1 1 2 3 REGIONAL RESOURCE STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL MEETING 4 JANUARY 19 & 20, 2011 5 6 7 VOLUME I OF II 8 9 10 11 LOCATION: 12 TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY 13 400 WEST SUMMIT HILL DRIVE 14 KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE 37902 15 16 17 18 19 20 REPORTED BY: 21 KIMBERLY J. NIXON, RPR NATIONAL REPORTING AGENCY 22 1255 MARKET STREET CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE 37402 23 WWW.NATIONALREPORTING.COM 423.267.8059 24 423.266.4447 (FAX) 25 2 1 MEMBERS OF THE REGIONAL RESOURCE STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL 2 *MR. WILSON TAYLOR (FACILITATOR) 3 *MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE (COUNCIL CHAIR) 4 *MRS. CAROL DOSS 5 *MR. KARL W. DUDLEY 6 MRS. JEAN KELLEMS ELMORE 7 ZEE ENIX 8 *MR. BILL FORSYTH 9 MR. JAMES H. FYKE 10 MR. MICHAEL GOODMAN 11 *MR. MARK HOMMRICH 12 *MRS. RENEE V. HOYOS 13 MR. LARRY KERNEA 14 *MR. GEORGE B. KITCHENS 15 *MR. W. C. NELSON 16 *SENATOR ARTHUR ORR 17 MR. WES ROSENBALM 18 *DR. KELLY TILLER 19 *MR. BILL TITTLE 20 *MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND 21 *MR. JOHN WILBANKS 22 *MRS. DEBORAH K. WOOLLEY 23 *MS. KIM GREENE 24 25 *PRESENT FOR THE MEETING 3 1 2 TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICER 3 4 MS. ANDA A. RAY, DFO SENIOR MANAGER, OE&R 5 TVA ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY 6 400 WEST SUMMIT HILL DRIVE KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE 37902 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: My name is 3 Tom Littlepage. I am chairing the Regional Resource 4 Stewardship Council, and it's my distinct pleasure to 5 be here again. 6 And I thought, given the amount of 7 time that it's been since we last met, some of us 8 work together in our professional lives and some of 9 us don't, and so what I would like to do is maybe 10 just very briefly for those members of the Council, 11 the current Council, to just briefly give your name 12 and organization. We will just swing around the 13 table. Then we will catch introductions for a lot of 14 the other folks that are here or all of the other 15 folks that are here. 16 So, Russell, can we start with you 17 please? 18 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: Sure. I'm 19 Russell Townsend with the Eastern Band of the 20 Cherokee Indians. I'm the Tribal Historic 21 Preservation Officer there in charge of cultural 22 resources and the archeological programs. 23 DR. KELLY TILLER: And I'm Kelly 24 Tiller. I have two hats. One is the University of 25 Tennessee, a faculty member and agricultural 5 1 economist. Then the other is with an affiliated 2 company, Genera Energy, affiliated with the 3 university, that is doing switchgrass ethanol. We 4 have a demonstration refinery in Vonore and about 5 6,000 acres of switchgrass in production in 6 Knoxville. 7 MR. BILL TITTLE: I'm Bill Tittle, and 8 I'm Chief of Emergency Management here in Chattanooga 9 and Hamilton County. 10 MR. BILL FORSYTH: Bill Forsyth, I 11 represent North Carolina on the Council, but I'm also 12 chairman of the Murphy Power Board. 13 MRS. CAROL DOSS: I'm Carol Doss and I 14 represent Virginia. I am the coordinator for two 15 non-profits in Virginia, The Upper Tennessee River 16 Roundtable and Keep Southwest Virginia Beautiful. 17 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: I'm John Wilbanks, 18 Director of Parks and Recreation in Pigeon Forge. 19 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Renee Hoyos, 20 Executive Director of Tennessee Clean Water Network. 21 MR. KARL DUDLEY: Karl Dudley, 22 Pickwick Electric Coop in Southwest Tennessee, and I 23 represent the Tennessee Valley Public Power 24 Association. 25 MR. MARK HOMMRICH: I'm Mark Hommrich, 6 1 President of Volunteer Barge and Transport in 2 Nashville. We do commercial navigation on the 3 Tennessee Cumberland River and throughout the inland 4 waterway system. 5 MR. W. C. NELSON: I'm W. C. Nelson. 6 I'm from Blairsville, Georgia. I'm the 7 representative for the State of Georgia, Union County 8 Development Authority. 9 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I'm Deb 10 Woolley. I'm the President of the Tennessee Chamber 11 of Commerce in Industry, and we're a statewide 12 organization with about a 1,000 plus businesses. 13 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: George Kitchens, 14 general manager of the Joe Wheeler Electric 15 Membership Corporation in Decatur, Alabama. I also 16 serve as the chairman of the TVPPA Board. 17 DFO ANDA RAY: Anda Ray, and I'm with 18 TVA and the Designated Federal Official for this 19 Federal Advisory Council. 20 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And I'm Tom 21 Littlepage. I'm with the Alabama Office of Water 22 Resources in Montgomery. 23 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Wilson 24 Taylor, I'm Tom's assistant. 25 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Conscious 7 1 guy. 2 Senator Orr, I think you were -- you 3 had stepped away. 4 SENATOR ARTHUR ORR: I'm Arthur Orr, 5 the token politician on the Board. I represent 6 Alabama. My district is the Huntsville/Decatur area, 7 Northern Alabama. 8 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Token by no 9 stretch of the imagination. I appreciate that. 10 Okay, Anda. 11 DFO ANDA RAY: Well, thank you 12 everybody for being here. What you have probably 13 noticed is something we've done a little unusual is 14 we have the fifth-term Council, which this is their 15 last meeting, and it's also the first meeting of the 16 sixth-term. 17 One of the reasons for having it all 18 together right now, the ingoing and the outgoing, is 19 because today is a very important meeting on 20 understanding what we need from you and what the 21 process is for the Natural Resource Plan, which will 22 be the primary deliverable for this group which will 23 serve also as the stakeholder group for TVA's Natural 24 Resource Plan. 25 So today we will be spending a lot of 8 1 time on that. The fifth Council has spent some time 2 on that, and we want to make sure that we get their 3 comments and advice to TVA on that as well. 4 What I wanted to do this morning is, 5 first of all, I want to recognize all of those folks 6 on the fifth term that will be outgoing, meaning this 7 is their last meeting. 8 So, if you don't mind, I'd like you to 9 stand up when I call your name. 10 Carol Doss, if you will stand up. 11 And Jim Fyke. 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: He's not 13 here. 14 DFO ANDA RAY: Arthur Orr. I think 15 Larry -- Larry and Wes are not here, right? Larry 16 Kernea and Wes are not here. 17 Kelly. 18 Bill Tittle. 19 And John Wilbanks. 20 First of all, we just thank you-all so 21 much. You have come -- stay up, stay up. You have 22 come and given so much of your support over the past 23 couple of years. 24 This group has helped us on the 25 environmental policy, the Integrated Resource Plan, 9 1 campground guidelines, helping us with violations and 2 encroachments. I mean, this has been a really, 3 really busy Council, this fifth term. 4 So we do have somewhere a token of our 5 appreciation for you. We have a clock. It says, 6 "TVA Regional Resource Stewardship Council," and we 7 hope that you will display it proudly for all the 8 time that you've spent and the time that we know that 9 you will continue to watch as the public lands are 10 planned for this time. So thank you. 11 Can we give them a round of applause 12 for their involvement? 13 With the fifth term we also have our 14 Chairman who has been the Chairman over the past 15 couple of terms. He's done a fantastic job. This 16 will be Tom's last as Chairman, but he's going to 17 continue on the Council. 18 He has done -- led us in coming to 19 conclusions. I know sometimes we have such a broad 20 scope of things to discuss that it's easy to kind of 21 get off track, and I think you have really done a 22 great job in keeping us on track and have some 23 fantastic deliverables. TVA has come a long way in 24 being able to plan its natural resources and the 25 lands that we manage for the public with your input. 10 1 So with that, Flying High, Natural 2 Resource Council, Tom Littlepage, Chairman from 2007 3 to 2011. 4 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you. 5 DFO ANDA RAY: We will get a picture 6 of you later holding this eagle. Stay here. 7 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: This is an 8 Auburn eagle. 9 DFO ANDA RAY: For those of you we're 10 both War Eagles. We claim it this year, never 11 before, but we claim it this year. 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Once every 13 57 years. 14 DFO ANDA RAY: During the last Board 15 meeting though the Board -- this current term Board 16 has taken a great deal of interest and recognizes the 17 important role that this Council plays, and they 18 passed a resolution for Tom thanking him for his 19 service and I'd like to read it. 20 "Whereas, the Tennessee Valley 21 Authority established the Regional Resource 22 Stewardship Council to advise TVA about its resource 23 stewardship activities. 24 And whereas, Tom Littlepage has served 25 as Chairman of the Council for its fourth and fifth 11 1 terms and will be completing his service as Chairman 2 in February 2011. 3 And whereas, during Mr. Littlepage's 4 four-year tenure as Chairman he ably led the Council 5 as it reviewed and provided advice to TVA on many 6 important resource stewardship issues, including 7 TVA's Drought Management Plan, The Environmental 8 Policy, The Natural Resource Plan, Sustainable Land 9 Management Strategies, Recreation Strategies, 10 Compliance Strategies, and Commercial Recreation 11 Evaluation Approach. 12 The Board wishes to recognize the 13 contributions of Mr. Littlepage as the Council 14 Chairman. Be it resolved that the TVA Board of 15 Directors hereby honors and recognizes Tom Littlepage 16 on behalf of TVA and all of its stakeholders 17 expressing gratitude for his dedication and effort as 18 Chairman of TVA's Regional Resource Stewardship 19 Council to help TVA accomplish its resource 20 stewardship mission for the benefit of the people of 21 the Tennessee Valley and the United States." 22 It's signed by the Chairman Dennis 23 Bottorff. 24 Thank you. 25 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you 12 1 very much. 2 DFO ANDA RAY: So with that, let's 3 move on. We look forward now to hearing advice from 4 you as we provide you some context for the Natural 5 Resource Plan. 6 Thank you. 7 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you, 8 Anda. 9 Most of you or all of you should have 10 a copy of the notebook in front of you that has our 11 agenda. And as Anda indicated, we have got a pretty 12 full schedule. We're going to go through that 13 agenda. 14 First of all, are there any questions 15 or comments anybody has to make on anything you see 16 on the agenda that you would like to talk about 17 before we get into the meeting? 18 DFO ANDA RAY: Can we just have the 19 new sixth term -- 20 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yes. I'm 21 sorry. 22 DFO ANDA RAY: If you're new to the 23 sixth term Council, if you would -- I've kind of 24 messed up my notes here. There we go -- if you will 25 just raise your hand, we know you, but brand new is 13 1 Mike Ball with the Alabama House of Representatives. 2 Mike. 3 They are all sitting over here. Okay. 4 We know where to look then, right? 5 Ron Fugatt, we have known you for a 6 long time. Thank you, Ron. 7 Mark Iverson, General Manager of 8 Bowling Green. 9 Mitch Jones. 10 MS. BETH KEEL: He's a little late. 11 DFO ANDA RAY: A little late. Mitch 12 Jones is with the -- he's President of the Tennessee 13 Marina Association. 14 Avis Kennedy with the Corp of 15 Engineers. Hey, Avis. 16 John Matney with the Harbor Company 17 and Stearns Company. John, thank you very much. 18 So we just welcome -- and your input 19 is as important and valuable. So please participate 20 and feel free to share any comments that you have 21 today. 22 Thank you. 23 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you. 24 Welcome on behalf of those that are -- those of us on 25 the Council, we certainly look forward to your input. 14 1 Wilson, do you want to kind of give us 2 a brief process review? 