplete and require the sampling of another wet weather event within the designated time windows, if possible.

B. Project Reporting

The Bight'98 Water Quality component will produce a technical report that includes the following three elements: 1) a comparison of extent of influence of freshwater runoff from streams, bays, and harbors with those of POTW discharges during both wet and dry conditions (to include 3D graphics for each parameter), 2) a summary of tools developed for the integrated assessment from in situ and remotely sensed data, and 3) a QA assessment of results from the intercalibration exercises.

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Figure I-1. Map of the Southern California Bight.

Figure II-1. Map of proposed San Diego Bay sampling track.

Figure II-2. Map of proposed Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbors sampling track.