Initial IOOS Design Plan for Public Health Focus on beaches and coastal waters of S' California

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Initial IOOS Design Plan for Public HealthFocus
on beaches and coastal waters of S. California

• Presentation by Steve Weisberg
• to
• U. S. GOOS Steering Committee
• September of 2006

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BACKGROUND

• The GSC identified the need for a written design
  plan and cost estimates for the IOOS
• Ocean.us agreed with that need
• The GSC offered to assist with development of
  that plan
• Formed design subcommittees for each of three key
  product areas
• Public Health
• Coastal Flooding
• Marine Transportation
• The public health group held a two-day meeting in
  August
• This is a progress report from that group

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PARTICIPANTS

• Bart Bibler
• Florida Department of Health
• Stephen Weisberg
• Southern California Coastal Water Research
  Project Authority
• Juli Trtanj
• NOAA Ocean and Human Health Initiative
• Ken Hudnell
• EPA National Health and Environmental Effects
  Research Laboratory
• Eric Terrill
• Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• Tom Malone
• University of Maryland and Ocean.us

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GOALS

• Develop the conceptual framework for an observing
  system designed to protect public health
• Observations
• Data management
• Modeling
• Communications
• Identify the measurements and modeling necessary
  to implement that framework
• Determine how much of that system is already in
  place
• Estimate the cost to implement the rest of the
  system
• Gap analysis

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A GOOD START

• Agreed on clients and decisions to be made with
  data from the observing system
• Developed a conceptual design
• Added some specifics for two case studies
• Pathogens on California beaches
• HABs (K. brevis) in the Gulf of Mexico

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BUT,

• We were only able to develop ideas for two case
  studies
• Didnt even really finish the HABs case study
• We were not able to estimate costs or quantify
  existing infrastructure
• We were able to determine that this assignment is
  too large to effectively complete in two days
  with only six people
• Lets come back to this at the end of the talk

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SOME PRINCIPLES

• Assess user needs and design the observation and
  decision support system to meet those needs
• Need to demonstrate benefits of the system
• Pilot projects
• The system needs to be adaptive, both short-term
  and long-term
• An epidemiological link is important,
  particularly given uncertainties in the
  indicators that we measure

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PRIMARY USERS

• Health Departments
• Issue health advisories, but dont fix the
  problems
• Regulators
• Issue fines and orders to monitor and/or cleanup
• Dischargers
• Primary party responsible for fixing the problems
  
• NGOs
• Influence government policies and procedures
• Sometimes provide data integration and reporting
  to the public
• Risk assessment teams
• Set standards that drive monitoring requirements
  and data interpretation
• Operate on longer time frames than the others

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USER NEEDS

• Assessment of present condition
• Foundation for a health warning system
• Predictive health warnings
• Forecast changes in exposure risk
• Engage in adaptive sampling
• Analysis of historical data
• Source assessment
• Causative agents
• Trends in condition
• Assessment of management effectiveness
• Early warning for emerging threats
• Scientific foundation for policymaking
• Risk assessment

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ELEMENTS OF A SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BEACH CASE STUDY

• Input monitoring
• Precursor information
• Causative agents
• Present condition monitoring
• Trajectory modeling
• Human health surveillance system
• Data integration and display
• Education and outreach
• Research and transitioning new elements to
  operations
• Continual program re-evaluation

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INPUT MONITORING

• Three classes of measurement
• Flow
• Continuous physico-chemical measurements
• Static parameter monitoring
• Its manageable
• Ten largest river systems comprise 95 of
  land-based runoff in southern California
• Four largest POTW outfalls comprise 90 of
  wastewater input

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PARAMETERS TO BE MEASURED FROM EACH INPUT SOURCE

• Continuous measurements
• Flow
• Temperature
• Turbidity
• Transmissometer
• CDOM
• Dissolved Oxygen
• Nutrients
• Static monitoring
• Bacteria
• Viruses
• Priority pollutants (for other purposes)

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Anthropogenic inputs riverine flows after
rainfall
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INPUT MONITORING

• Three classes of measurement
• Flow
• Continuous physico-chemical measurements
• Static parameter monitoring
• Its manageable
• Ten largest river systems comprise 95 of
  land-based runoff in southern California
• Four largest POTW outfalls comprise 90 of
  wastewater input