3 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Okay. 4 Thanks, Tom. First off, I would like to point out 5 that there was some information provided to the 6 current members about the weighting exercise, and 7 those are at the end of the table here. 8 So if you could get those completed, 9 those who have not done the weighting exercise, and 10 turn those in sometime today because that information 11 will be helpful to Randy McAdams as he goes through 12 his process. 13 Secondly, just a reminder, if you have 14 a comment or whatever, remember, we just put our name 15 tags up as you normally do so the Chairman can 16 recognize you. 17 We have asked the speakers to be 18 succinct and efficient with the time that they have 19 here. Certainly, we want to allow time for questions 20 to clarify, but we would like to get all the speakers 21 to present and get you out of here on time. So if 22 you have questions that need clarification -- that 23 you need clarification on, certainly we can do that. 24 If we have speakers who are not at the 25 table, if you come up to clarify something, if you 15 1 would, give your name so that the recorder (sic) can 2 make sure that you're in the record. 3 We have breaks scheduled. Of course, 4 if any of the Council members want to take a break, 5 you can put your card up and we will certainly 6 acknowledge you and take a break. 7 That's all I have, Tom. I will turn 8 it back over to you. 9 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I was 10 looking for the tab with the questions. 11 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Okay. 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Because one 13 of the things I want to encourage all of us to do is 14 to be mindful of the questions that we're going to be 15 discussing later today and especially tomorrow 16 morning. 17 DFO ANDA RAY: While you're looking 18 for those can we -- 19 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Sure. 20 DFO ANDA RAY: While he's looking for 21 those, can we invite -- we're really sorry, we 22 thought there wasn't going to be enough room with the 23 new ones. If the sixth Council could come up to the 24 table, we would really appreciate it. 25 MS. BETH KEEL: If you would like to 16 1 join us. 2 DFO ANDA RAY: You don't have to. We 3 would like you to. 4 MS. BETH KEEL: We will make sure 5 there's enough chairs, and, yes, there are. 6 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: The tab 7 with the questions is in the middle -- about the 8 middle of the book. The tab is in the middle of all 9 of the tabs. 10 If you would just look at those four 11 questions as we go through the various presentations 12 and kind of keep in mind comments or discussions that 13 you can add to help us as we go through trying to 14 develop responses to those questions. 15 I guess with that, we are ready to 16 begin. We're going to open up the meeting this 17 morning with a presentation by Bruce Schofield who's 18 with TVA. There he is. We will turn it over to you, 19 Bruce. 20 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: Thanks, Tom. 21 One of the things I want to do this morning is -- and 22 I appreciate the opportunity to give some feedback on 23 some of the things we have done with the advice from 24 previous meetings. 25 Let's get the next one or do I do it? 17 1 Help me move it back one. 2 The Council in July of 2009 had 3 provided some input on our commercial recreation 4 management guideline fees. In response to that and 5 some other issues, we hired a consultant that went 6 out and reviewed a number of best practices, a number 7 of commercial marinas throughout the Valley to 8 determine what our fee structure should look like. 9 With that we have developed guidelines 10 to go do that. The guidelines were initially 11 approved in February of '10. We recently made a 12 revision to those in November of '10 to move through 13 that. 14 What those options are is that it 15 provides a -- two different options for marinas or 16 campgrounds to establish their fees. It's either a 17 fair market value based operation or a percentage of 18 gross for what it needs to go do that. 19 What we're doing now is moving through 20 the implementation of those guidelines, working with 21 marinas and campground operators to determine the 22 best option for them. We can reduce the size of 23 their operation and eliminate unused areas so that, 24 therefore, it reduces the overall cost to run the 25 operation to do that. 18 1 What we intend to do is make these 2 effective January 1st of 2013, which gives us that 3 two-year window to implement it, work with the marina 4 associations, work with the campgrounds. 5 There are instances where we have 6 easements and leases that will renew in the interim 7 period between now and then, and we will implement 8 the guidelines for those as we move through that 9 process. We have done that for three, two marinas 10 and a campground this past year. 11 To date, we have met with the marina 12 associations in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee. We 13 have gotten some very valuable input in those 14 meetings, along with meetings with some 80 campground 15 owners, marina owners, and seeking other public input 16 is what led to the revisions that we had in our 17 November time frame. 18 In addition to help us implement this, 19 we have in part of our TVA reorganization that we 20 implemented at the end of 2009 and into '10, we 21 created an organization specifically to work with 22 marinas and campgrounds to insure an adequate 23 implementation. 24 Next slide. 25 In the March meeting of '10 -- it 19 1 didn't flip. 2 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: There it 3 is. 4 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: There it is. We 5 had looked at some issues associated with our Natural 6 Resource Management Plan. The advice was that we 7 have a wide range and we focus on the compliance 8 aspects. Specifically, you will hear a great deal 9 about that from Randy and others as we move through 10 the day. 11 And what you will hear, just to kind 12 of set the tone, is we have a current what we're 13 doing today. Then there's a custodial, which is 14 here's the minimum we need to do as we move forward 15 anticipating upcoming, you know, executive orders, 16 rules, and legislation. 17 There's an enhanced, which provides 18 some more. The flagship would be gold plated. Now, 19 we will have some things that may be flagship and 20 certain options that aren't, and Randy will discuss 21 that in more detail. 22 The second piece that we had got some 23 advice on was develop options to pay for trail 24 maintenance and some dispersed recreation. To date 25 we have gone out and met with several institutions. 20 1 Vanderbilt, and it's the Vanderbilt Institute of 2 Energy and Environment to look for partnerships and 3 ways to improve that and help the public and other 4 institutions have some skin in the game to help us 5 offset some of those costs and to be an educational 6 aspect of it. 7 We have got a staff position that's 8 dedicated to our partnerships and education outreach, 9 and the staff's currently exploring other options and 10 potential uses for fees collections, whether they are 11 drop boxes or other aspects to go do that. 12 We also looked at a quick update on 13 our development and implementation of comprehensive 14 land assessments. To date we have reviewed and 15 looked at over 20,000 acres of TVA's 200 and roughly 16 30,000 acres of natural resource sensitive resource 17 to go do that. We intend to complete this year 18 another 15,000 to date to go do that. 19 The notes that we have today is 20 24 percent are rated good, 62 percent or 60 percent 21 is rated fair, and 16 percent is rated poor. Our 22 focus is to bring the poors back up to fair and to 23 eventually get everything into a good rating. 24 Violations and encroachments, as some 25 of you noted in Mr. Kilgore's President's Report in 21 1 the summer, the July Board meeting, TVA has a 2 continuing, if not renewed, and enhanced focus on 3 violations and encroachments, anything from cutting 4 vegetation on TVA property, illegal structures, 5 pollutants, ex cetera. We have identified some 600 6 to date, and we are actively working to close those. 7 That includes my report. 8 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you, 9 Bruce. 10 Any questions for Bruce? 11 Okay. Then next Anda is going to talk 12 to us about really the focus of why we're here for 13 this meeting and the NRP process. 14 DFO ANDA RAY: All right. Okay. Now, 15 we're just going to jump right into the meat of the 16 topics for today. 17 One thing I would like to say is it is 18 difficult sometimes to sit through. We do have a lot 19 of presentations for you, a lot of information. So 20 it is polite for you to raise your hand, put up the 21 tent card, ask questions throughout those 22 presentations. You don't have to wait until the end. 23 I think it's just more important that 24 as the question comes to your mind that you ask that 25 clarifying question. So please do interrupt those 22 1 presentations. It's a long time to sit, but Wilson 2 will make sure that we get enough breaks. 3 Right, Wilson? 4 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: That's 5 correct. 6 DFO ANDA RAY: What I would like to do 7 is just one slide and talk a little bit about the 8 context for what you're about to embark on, because 9 this is huge for the 9 million people and the seven 10 states that are affected that have these public lands 11 that TVA manages. 12 The organization is there's a TVA Act, 13 1933, amended in 2005. TVA in 2007 published a TVA 14 Strategic Plan, which will be refreshed, not totally 15 revamped, later this year we hope. 16 Coming out of that you have the three 17 primary missions for TVA, energy, environment, and 18 economic development. And of course, in 2005 they 19 added technology innovation to that. 20 Here's how it kind of flows. When we 21 did the TVA strategic plan and the environmental 22 policy, we did not do a NEPA evaluation. We did not 23 do an Environmental Impact Study. The reason is, and 24 it's written in both of those documents, is that as 25 we begin to look at implementing those documents we 23 1 would do a full EIS. 2 Coming to this place we then said, all 3 right, let's do -- let's put in the Federal Register 4 that we're going to look at TVA's power portfolio and 5 all of its mission components, especially in the 6 stewardship function. That turned out to be a little 7 bit too unwieldy. 8 So it was split off so that we have an 9 Integrated Resource Plan, which is looking at the 10 power portfolio. Deborah is on that stakeholder 11 group. They are coming -- they have been working for 12 about 18 months, and that's very analogous to what 13 other utilities go through. So they will have an 14 IRP, Integrated Resource Plan, and an Environmental 15 Impact Study that goes along with that. 16 On a parallel track, we separated out 17 the natural resource activities and we're looking at 18 the four areas that you see up there, water 19 resources, recreation, biological and cultural, and 20 land planning. That covers most of the land that TVA 21 is actively managing. 22 It will also have a Natural Resource 23 Plan and an Environmental Impact Study and a very 24 short summary that we can pass around because as I 25 have gone around I have found out that this is -- 24 1 that the integration of something this large in 2 scope, plus the type of analysis that Randy is going 3 to talk to you about, is actually very unique. 4 I met with all federal agencies in the 5 southeast during a Southeastern Natural Resource 6 Leadership Group, and they were very impressed. And, 7 in fact, people will want to take this as a model. 8 So you have an opportunity not only to effect the 9 seven states but the entire nation for people who 10 manage federal and public lands to look at this 11 approach. 12 This will mark TVA's very first 13 comprehensive Natural Resource Plan, the very first 14 one we have done an Environmental Impact Study on, 15 and the very first one that a Board of Directors will 16 approve hopefully in the August time frame. So you 17 have a very short time frame, but there's been a lot 18 of leg work to get to where we are today on this. 19 So with that there will be three 20 documents, the two here and then a Summary, Executive 21 Summary. What we would like to do now is get right 22 into the process, but I want to mention a little 23 something about Randy McAdams who is going to kind of 24 lead us through this. 25 He is leading this effort for TVA. He 25 1 is a partner with Scott Madden & Associates. Before 2 you think that that is just another consulting firm, 3 Randy and I worked very closely on the TVA strategic 4 plan. He really helped lead TVA at a time when we 5 were making a lot of transformation, a lot of 6 changes. So he was integral in that. 7 We also then asked and put out a bid, 8 but it was competitive, but we also ended up 9 selecting Randy's company to help with the IRP. So 10 we have a parallel construction with the Integrated 11 Resource Plan and the Natural Resource Plan so that 12 TVA doesn't look like it has a multiphasic 13 personality using the same type of scenarios. 14 And let me give you a quick example. 15 A scenario of economic times versus poor economic 16 times will drive you a certain way on the power 17 system. Economic times that are good versus poor 18 drive you a different way on natural resource 19 management. 20 I was talking last night to the 21 president of Erwin Marina out here, and when you have 22 good economic times people want to recreate, more 23 boats, they want to go farther, but they want to get 24 outside and they want to use those facilities. When 25 you have poor economic times they want to get out and 26 1 they want to use the free recreation facilities, the 2 trails, the fishing, the bird watching. 3 So either way, in both of those 4 economic times, you have a demand on recreation. So 5 that's how the scenarios kind of play differently 6 with the Natural Resource Plan. 7 So with that, I will quit talking and 8 we're now going to turn the program over to Randy who 9 is going to lead us over the next several hours. 10 Thank you. 11 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you, 12 Anda. 13 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Thank you, Anda. 14 Good morning, everyone. It's an honor to be here. I 15 have never appeared before this group before and look 16 forward to working with you today and hopefully in 17 the future. 18 Very quickly an introduction. 19 And by the way, are you going to 20 operate the slides versus me? 21 Thank you very much. 22 An introduction. And Anda, thank you 23 for that kind introduction. I am Randy McAdams. I'm 24 a partner with the consulting firm Scott Madden. 25 Much of the work we do is leading primarily energy 27 1 companies through large, complex planning efforts, 2 such as the Natural Resource Plan. 3 And as Anda said in her introduction, 4 we, and specifically I, was involved in the 5 development of the strategic plan for TVA in '07, and 6 we're also playing the leadership role in the 7 development of the Integrated Resource Plan, which as 8 Anda's graphic showed, is sort of a companion plan to 9 the Natural Resource Plan. 10 As part of our leadership role with 11 the Integrated Resource Plan, I have gotten to know 12 George Kitchens and Deb Woolley very well who are 13 part of -- part of the stakeholder review group over 14 that effort. So, again, it's very much an honor to 15 be here with you today. 16 What I would like to talk about, if 17 you could advance the slide, please, are really kind 18 of three things. First I want to quickly sort of set 19 the context for the Natural Resource Plan itself and 20 provide an overview of what it is, what it isn't, the 21 documents that are going to result out of that. 22 Then, secondly, as part of this 23 process TVA is very committed to having an open and 24 transparent and inclusive process, and as a part of 25 that we have reached out to a number of agencies 28 1 across the Valley over the last three, four, five 2 months to solicit their input and their thoughts. 3 We thought it would be beneficial to 4 tell you, first of all, who we have met with, but 5 secondly, to describe some of the outcomes and output 6 and input that we got from those meetings. So I'm 7 going to spend a little bit of time describing that 8 at a relatively high level. This is the input that 9 came from those agencies. 10 Then thirdly we're going to talk about 11 the process that we're leading. Anda described she 12 presented this process to that body and S-N-U-R-L-G 13 and I will -- 14 DFO ANDA RAY: SNURLG. 15 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: SNURLG, thank you. 16 It's received a very favorable response, but at the 17 core of it is this tool called scenario planning. So 18 it's a very complex tool and a way of bringing some 19 quantitative analysis to some very qualitative 20 considerations, but I want to talk through that at 21 kind of a high level because that will set context 22 for everything you're going to hear subsequent to my 23 remarks. 24 And again, the focus -- what we're 25 going to talk about after my remarks, I'm here to set 29 1 context, is we're going to walk through -- spend much 2 of the day walking through each of the primary 3 resource areas talking about the programs that are 4 under consideration, and as Bruce Schofield 5 introduced, kind of the flagship enhanced -- or 6 excuse me -- custodial enhanced and flagship options 7 under consideration for each of those programs. So 8 that's sort of the context of what we're going to do 9 today. Again, I want to introduce it in the way I 10 just said. 11 The Natural Resource Plan is a 12 comprehensive 20-year plan, 20-year strategic plan. 13 I think there was some discussion with this group 14 about it at -- the last time that this group convened 15 back in the summer of last year. It's a 20-year 16 plan. 17 There's an expectation that it will be 18 refreshed periodically, perhaps on a five-year basis. 19 It's very similar with the Integrated Resource Plan. 20 It's a companion plan to that. 21 The NRP focuses fundamentally on four 22 resource areas. And again, the presentations you're 23 going to hear are going to walk through these in some 24 detail. 25 The four areas you see behind me, 30 1 biological resources such as endangered species and 2 terrestrial habitat management, programs of that 3 nature, cultural resource management such as 4 architectural -- archeological monitoring and 5 preservation programs, things like that, we will talk 6 through that. Recreation management, campgrounds, 7 day use, things like that. Reservoir lands planning. 8 And then lastly, water resource management such as 9 stream and tailwater management and monitoring and 10 things like that. So that's the scope of what we're 11 going to be talking about today and the scope of what 12 the Natural Resource Plan will address. 13 The five primary goals of the NRP you 14 see behind me. Anda talked about -- in her graphic 15 she showed sort of the construct of the strategic 16 plan and the environmental policy that flowed out of 17 that. 18 A primary goal in the NRP is to do 19 that first dash point, to align the stewardship 20 programs and plans with that environmental policy. 21 We will talk specifically how that occurs in a 22 moment. 23 To guide the land use and resource 24 management decisions and actions, to set in place 25 sort of a -- the white lines, if you will, that will 31 1 guide some 20-year decisions around land use and 2 resource management, to optimize the public use 3 benefits of the TVA managed lands, provide a 4 reference manual to guide implementation activities, 5 and to provide clarity and transparency to the 6 public. 7 Again, we will talk about the process 8 that TVA intends to go through between now and August 9 to ensure that it is transparent to the public and 10 very inclusive. 11 So it's a 20-year -- ultimately it 12 will result in a 20-year plan of prioritized 13 programs, and the programs are much of what we're 14 going to focus our attention on today. 15 The scope -- the geographic scope, if 16 we could go to the next, you see here it covers 17 nearly 293,000 acres of TVA owned land across the 18 Valley. It includes the reservoir lands planning for 19 TVA managed reservoirs only. It includes water 20 resource management for the entire Tennessee Valley 21 watershed, which is what is highlighted in green on 22 the slide. 23 It does not include transmission 24 corridors and transmission properties. It does not 25 include mineral holdings. It does not cover secured 32 1 land at nuclear sites. Those are treated in 2 different policies and different ways. It also does 3 not cover existing commercial recreation agreements, 4 but other than that it covers all of these things 5 that you see up here. 6 TVA has also -- has already received a 7 lot of guidance from this body as you well know about 8 the RR -- about the NRP. I want to go through the 9 six- or eight-page document that came out of the last 10 RRC meeting, but here are just a couple of 11 highlights, for example. 12 Let me assure that the guidelines and 13 the guidance that came out of this group in the last 14 meeting is really serving as sort of a beacon for the 15 NRP development. 16 A couple of key things that did come 17 out of that meeting, and again, this is summarizing 18 and almost just picking out some quotes directly from 19 the minutes of that meeting or the guidance of that 20 meeting are to do several things, leverage dollars to 21 generate positive benefits for the most people 22 without compromising core TVA values, quite a bit of 23 discussion that could be extracted about, you know, 24 let's get bang for our buck, so to speak, and 25 leverage TVA's dollar for the most positive impact. 33 1 Secondly is to ensure the impact of 2 investment, not on investment. Of investment is 3 significant enough to have TVA be a leader so -- and 4 ensure that that money or resources are devoted to 5 this and ensure that TVA becomes a leader. 6 Then kind of secondarily, and I've 7 shown leadership and controlling its environmental 8 issues and take the opportunity to be a leader across 9 the Tennessee Valley relative to environmental 10 issues. 11 Thirdly, respect the needs of 12 resources under TVA's control, particularly the 13 non-renewable, such as cultural resources, and issues 14 of TVA's creation and go beyond the basic requirement 15 of those resources. Hence, the reason that TVA has 16 developed enhanced and flagship options for many of 17 these programs we're going to talk about today. 18 And then lastly, measure and document 19 programs through accurate data management and develop 20 a strong communications and public outreach campaign 21 to ensure the good work of TVA is shared with other 22 TVA -- with TVA stakeholders. 23 Again, probably the operative words 24 there are communication and public outreach, and I 25 think TVA hears loud and clear the guidance coming 34 1 from this group about those very critical things. 2 Key deliverables that are going to 3 come out of this effort is sort of three things. 4 Anda touched on them in her opening comments. First 5 is the Natural Resource Plan itself, which is the 6 20-year framework to guide future decisions. 7 Secondly, and Anda touched on this as 8 well, the 10- to 20-page summary document to provide 9 an executive summary of the full NRP document. 10 Then thirdly is the Environmental 11 Impact Statement that describes the impacts on the 12 environment of the programs under consideration and 13 to withstand NEPA review. 14 We have actually got a presentation 15 teed up to describe that process and describe that 16 document subsequent to me. Heather Montgomery, who 17 is leading that effort, will talk us through it. So 18 the three primary deliverables coming out of the NRP 19 development effort are those. 20 Anda teed up sort of the construct of 21 the IRP and the NRP. Just to compare and contrast 22 the two, the Integrated Resource Plan, the IRP, is a 23 20-year plan as well, but it focuses on the power 24 portfolio and it's focused on meeting the energy 25 demands of the Tennessee Valley with both demand and 35 1 supply side resources. It's a 20-year time horizon. 2 It's utilizing scenario planning, as is the NRP. 3 And the draft was published in 4 September of 2010. Many of you have seen it and 5 read, no doubt, and the final is due to be published 6 in March 2011 in anticipation of a Board action in 7 April 2011. 8 The NRP, again, is a companion 9 document to that. It focuses on things that I have 10 already described, natural resource management, water 11 resources, recreation lands planning, et cetera. It 12 is a 20-year plan as well. It is utilizing scenario 13 planning as well, utilizing the same scenarios that 14 have been developed relative to the integrated 15 resource plan, and I will describe what those are 16 subsequently. 