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PRESENT CONDITION MONITORING

• Primarily fecal indicator bacteria sampling on
  the beach
• Collected by hand
• Sampling density/frequency a function of
  perceived risk
• Number of bathers at the beach
• Risk of contamination

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High risk - a source of contamination flows
continually and is a known problem Medium risk -
a source flows intermittently or flow is low but
continuous, and there is an occasional
contamination spike Low risk - a potential
source exists, e.g., a public restroom or near a
POTW, but is not usually a problem No known
sources - no sewage lines are known
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TRAJECTORY MONITORING

• Near the target population
• Near inputs
• Larger landscape
• Link inputs to risk

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NEAR THE TARGET POPULATION

• Focus on piers
• They give shelter from rough ocean conditions
• Select piers based on proximity to beachgoer
  density and fecal inputs
• 29 piers at present 21 meet criteria
• Automated sampling
• Pump sampling for parameters not yet automatable
• Capital cost 150K per site, without
  next-generation sensors
• OM ?

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Existing Piers
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Existing Piers
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NEAR THE TARGET POPULATION

• Focus on piers
• They give shelter from rough ocean conditions
• Select piers based on proximity to beachgoer
  density and fecal inputs
• 29 piers at present 21 meet criteria
• Automated sampling
• Pump sampling for parameters not yet automatable
• Capital cost 150K per site, without
  next-generation sensors
• OM ?

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SENSORS ON PIER SYSTEMS

• Vertical temperature chain
• Bottom mounted pressure sensor
• Current meter
• Full met package
• High speed data communications
• Submerged pump system for moving seawater
  topside
• Nutrient
• Chlorophyll
• Dissolved gas
• Inherent optical properties
• Next-generation sensors as they become
  available
• Flow cytometers
• Laser optical plankton counters
• Microbial/virus

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NEAR SOURCES

• Single mooring at each outfall
• Including ADCP
• Capital cost 300K per mooring
• OM ?

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LARGER LANDSCAPE

• HF radar every 20km
• 200K Capital cost for each installation
• OM
• Four gliders
• One associated with the area surrounding each
  outfall
• 200K Capital cost for each glider
• OM ?
• Offshore wave direction buoys
• No additional cost
• Remote sensing of ocean color
• No additional cost
• Bathymetry
• Offshore Every twenty years Cost?
• Near runoff sources Every five years Cost?

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HUMAN HEALTH SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS

• Human health surveillance needs to be linked to
  monitoring systems
• This is the ultimate management goal
• Surveillance is also a means for identifying
  pathogens not presently measured
• Several types of surveillance systems
• Passive
• Active
• Hospital
• Epi studies
• Marine mammal network
• Need specialists to help us better select among
  options
• Active monitoring is the most likely choice, at a
  cost of 500K/year

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DATA DISPLAY AND OUTREACH

• Four primary outputs
• Input, fate and transport of pathogens entering
  the system
• Assessment of present health risks
• Predictions of future health risks
• Retrospective looks at the origins of pathogens
• Build on existing systems, where possible
• Elements of the system exist in every region
• Principal challenge will be in reducing the time
  necessary to gather and display the data
• Costs are difficult to estimate
• Costs will be region- and element-specific

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RESEARCH

• Difficult to prioritize
• Many options
• Some elements are to improve the system in the
  short term
• Investment in the modeling
• Some elements are for long-term improvement
• Development of sensors
• Some are to improve the underlying foundation for
  the indicators that are measured
• Epidemiology studies

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COSTS

• Costs are difficult to estimate
• Primarily instituted as short-term research
  projects to date
• Level of desired system reliability and QA are
  ill-defined
• Redundancy/reliability costs can be huge
• Costs for aspects beyond data collection are even
  harder to estimate
• We had questions about how to best sell these
  investments

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WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO FINISH?

• More time
• Several more meetings to flesh-out ideas
• Time to quantify what is already in place
• Time to write
• More people
• Six was a good start, but we needed more
  expertise
• A vetting process
• It needs to be more than the opinions of six
  people
• Certainly need the buy-in from relevant RAs
• Also need the clients to verify that these
  designs meet their needs
• A worthwhile activity, but not one well-suited to
  volunteers
• Contractors?
• Selected regional associations as leads?
• Pilot projects
• That will help refine design
• Add certainty to cost estimates