17 The draft is targeted for the end of 18 February of this year and the final in late summer of 19 2011 in anticipation of an August Board action around 20 the Natural Resource Plan. 21 I talked about the environmental 22 policy coverage that the NRP is going to enable. The 23 environmental policy, as many of you may know, has 24 six fundamental legs to it, which are down on the 25 left-hand side, climate change mitigation, excuse me, 36 1 air quality improvement, water resource protection 2 and improvement, waste minimization, sustainable land 3 use, and natural resource management. 4 And across the top of that matrix down 5 there you see the different plans that TVA has 6 developed over the last couple of years and how that 7 coverage of that environmental policy and the six 8 legs of the stool of the environmental policy are 9 being covered. 10 The IRP hits the things that you see 11 the checkmarks in. The Natural Resource Plan focuses 12 on water resource protection and improvements, 13 sustainable land use, and natural resource 14 management. 15 The Reservoir Operations Study that 16 was completed in '08, if I am not mistaken, 6/06, 17 covers the things that you see there, and then lastly 18 a sustainability plan has been built in response to 19 an Executive Order and is updated on an annual basis 20 that deals with waste minimization. 21 That's on the web site if no one has 22 ever read it, and it's updated on an annual basis. 23 So between these four plans it provides coverage for 24 TVA's environmental policy, and that's how NRP fits 25 into that. 37 1 Expectations for the NRP, I will spend 2 just a moment talking about what it will do and what 3 it will not do. Just for clarity, as I mentioned, it 4 will articulate a 20-year planning strategy, but it 5 will not be a substitute for what we will call fine 6 tuning in the annual planning and budgeting process 7 and will not -- and will still continue to 8 incorporate the input and guidance and counsel coming 9 out of this body from its periodic visit. So it's 10 periodic advice and counsel sessions. 11 So it is a 20-year plan that will 12 define programs and the priority of those programs, 13 but it will still be subject to fine tuning through 14 an annual planning and budgeting process and the 15 advice that it gets from this body. 16 I present a recommended planning 17 strategy for use in future decision-makings. It will 18 not reassign current program budgets. It is not a 19 budgeting tool for this year's budget. Again, it's 20 that 20 year prioritization of programs. 21 It will provide a prioritization of 22 programs based on objective and cost and benefit 23 analyses and the stakeholder input from this group 24 and from public stakeholders. It will not in all 25 cases make specific program decisions. Again, it 38 1 will set a 20-year strategy with a prioritization of 2 programs within it. 3 It will discuss other strategic 4 considerations outside of scenario planning. We will 5 talk about scenario planning in a moment, but there 6 are certainly other considerations outside of that. 7 It will not quantify all the risks or all the other 8 considerations or decision criteria needed for 9 management decisions. TVA management has a lot to 10 consider, including the input from this group, beyond 11 just what we're going to talk about relative to 12 scenario planning. 13 It will integrate other planning 14 documents, such as the IRP and Reservoir Ops Study. 15 My apologies on the use of acronyms, by the way. I 16 think I was counseled about trying not to do that, 17 but it's difficult here. 18 So such at the Integrated Resource 19 Plan, the Reservoir Ops study, land policy, shoreline 20 management initiative, mosquito initiative, and other 21 specific reservoir plans, it will integrate with 22 those but it will not supercede any of the plans in 23 place. 24 Lastly, it will provide EIS coverage 25 for key aspects of the environmental policy such as, 39 1 again, the types of programs such as habitat 2 management, et cetera, it will provide that breadth 3 of coverage for those, but it will -- in some cases 4 will not provide the EIS coverage for individual 5 projects. 6 So as individual projects get 7 implemented over the course of the next 5 and 10 and 8 20 years, those still may require NEPA review and 9 EIS's to accompany them. So those are the 10 expectations for the NRP. 11 So what I have just covered is what 12 the NRP is, the scope, the resource areas that it 13 will focus upon, the time dimension of it, and what 14 it will do and what it won't do. So I would like to 15 change gears just a minute now and talk about the 16 agency visits that occurred over the fall of this 17 year. 18 As I mentioned, TVA is very committed 19 to having an open and transparent and very inclusive 20 process, and as part of that has outreached or 21 reached out to a number of agencies across the Valley 22 to solicit input and to establish a dialogue, quite 23 frankly. 24 The agencies that TVA has interacted 25 with directly, and this occurred in the 40 1 September/October time frame you see up here behind 2 me, and I won't read through them. Hopefully, you 3 can read them on your slide. The intent was to hit 4 primary agencies, natural resource agencies in each 5 of seven -- of TVA's seven states, and you see that 6 was accomplished, as well as the Forest Service, The 7 Natural Park Service, Fish & Wildlife, and cultural 8 contacts, et cetera. 9 So this was not intended to be an 10 all-inclusive dialogue with agencies, but again, a 11 representative dialogue with some of the key agencies 12 across the Valley with whom TVA interacts. 13 The goal of these meetings were to do 14 the three things you see here, provide an overview of 15 the NRP development process and initiative, to 16 facilitate an open discussion, to identify key trends 17 and challenges facing agencies, and then to develop a 18 network of peers and lay the foundation for future 19 partnerships. So it was in a sense to open the 20 dialogue or reopen the dialogue and firmly establish 21 the dialogue around the NRP. 22 Some of the key things that came out 23 of this on the next page, key findings, and again, I 24 am summarizing 25 meetings in about six bullets here, 25 so bear with me. 41 1 But the general feedback is all 2 meetings were very well received, very open dialogue. 3 TVA has gathered a variety of information to 4 incorporate into the NRP, that's been summarized, and 5 that's serving as key guidance for TVA as it develops 6 the NRP. 7 Most agencies have funding challenges 8 across the Valley and the agencies are eager to 9 strengthen relationships with TVA, not only for the 10 reason of perhaps securing funding but also just to 11 establish partnerships and advancing the common 12 agenda between the agencies and TVA. So great 13 dialogue around the opportunity to firmly establish 14 partnerships and to reinvigorate partnerships that in 15 some cases have laid dormant a little bit in recent 16 years. 17 Then thirdly, many of the agencies 18 have recently reorganized and building relationships 19 with new contacts is essential, and that was the key 20 theme that came out of there as well. 21 A summary of the key findings, kind of 22 five things here, two on this page and three on the 23 next. Outreach and education is critical, that was a 24 key theme that came out of all of those discussions, 25 and I think TVA hears that loud and clear. 42 1 Education is critical to public 2 support. There's a need to focus people on outdoor 3 activities for general health and family societal 4 good, and there's an opportunity to do that through 5 education. I think that's recognized by the agencies 6 and by TVA as well. 7 Relationships, both public and 8 internal, and I guess by internal we mean specific to 9 those agencies. This is probably a key area where 10 TVA needs to improve, especially given the agencies 11 TVA -- in TVA's broad reach, and I think TVA 12 recognizes that as such. 13 TVA has got a long history of 14 stewardship, but it's rarely told. And there's an 15 opportunity, I believe, to build awareness and I 16 think TVA recognizes that, and that will be an aspect 17 of the NRP. 18 Thirdly, enforcement was an issue. A 19 topic frequently discussed, cultural resources 20 particularly, cultural resource monitoring 21 protection, and enforcement barriers exist across all 22 agencies and that may be an opportunity for 23 partnership with some of these agencies that I have 24 described. 25 In some cases there's confusion around 43 1 land policies, including permitting, hunting, 2 recreation, et cetera. Access and boundaries is 3 probably an aspect of that, and there's probably an 4 opportunity to strengthen that. 5 Execution, there's an overwhelming 6 willingness to pursue partnership opportunities with 7 TVA as part of the NRP, that was a key theme that 8 came out of the discussions. There's an opportunity 9 to strengthen partnerships, and that's something that 10 TVA is evaluating very, very heavily. That was a key 11 theme that came out of all of these discussions. 12 Lastly is new program development and 13 design. Some advice that TVA got was multiple 14 disciplinary projects should be packaged together 15 probably by watershed and not by resource area or 16 type. 17 When we approached these agencies we 18 tended to talk about the different resource areas and 19 the manner we're going to talk about them today. In 20 many of these agencies the Council was, well, you 21 need to think about these by watershed area, not 22 discretely by resource area, and we thought that was 23 great advice. 24 Field expertise is critical in 25 identifying the programs that need to be developed 44 1 and revised and implemented. As one of the gentleman 2 said, there's no substitute for boots on the ground, 3 and I think that was some advice that TVA heard loud 4 and clear as well. 5 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Randy, can 6 I ask you -- 7 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Of course. 8 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: The 9 execution of that bottom bullet there. 10 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Yes. 11 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Concern 12 about the ROS, could you elaborate a little bit on 13 how the RROS (sic) would -- what was the theme you 14 were hearing on that bullet or is that something 15 we're going to talk about later? 16 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Yeah. Can we come 17 back to that, Tom? 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. 19 Sure. 20 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Let me come back 21 to that and address it because we will get into that 22 in a moment. 23 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Sure. 24 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Well, let me now 25 shift gears for the last time. 45 1 And Wilson, how am I doing on time? 2 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: You're 3 doing good. 4 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Okay. I now want 5 to talk about scenario planning because this will 6 serve as a spring board to lead us into the 7 individual discussions on each resource area that's 8 going to be the bulk of the day. 9 Scenario planning is a tool. It's an 10 exercise to evaluate various strategies by looking at 11 how a strategy would perform and what would the 12 implications of the strategies be in a variety of 13 future potential scenarios or worlds. 14 George and Deb, who are familiar with 15 the IRP, are very familiar with scenario planning as 16 that has served the heart of that process. 17 Scenario planning provides some of 18 those things you see there, an assessment of the 19 strengths and weaknesses, an understanding of how 20 decisions might be impacted by future scenarios or 21 future worlds, and it's a foundation for discussion 22 and for evaluation of a variety of different complex 23 variables. When you look at how they might perform 24 across a variety of scenarios, it helps define the 25 impacts and actions and alternate -- alternative 46 1 future environments. 2 It was really pioneered by Shell Oil 3 in the mid 1970s to -- and has gained credence and 4 momentum, I guess, through -- by a number of agencies 5 and government agencies and utilities to assess large 6 complex planning efforts by, again, applying scenario 7 planning and seeing what would the implications of 8 various scenarios be on various strategies. Again, 9 it's being employed here just as in the NRP. 10 Kind of the construct of it you see 11 here, and the matrix that you can't read up in the 12 center of this page is really sort of the analytical 13 part of scenario planning. We will talk about that 14 in a little more depth. 15 Fundamentally, the construct is this: 16 TVA has identified different future scenarios, 17 plausible scenarios of the world, and those are those 18 blue boxes across the top that are probably difficult 19 to read. There's another slide where it will be 20 easier. 21 The scenarios are such as the economy 22 recovers drastically, well, what might that mean for 23 natural resource programs? 24 And again, these scenarios will be 25 described in some detail in the draft IRP. So I 47 1 won't describe them in great detail here, but that's 2 one scenario. 3 The economy may recover drastically, 4 well, that might mean that the demand for land 5 development or recreation facilities increase and so 6 what might be that implication for natural resource 7 programs? 8 Another scenario is environmental 9 focus becomes a national priority, well, what might 10 the implications of that be for natural resource 11 programs? 12 A third strategy or scenario rather is 13 prolonged economic malaise, well, what are the 14 implications for Natural Resource Plan relative to 15 that scenario? 16 Then lastly is carbon regulation 17 creates an economic downturn. So there's an economic 18 downturn. Well, that might lead to more use of 19 day-use areas or more use of campgrounds, et cetera. 20 So that's sort of the construct of 21 scenario planning is to develop future scenarios, and 22 these were developed by TVA for use in both the 23 Integrated Resource Plan and the Natural Resource 24 Plan, and then to look at different strategies and to 25 see how they might perform or what might be the 48 1 implications for these different programs we're going 2 to talk through relative to each of those scenarios, 3 and that provides a framework for discussion and a 4 framework for stakeholder input around those 5 different scenarios. 6 However, scenario planning is only one 7 part of this process. As you see, scenario planning 8 is a way to provide some analytics to a lot of 9 qualitative considerations across a lot of programs 10 we're going to discuss today. 11 A key part also are these blue boxes 12 that you see here, input from stakeholders, RRSC 13 input. Public comments, we're going to talk about 14 the process for getting public comments and some 15 public meetings that are going to occur in the spring 16 of this year. Actually, Heather will talk about 17 those a little bit more. 18 Other strategic considerations, 19 resource constraints that TVA has to impose. Agency 20 feedback, I talked about some of that. There will be 21 more discussion with agencies going through calendar 22 2011. So there are a number things that will impact 23 the results of scenario planning. Ultimately what 24 will result is the Natural Resource Plan and then the 25 accompanying Environmental Impact Statement that will 49 1 accompany the NRP. 2 Again, Heather is going to come up 3 here -- Heather Montgomery is going to come up here 4 in just a moment and talk about the Environmental 5 Impact Statement. 6 One key element of everything we're 7 going to talk about, and Bruce Schofield sort of 8 introduced this in his comments, the way the scenario 9 planning is being conducted and the way TVA is going 10 through its evaluation and assessment is for each 11 program within each resource area a variety of 12 options are being evaluated. 13 Those options, as Bruce introduced, 14 fall into largely three buckets; custodial, enhanced 15 and flagship, custodial being those that TVA would 16 have to perform to operate in compliance with legal, 17 regulatory, and policy requirements. Enhanced is a 18 little bit more robust program in that area. And 19 then lastly flagship, which as Bruce said, is sort of 20 the gold standard in all areas. So it's sort of 21 good, better, best, if you will, if you think of it 22 that way, and that's the way TVA is evaluating all of 23 these programs. 24 So keep this construct in mind as the 25 resource specialists speak to you today because we're 50 1 going to talk through every resource area today and 2 kind of describe the bandwidth here that is being 3 evaluated, custodial and flagship. And I think 4 that's essentially one of the questions that's being 5 asked for this group for discussion tomorrow is, you 6 know, how do you feel about that bandwidth and what 7 are your thoughts on that. So this slide sort of 8 tees up the framework of the discussion that each of 9 the resource specialist is going to lead us through 10 today. 11 The other thing about scenario 12 planning I will mention is there are four primary 13 inputs as we think through the scenario planning -- 14 as we think through scenario planning, and the four 15 inputs -- and again, I realize this is very difficult 16 to read, but on the upper left-hand side are the 17 program -- is a program options table, that's what 18 we're going to talk through today. 19 For each resource area there are a 20 number of programs, and each of those programs has 21 custodial, enhanced, and flagship options. Those 22 have been developed through a lot of discussion with 23 the resource specialists internal to TVA, and that's 24 what we're going to talk about today. So this was 25 developed by TVA. 51 1 The second thing is the cost analysis 2 that have been done internally as to what are the 3 resource requirements of these different program 4 options, and that is a consideration for TVA, of 5 course. 6 Thirdly, down in the lower left-hand 7 side is the program benefits assessment. One 8 challenge of developing a natural resource program is 9 TVA internally, and even with the help of the Council 10 of this body, can develop different program options, 11 but a challenge in developing natural resource plans 12 is, well, what is the value of those different 13 resource options. 14 So to help us with that, to help TVA 15 with that assessment, TVA went out and hired one of 16 the top natural resource economist in the United 17 States, ENTRIX, who is with us today, Barbara Wyse, 18 to develop an evaluation of the benefits of these 19 natural resource plans and each option within each of 20 those programs. 21 You're going to hear about that today. 22 We have got that teed up on the agenda as well. Here 23 are the benefits of each of these programs and each 24 of the options within them, and that's a key part of 25 our process, an external view of the benefits of 52 1 those programs. That's the lower third or lower 2 quadrant down here. 3 Then lastly, what are the weightings 4 of those benefits? What is the relative importance 5 of those different benefits? 6 Those benefits have broadly been 7 grouped into six areas, and we will talk about those, 8 but are those all weighted equally or are those 9 weighted some more important than others? 10 That was part of the tool that ENTRIX 11 developed that we got the participation of this group 12 in filling out that little tool that we sent to you 13 or that was sent to you several weeks ago to develop 14 a weighting of these different benefits that we're 15 going to talk about today. We will talk about the 16 weighting and the results of that weighting exercise 17 that came back from this group. 18 So all of those are inputs into the 19 scenario planning process, and that kind of sets the 20 framework for what we're going to talk about today. 21 In the upper left-hand corner, first we're going to 22 talk about these different programs within each 23 resource area and those custodial and flagship 24 options within them. 25 Then secondly we're going to spend 53 1 some time talking about the benefits assessment and 2 what are the -- what are the benefits, in some cases 3 quantitative, i.e., financial, in some cases 4 qualitative? Based on EXTRIX's experience and 5 research, what are the benefits of these programs? 6 And then thirdly, what are -- 7 initially what are the weightings of the relative 8 importance of those benefits? 9 That's essentially the way we're going 10 to talk through the day is almost go counter clock -- 11 clockwise, I guess, around this chart. 12 I mentioned scenario planning is a 13 matrix of different scenarios across the top and the 14 different strategies that can be employed across 15 these scenarios. TVA has developed three strategies 16 for consideration. You see them there, resource 17 strategy, a more human-use focus strategy, and then a 18 blended stewardship strategy which sort of balances 19 all of that. 20 And I won't read through all of the 21 key characteristics in the right-hand column, but the 22 resource strategy, kind of the definition of that is 23 to conserve and protect natural resources by 24 improving the desired land condition, let's focus on 25 biological cultural resources. 54 1 Second is a more human-use strategy, 2 well, let's evaluate that against all of those 3 scenarios focused on using TVA's resources for 4 recreational use while maintaining conservation 5 efforts, and that was evaluated across different 6 scenarios. 7 And thirdly was a blended stewardship 8 strategy that more balances those two, and that's 9 part of the evaluation that's ongoing. That's part 10 of the weighting exercise that we ask to get your 11 help on and to help evaluate which of those 12 strategies is most appropriate for TVA. 13 Ultimately what this will result in is 14 a program mix in the NRP. It's essentially -- as I 15 mentioned, it's a prioritization of programs and it's 16 essentially got three strata. The first are 17 custodial management options. 18 And again, as you recall, the 19 definition of custodial was doing the work in each of 20 those programs such that it meets legal, regulatory, 21 and the environmental policy requirements. So those 22 will be done in every case, those custodial options. 23 Then secondly as part of that analysis 24 that I described and part of the input from this 25 group and other stakeholders, there will be some 55 1 strategic priorities. Those are the critical program 2 options that are integral to the successful 3 implementation of the NRP. That will be very much 4 informed by the Council that has already been given 5 from this group and that will come out of this group 6 tomorrow and will help management strategically 7 prioritize additional programs, either enhanced or 8 flagship options, and that will be the second 9 priority of programs to be pursued in the NRP. 10 Then lastly will be the things that 11 are also under consideration, and it will be an 12 objective list of programs and on some level kind of 13 prioritized by importance and it will include all of 14 the remaining program options that you will hear 15 about today. 16 The NRP will not eliminate any program 17 options that will be presented in the NRP or the EIS, 18 it will merely prioritize them. This is a 20-year 19 plan and will prioritize them that this is the 20 priority of programs that TVA pursue over the ensuing 21 20 years. So that's the construct of the NRP. 22 And with that, the next thing that we 23 wanted to discuss, if you would like me introduce it, 24 is -- 25 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Go ahead. 56 1 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I mentioned that 2 the Environmental Impact Statement will follow or an 3 accompanying document of the Natural Resource Plan. 4 I think many in this room are very familiar with the 5 Environmental Impact Statement and the NEPA process, 6 but Heather Montgomery, who is a project manager in 7 the group, is leading that effort. 8 And Heather, if you want to come up 9 and describe that, that will be great. 10 DFO ANDA RAY: Can we pause for a 11 minute to see if anyone had any questions because 12 that was a lot of material? 13 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: My apologies for 14 the firehose there. Were there any questions? 15 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 16 MS. HEATHER MONTGOMERY: Thank you, 17 Randy. Good morning. My name is Heather Montgomery, 18 and I am the NEPA project manager for the Natural 19 Resource Plan. Today we're going to talk through 20 TVA's NEPA process. 21 NEPA stands for the National 22 Environmental Policy Act of 1969. NEPA applies to 23 all federal agencies, and it requires agencies to 24 evaluate environmental impacts and also involve the 25 public in these evaluations. 57 1 Now, TVA has developed specific 2 procedures for implementing NEPA. And if you're 3 curious as to what those are, they are located on 4 TVA's web site at tva.gov. Now, we have three 5 different types of environmental reviews that fall 6 under NEPA, categorical exclusions, environmental 7 assessments, and environmental impact statements. 8 A categorical exclusion is just a 9 routine category of actions that normally do not have 10 an impact on the environment. TVA documents or 11 reviews of many of these actions are by a simple 12 checklist. 13 Now, an environmental assessment is 14 prepared when an action does not fit the criteria for 15 a categorical exclusion or may have the potential to 16 impact the environment. If these impacts to the 17 environment are found to be insignificant, then a 18 finding of no significant impact or a FNSI is issued. 19 The last one, an Environmental Impact 20 Statement, is prepared for all major federal actions 21 that have the potential for a significant impact on 22 the environment. Now, those impacts could be 23 beneficial or they could be adverse to the 24 environment and then a significant public controversy 25 is anticipated. 58 1 Now, an EIS has multiple opportunities 2 for public involvement. TVA is preparing an 3 Environmental Impact Statement on the Natural 4 Resource Plan. So for this presentation we will be 5 focusing on the NEPA process steps specific to the 6 Natural Resource Plan. 7 We have four major milestones that are 8 associated with this EIS; public scoping, the draft 9 Environmental Impact Statement, the final 10 Environmental Impact Statement, and the Record of 11 Decision. So over the next few slides we will be 12 discussing these four areas. 13 NEPA regulations require an early and 14 open process for deciding what should be discussed in 15 your Environmental Impact Statement, in other words, 16 what's the scope of your document? 17 The scoping process involves 18 requesting and using comments from interested 19 stakeholders and agencies to help identify the issues 20 and the alternatives that should be addressed in the 21 Environment Impact Statement. 22 For the Natural Resource Plan, TVA 23 conducted two scoping opportunities. The first 24 opportunity was part of the Integrated Resource Plan. 25 The IRP scoping period ran from June 15th to August 59 1 14th of 2009. 2 Now, all comments that pertained to 3 stewardship functions were flagged for inclusion into 4 the NRP. So we looked at all comments that will 5 pertain to the IRP independent of the IRP process, 6 found those comments that pertain to anything related 7 to stewardship, and we pulled those out. A total of 8 609 comments were received pertaining to stewardship. 9 Now, the second scoping opportunity 10 focused only on the Natural Resource Plan. Following 11 the decision to separate the Integrated Resource Plan 12 and the Natural Resource Plan, TVA announced an 13 additional 30 day public comment period, and that 14 began October 2nd of 2009. 15 We received 76 additional comments 16 specifically to the Natural Resource Plan. So 17 overall 685 comments were received during both 18 scoping opportunities. 19 So of the 685 comments that we 20 received here are our top ten issue categories, along 21 with the corresponding number of comments. As you 22 can see, the number of comments received on 23 recreation far outceeded (sic) the other issue 24 categories. 25 Now, this information and everything 60 1 related to the scoping process was published in a 2 scoping report in August of 2010, and that report is 3 also available on TVA's web site. 4 Now, the next milestone is the draft 5 Environmental Impact Statement. So for the draft TVA 6 is evaluating a multi-lane highway of flexibility. 7 We are creating a bounding effect that, as Randy 8 mentioned earlier, and alternatives in choosing a 9 preferred alternative that reflects a mix of program 10 options highlighted during public scooping, scenario 11 planning, and that reflects TVA's strategic 12 priorities. 13 The alternatives are bounded on one 14 end by all programs implemented at the minimum level 15 of effort or that custodial management and on the 16 other end by all programs implemented at the maximum 17 level of effort or that flagship management option. 18 The bounding approach is used to 19 communicate the range of potential program options 20 available for the NRP and to show a range of 21 potential environmental benefits and impacts to the 22 public. 23 Now, the preferred alternative will 24 fall within these bounded alternatives and includes a 25 good mix of program options at varying levels of 61 1 effort. 2 There will be several public comment 3 opportunities for the draft Environmental Impact 4 Statement. A minimum of a 45-day public comment 5 period will be made available. Public meetings will 6 be held across the Valley and an interactive comment 7 form will be placed on TVA's web site. 8 We will notify the public of the 9 comment period via press releases. In addition, we 10 will send notices to all agencies, individuals, and 11 stakeholder groups that commented during public 12 scoping. 13 Now, comments received on the -- yes. 14 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: Excuse me. Am 15 I to understand that the draft EIS will be prepared 16 before the draft NRP has actually been reviewed by 17 the public? 18 MS. HEATHER MONTGOMERY: It is my 19 understanding that we will release those at the same 20 time. 21 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: So we're 22 preparing an EIS for a plan that the public hasn't 23 seen yet? 24 MS. HEATHER MONTGOMERY: We will have 25 a draft NRP and EIS public comment period. So the 62 1 public comment period that I mentioned earlier will 2 run concurrently with the Natural Resource Plan. So 3 if someone were to comment on the Natural Resource 4 Plan itself, we will incorporate those comments into 5 the final EIS. So you will see drafts at the same 6 time. 7 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: Okay. 8 DFO ANDA RAY: I think his comment is 9 that you have a draft plan and then you do an EIS on 10 the plan and having them come out at the same time, 11 you might want to discuss how they are very parallel 12 in their construct. 13 MS. HEATHER MONTGOMERY: Okay. Okay. 14 They are very parallel in their construct. So as 15 Randy in the group is developing, you know, the 16 program options for inclusion into the IRP, now they 17 are going through scenario planning. It helps 18 through the NEPA process to determine, you know, what 19 are our alternatives and what is the bounds for those 20 and through the processes that Randy's led the group 21 through is how we have set those and -- 22 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: I guess my 23 question for everybody is: Is the EIS, it being an 24 Environmental Impact Statement, concerning TVA's NRP 25 or is it about just natural resources in general? 63 1 MS. HEATHER MONTGOMERY: It is 2 reflective of the NRP. 3 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: So I don't see 4 how we can prepare a draft Environmental Impact 5 Statement on a policy -- a TVA policy that hasn't 6 been completed and submitted for public review. I 7 don't see how that's possible. 8 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: It would seem 9 to me that you would have the draft policy and the 10 draft EIS so the public could see both the policy and 11 what you're planning and the impacts of it, and then 12 when the policy is amended from the input you would 13 have to go back into the EIS and do the same thing. 14 I mean, that is what I am understanding. 15 MS. HEATHER MONTGOMERY: That is 16 correct. And as the NRP is -- the development of the 17 NRP is slightly ahead of the EIS. Although, we will 18 release at the same time. What Randy develops and 19 the team develops for the Natural Resource plan, they 20 are telling us to evaluate those impacts. 21 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: I guess I am a 22 little confused. In my office we review EIS's all 23 the time, that's just one of the things as a cultural 24 resource section comes out. 25 So they say we're going to -- this 64 1 federal agency is going to conduct this activity. 2 We're going to construct a highway or we're going to 3 implement an NRP. So this is the information you 4 need to assess what the environmental impacts of that 5 action will be and then the public comments comes in. 6 They can't impact -- they can't assess 7 the environmental impacts of an action before they 8 have the data on what that action is actually going 9 to do, that's the way I see it. Now, I may be wrong 10 here and may not be understanding, you know, the NRP 11 process, but I just have that concern. 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 13 Renee, did you have -- 14 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: I share your 15 concerns. One thing that TVA might want to consider 16 is an extended comment period time since the -- an 17 EIS could easily be, you know, 15 reams of paper, and 18 that's a lot for the public to have to go through and 19 then have to read the plan as well. 20 So I believe the comment period is 21 what, 45 days for a NEPA? 22 MS. HEATHER MONTGOMERY: That is the 23 minimum. 24 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: That's the minimum. 25 So you at least have to provide 45 days. So you 65 1 might want to consider more than that if you're going 2 to have really lengthy documents that are data rich 3 to offer to the public. 4 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Helen has 5 input to Russell's issue. 6 MS. HELEN RUCKER: We're actually 7 using the NEPA process as a way of soliciting public 8 input. And so, yes, the draft NRP is being prepared 9 just slightly ahead of the EIS. 10 The EIS provides the analysis, the 11 context, and what the potential impacts, both 12 beneficial and adverse, is. So when the public 13 reviews the plan and has comments on it, they can 14 also look at the analysis provided by our technical 15 experts and understand what the impacts of adding 16 more recreation to the Valley would have. 17 Then we use the NEPA process to 18 collect the public comments and organize them and 19 then we issue a final ERP -- NRP and a final EIS that 20 considers all the comments. 21 Does that make sense? 22 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: More so, yes. 23 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And I guess 24 what strikes me is this is a blending of a strategic 25 process and a federal compliance process, and that 66 1 makes it a little different from my perspective than 2 a traditional EIS kind of process that we see. 3 Any other questions? 4 And I don't know that we said this, 5 but I do want to make it clear, for those of you that 6 are on the upcoming sixth-term Council, we do want to 7 encourage you to ask questions. You can't vote as we 8 get to tomorrow's stage in having to develop recorded 9 votes of this Council, but we certainly want to 10 encourage you to feel free to participate with 11 questions and comments as you see this process as 12 well. 13 I would ask that you would make sure 14 that Kim, our stenographer, that you say your name 15 clearly before you make your comments so she can 16 record that. 17 Thank you. Heather. 18 MS. HEATHER MONTGOMERY: So any 19 comments that we receive on the draft Environmental 20 Impact Statement or the Natural Resource Plan will be 21 organized by issue category, and TVA staff will 22 develop responses to these comments. 23 The information will be published in 24 the final Environmental Impact Statement. Again, 25 those are comments on the draft EIS itself or on the 67 1 draft Natural Resource Plan. Alternatives or any 2 associated consequences or impact analysis may be 3 revised based on public comments. 4 Now, once the final Environmental 5 Impact Statement is completed, a notice of 6 availability will be published in the Federal 7 Register. Again, TVA will release press information, 8 and all agencies and stakeholders that provided 9 comments during public scoping or on the drafts will 10 be notified. 11 The last major milestone is the Record 12 of Decision. A Record of Decision concisely 13 communicates the TVA Board of Directors' decision on 14 the Natural Resource Plan. 15 Other aspects of the Record of 16 Decision include a full description of the 17 alternatives, what is the environmentally preferred 18 alternative, any mitigation measures that TVA may 19 be -- may have to adhere to reflective of the 20 preferred alternative, and any other monitoring or 21 administrative requirements. The Record of Decision 22 will be published in the Federal Register and will be 23 placed on TVA's web site for the public to review. 24 And that's all that I have on the NEPA 25 process. 68 1 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Any 2 questions for Heather? 3 Okay. Thank you, Heather. 4 I don't know that I understand the 5 question here. We have received or TVA has received 6 questions through the public interface for people to 7 reach RRSC members. They have gotten two questions 8 that came in. 9 What TVA is asking is do they -- would 10 we like them to develop some talking points in 11 responding to those questions to help us have a 12 better perspective in making that response? 13 Essentially, do we want staff input into the process? 14 And I guess I would throw that out to 15 ask if anybody has any problems or concerns with TVA 16 developing those responses -- talking points 17 regarding the questions. 18 Is that correct? 19 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Yes. 20 DFO ANDA RAY: And then how -- people 21 will have your e-mail addresses. So as a result of 22 being on the Council, they are going to e-mail you 23 questions. 24 I think this one is a -- how are we 25 going to respond? With this particular one, do you 69 1 want TVA input to give to you so you can respond? Do 2 you want all questions to the Council to go to the 3 chair person and they respond on behalf of the 4 Council? I mean, those are the kind of input that we 5 need. 6 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. The 7 administrative process. 8 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: Tom, I think 9 it's a good idea to have the talking points. It's a 10 lot better than risking having me wing it. 11 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Well, in 12 some cases you would like to have some factual 13 perspective that the questions address. 14 Renee. 15 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Yeah. I have 16 received a question, and I didn't know if we were 17 going to have time to discuss that at this particular 18 meeting. I have to leave unfortunately at the end of 19 this meeting and I won't be back tomorrow. So I 20 think the question that I have gotten or someone else 21 has gotten should try to be addressed today. 22 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. We 23 will try -- we were going to talk about that issue, 24 but we will try to find the time to talk about it 25 today while you're here. 70 1 Any other -- does anybody have any 2 concerns with it? Is there any negative -- you know, 3 I am inclined to agree to collect staff input or 4 staff perspective on the questions and then that will 5 allow us either individually -- how would you prefer 6 to answer questions that come to you as an RRSC 7 member? 8 Yeah, Russell. 9 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: I think we have 10 to have that, Tom, because I'm not qualified to speak 11 on behalf of TVA in any way. I think -- you know, I 12 think we need to rely on TVA's staff to provide us 13 with any input that we provide the public. 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And I think 15 to the degree that anybody makes an individual 16 response, we need to be sure that we communicate that 17 with whoever is asking the question of the 18 limitations of our involvement or oversight within 19 TVA specific issues. 20 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: And I think 21 with the question given input from you-all, there 22 might be some questions I would be willing to answer. 23 There might be another question given the 24 organization I represent. In my e-mail I would 25 prefer not to answer at which point I would like to 71 1 be able to send a note back and say that I have asked 2 TVA to respond to you on this and forward it that 3 way. 4 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: I have forwarded 5 stuff to Beth a couple of different -- I'm sorry. I 6 have forwarded stuff to Beth a number of times. 7 On two or three occasions I have 8 gotten stray -- I call it a stray e-mail. Most of 9 the time I find it in my junk e-mail box because my 10 computer doesn't know who these people are. I have 11 forwarded them back to TVA and replied them with a 12 copy of the response included back through TVA and 13 really always gotten input from the staff before I 14 made the response. 15 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: So as 16 George alluded to, it's kind of an individual 17 response action. Historically there haven't been a 18 lot of these, but given the visibility of the NRP 19 process and the Council's significant role in that 20 with regard to the formal federal review process I 21 think we could anticipate moving forward to have more 22 of those kinds of issues get raised. So be prepared 23 for that. 24 Yes, sir, Senator Orr. 25 SENATOR ARTHUR ORR: You know, I like 72 1 your earlier suggestion, the talking points are fine, 2 but what George says may be 80 percent of what 3 Deborah says may be 60 percent of what W. C. says, I 4 mean, we get into -- if they are shotgunning us with 5 e-mails, in my opinion it would be more succinct and 6 better if the Chairman responded formally to these 7 people. But if George gets caught at a cocktail 8 party and has to give an instant response, he's got 9 his talking points well memorized in his coat pocket 10 and he can refer to those. 11 Seriously, as far as having a 12 one-voice policy, I would think going forward it 13 would probably behoove the Council to have the 14 Chairman speak with other members in due time but to 15 be kind of the authoritative voice for the Council's 16 response. That's just my observations. 17 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yes, Renee. 18 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: As a member of this 19 Council, are we representatives of TVA because I 20 don't feel like my answer would necessarily be a TVA 21 answer back to this person? 22 I mean, I think this person is 23 contacting these members because they may have tried 24 different avenues. So whom am I speaking for if I 25 answer this question? 73 1 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And I guess 2 that's what I was sort of alluding to is you're not a 3 representative of TVA, and I would encourage each of 4 us to make that clear if we were to make an 5 individual response. 6 DFO ANDA RAY: And if I could ask 7 Kelly, she's with our general counsel, just to go and 8 address that. That's a good point we probably should 9 have covered earlier. 10 MS. KELLY LOVE: As you all know, 11 you're not representatives or employees of TVA in any 12 way. So it may depend on the nature of the question 13 and how it's phrased. 14 They might be asking for your personal 15 opinion or they may not realize the relationship 16 between the Council and TVA. So it may be a question 17 of, what is TVA's policy on X, where staff could 18 provide help or they may be asking, Renee, what do 19 you think. 20 DFO ANDA RAY: I think there's three 21 different answers. One is if they're asking what is 22 TVA's policy, I think what George does is kick it 23 back to TVA. 24 If they are asking what is the 25 Regional Resource Stewardship Council's position, I 74 1 think you need to follow what Arthur is saying and 2 you have got to kick it back to the chairperson. 3 If they are just saying, what do you 4 think, you can answer. I think there might be people 5 you want to copy on that just to let them know if 6 it's dealing with the Council so we can track the 7 comments, but I think those are the three different 8 positions. 9 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Bill. 10 MR. BILL FORSYTH: We're all 11 stakeholders of various issues, and I think if we 12 answered individually we ought to state where we're 13 coming from as far as our stakeholder issues. 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. 15 MR. BILL FORSYTH: But I agree with 16 the Senator, I think it would be better to speak with 17 one voice. 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And I 19 think -- not to belabor the point that Anda raised, I 20 think it's important, regardless of how you 21 perceive -- I think it behooves each of us to info -- 22 and Beth is the designated contact at TVA. So they 23 can understand what's being said either privately 24 from your perspective or how you choose to address 25 this, specifically the several -- I mean, questions 75 1 get asked in multiple venues. 2 SENATOR ARTHUR ORR: Mr. Chairman, a 3 little color commentary, it's certainly a lot easier 4 to be wise and very deliberate on the front end than 5 trying to undo a mess on the back end where e-mails 6 bounce around and things get misinterpreted and 7 misquoted, et cetera. 8 So I think we have got a very wise 9 group, and I'm sure they will copy the TVA personnel 10 and the Chairman as well. 11 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Based on 12 the three scenarios that we just heard, does anybody 13 have any objection to kind of treating that as our 14 general guidance? 15 Okay. Thank you, Kelly. 16 MS. KELLY LOVE: Sure. 17 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I guess 18 with that we're ready to proceed to a break. Then 19 when we come back Randy is going to have some folks 20 go pragmatic -- we're going to go into more detail 21 programmatically through this program. 22 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Real 23 quick, if you would just -- rather than give you a 24 time, if you would look at your watch and be back in 25 15 minutes. 76 1 Thank you. 2 (Brief recess.) 3 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. As 4 we get back together again we had another member of 5 the upcoming sixth-term Council -- Mitch Jones, is he 6 here? He stepped out. I am trying. There he is. 7 Mitch, if you would as a new member of 8 the Council, since you came in a little late, if you 9 would give us just a few minutes of who you are and 10 tell us just a little bit about yourself. 11 MR. MITCH JONES: I'm Mitchell Jones. 12 I own marinas in the Tennessee Valley system. I live 13 in Knoxville. I work with, along with Bruce and 14 Anda, on matters related to recreation and land 15 policy throughout the system. I try to mediate a 16 little bit between sides between what the TVA needs 17 to do and what the ownership of marinas and operators 18 is attempting to do. 19 I have gotten -- I was blonde about 20 two months ago and now I am very gray or two weeks 21 ago I should say. I live in Knoxville. The reason I 22 am late is I had to take my daughter back to school. 23 My apologies. Good morning. 24 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Good 25 morning. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. That 77 1 sounds like a good perspective for this Council to 2 have. So we look forward to having you on here. 3 One other administrative issue is 4 we're going to follow up on the e-mail issue Renee 5 talked about right before we break for lunch. So 6 rather than tail into that as we get into listening 7 to Randy and some of the programmatic aspects of what 8 he's going to be telling us, we will come back to 9 that so as Renee mentioned we will be able to handle 10 that today. 11 Yes, sir, Russell. 12 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: Hey, Tom. Over 13 the break Helen and I talked just a little bit more 14 about the EIS and the NRP process, and one point that 15 we discussed that we thought might be important to 16 mention is I think it's important for TVA to make 17 sure that the public understands that there will be a 18 regular review and refreshment period, that every so 19 often with this NRP, whether it's three years, five 20 years or whatever, TVA is going to look at this and 21 kind of revise and renew their take on these 22 scenarios and policy. 23 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you. 24 I appreciate that input. 25 Okay. Unless anybody else has any 78 1 issues, what we're going to do is continue now with 2 Randy. We're going to begin to break into some of 3 programs and specific aspects of this process. 4 So I will turn it back to you, Randy. 5 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's correct, 6 Tom. As everyone recalls I set the context for 7 what's going to happen for the next three or four 8 hours. 9 We're going to talk through resource 10 area by resource area the specific programs within 11 each resource area. Again, it will be described in 12 terms of the breadth of options being considered. 13 As you recall, they were custodial all 14 the way to flagship, and that's the way these 15 presentations have been constructed. Again, we will 16 walk through resource area by resource area. 17 The first will be led by Hill Henry, 18 who is a biologist in the group, and he will walk us 19 through biological resources. 20 Hill. 21 MR. HILL HENRY: Hi, everybody. It's 22 good to be with you again. It's good to see your 23 faces and have a chance to interact with you like we 24 did the last time, I really enjoyed that. 25 What I am going to do today is talk 79 1 about biological resource management, but before I do 2 I wanted to mention that Bo Baxter was going to 3 present this material to you guys but he came -- 4 became ill this weekend and contacted me and asked me 5 to fill in for him. He expressed his regrets for not 6 being able to meet with you guys. 7 Bo and I have been working with a team 8 of biologists and recreation specialists to try to 9 develop these resource options for the biological 10 resource management component of the NRP. 11 As we did that, as you know working 12 with groups, you get a group of people together you 13 can't get anybody to agree on anything. So the 14 biologists got together with the recreation 15 specialists and we kicked around our ideas and 16 finally came up with some really good concepts. 17 Now, as we did that, as we worked 18 through that process, we made sure that we followed 19 two tenants the whole time we went through that 20 process. 21 One is to make sure that our proposed 22 options manage human use on the land, and we will 23 talk about that in more detail in a second. 24 Secondly, we also, as biologists, 25 wanted to make sure that we protect or enhance 80 1 biological value of our natural resources. 2 Now, as many of you know, I heard 3 several of you coming from North Alabama, some of you 4 travel quite a distance to get here, you're very well 5 aware that the Tennessee River Valley provides a lot 6 of diversity of habitats for wildlife, vegetation, 7 and endangered species. 8 Because of TVA lands in proximity to 9 the Tennessee River, our lands contribute to that 10 diversity. So it's a goal of ours to make sure that 11 we manage those the best way that we can. 12 As we did that, as we considered what 13 we were developing, we wanted to manage human use. 14 In doing so we would benefit biological resources of 15 the TVA lands while providing an avenue for people to 16 use those resources in a sustainable manner. That 17 was kind of our ultimate goal as a group to do that. 18 Now, as many of you know from the last 19 meeting that we had, the biological resources group 20 is quite diverse. It's got a lot of activities that 21 covers a lot of areas, dispersed recreation, and a 22 variety of things. 23 So in order to capture all of the 24 activities that we talked about the last time, which 25 was well over 50 activities, we have grouped 81 1 everything into more manageable buckets so they are 2 more easily workable. 3 Okay. So what I want to do is talk 4 about the -- we grouped them into five primary 5 categories, and we will go through each one of those 6 categories and talk about briefly the programs within 7 and basically put the sideboards up, talk about the 8 minimum and the maximum of the custodial versus the 9 flagship within those ranges. Okay. That's what we 10 will do. 11 Let's see. All right. The five areas 12 that we're going to be concentrating on, one is 13 dispersed recreation management, two is terrestrial 14 habitat management, land stewardship programs, 15 sensitive biological resource management, and public 16 outreach programs. As you can see, this is much more 17 manageable than what we were dealing with before. 18 For the new members that are here, 19 we're going to talk about some programs briefly. A 20 lot of the other members have heard about them in 21 great detail. I will be happy to stop at any moment 22 to answer any questions you might have about some of 23 these programs as we proceed. 24 Okay. First of all, we're going to 25 start with dispersed recreation. This surprised me 82 1 when we first got with our groups. Dispersed 2 recreation, I never have thought of it this way. 3 It's the primary use of TVA lands. 4 If you think about it, any one of us 5 around the table right now around the room could come 6 up with an example of dispersed recreation. Carol 7 may say that dispersed recreation involves blue rays, 8 canoeing, accessing land via the water, that type of 9 thing, and she would be right. Bruce, on the other 10 hand, may say that dispersed recreation is hunting or 11 fishing, things like that. 12 So we have got to come up with these 13 programs that capture all of that. In talking to the 14 recreation specialists, I have come to find out that 15 the most common uses of TVA lands, there are two of 16 them, I thought it was hunting, but in addition to 17 that is bank fishing and swimming. People like to 18 access the reservoir, plain and simple, and a lot of 19 you know that very well. So TVA lands provide a 20 conduit for people to access those reservoirs along 21 with other lands adjacent to the reservoir. 22 So what that does is it provides a lot 23 of human use pressure on those resources and around 24 the reservoir. So what we're trying to do is manage 25 that human use. 83 1 Yes, ma'am. 2 MS. AVIS KENNEDY: Avis Kennedy, Corps 3 of Engineers. I am curious about the estimate of six 4 million users, how that was arrived at. 5 MR. HILL HENRY: Well, I was surprised 6 by that number, too. Originally, we thought it was a 7 little bit lower than that, but ENTRIX ran a really 8 good analysis on that and came up with that variable 9 for us. 10 Is that something you will be talking 11 about? 12 MS. AVIS KENNEDY: And I am curious 13 about it because it seems low to me based on my 14 experience with dispersed recreation on the 15 Cumberland River. 16 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I can address 17 it later. 18 MS. AVIS KENNEDY: Okay. 19 MR. HILL HENRY: Thanks for your 20 question. 21 The first program is dispersed 22 recreation management. Again, we're going to talk 23 about the custodial aspect and then flagship aspect. 24 At the custodial level we're basically 25 going out and assessing what's going on on the 84 1 properties in a systematic manner. It's not as 2 aggressive as it can be, but it's as fast as we can 3 go right now. We're gathering a lot of information. 4 Ultimately at the custodial level, as 5 proposed, we would implement 15 dispersed recreation 6 management projects per year. In addition to that, 7 we will have eco-friendly recreational campaigns. 8 Basically we need to let the folks know where they 9 can go, what they can do, and what the rules are for 10 that. 11 Okay. If we hop over to the flagship 12 level, the opposite end of the spectrum, what we 13 would do is expand that to multi-year management 14 plans that are -- that take in a lot of a user input 15 from the public. 16 Okay. And in addition to that, we 17 would increase the number of projects we would 18 implement and we would also increase the education 19 that goes along with that. 20 One of the concepts that we're 21 floating around at that level is this idea of outdoor 22 clinics. Basically what that does is you would 23 invite the public to come and you would introduce 24 them to concepts to allow them to expand their 25 skillsets. Like if we want to take them and teach 85 1 people to kayak, for instance, or fly fish, we can 2 work with Trout Unlimited, for instance, and have 3 them come in and give a fly fishing school to the 4 public and provide that type of education. Okay. 5 That's just one idea. 6 All right. In terms of other portions 7 of dispersed recreation management, trails 8 management, right now we have 90 miles within our 9 trail system. Trail management, as some of you may 10 know, sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's 11 difficult. 12 When you have the big severe winter 13 storms like we just had in our area, that takes down 14 a lot of trees and it increases our amount of work 15 that we have to do on the trail maintenance. So your 16 levels of work can fluctuate over the years depending 17 on what's going on. 18 What we would like to do is 19 incorporate more local groups to assist with that. 20 When you get people attached to trails they really 21 get in there and do some good work, but you have got 22 to get out there and manage that workforce. 23 To expand that flagship level we would 24 look at creating more trails on TVA lands up to the 25 level of 20 miles per year. 86 1 Lastly within this first recreation 2 management, we have the Leave No Trace. Some of you 3 may know, this is a national program that establishes 4 criteria to minimize dispersed recreational impacts 5 to resources. It's kind of like a best management 6 practices-type thing associated with dispersed 7 recreation. 8 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah, Anda. 9 DFO ANDA RAY: Let me just clarify for 10 everyone, as we go through this over the next couple 11 of hours, what you should be looking at for comments 12 is this is the eight-lane highway. 13 So the custodial says that this is the 14 very least that TVA would do. So you have got to 15 think of the cost and finances associated with that. 16 The questions you might ask is why 100 acres, why not 17 50. 18 The flagship is the most that TVA 19 would do because it's the upper bounds, and you might 20 want to say, why not more, why not less. 21 So I just wanted to clarify that when 22 we're going through these custodial, these are not in 23 stone. This is what we need your input on to make 24 sure that we have the right eight-lane highway. So I 25 just to wanted clarify that. 87 1 MR. HILL HENRY: She's exactly right. 2 In the EIS that comes out we have a huge list of 3 activities that fall within that spectrum that will 4 be examined. Okay. So we're just kind of keeping 5 things very general at this point. 6 Terrestrial habitat management, we 7 have a few programs listed here, agricultural and 8 open lands management. Basically our open lands is a 9 small percentage of our overall land base because 10 most of our land base is forested at some level. 11 Okay. How we deal with most of our 12 agricultural lands is through ag. licenses. We have 13 local farmers, basically we create partnerships with 14 them, and this benefits local ag. inducements and 15 promotes TVA's -- it provides TVA with assistance in 16 managing the property basically. 17 The custodial level is 56,000 acres, 18 and we would just keep the current agreements in 19 place. 20 At the flagship level we will do that, 21 but we will also incorporate more integrated 22 management into those properties to make those areas 23 a little more than what they currently are, put in 24 wildlife corridors, that type of thing. 25 The next program is dewatering 88 1 projects. For the new members on the Council, we 2 have basically 90 watering units. They are on 3 Wheeler Reservoir in North Alabama and on Kentucky 4 Reservoir. 5 Yes. Did you have a question? 6 DR. KELLY TILLER: Can you confirm the 7 custodial level? I thought I heard you say 56,000, 8 but is it 5,600? 9 MR. HILL HENRY: I'm sorry. It's 10 5,600. You're correct. 11 DR. KELLY TILLER: Okay. 12 MR. HILL HENRY: The dewatering 13 projects are areas that when we made the reservoirs 14 we created some areas of very shallow water that were 15 conducive of mosquitoes. Okay. So they put in the 16 infrastructure to dewater those areas seasonally to 17 help control Malaria outbreaks and things like that, 18 but also to protect a lot of infrastructure like 19 railroads and highways that were in place that if 20 that water stayed on them all the time it may make 21 them unstable. All of that has been taken care of 22 now with the way we manage those areas. 23 Currently we go into partnership with 24 TWRA, Fish & Wildlife Service to manage those areas 25 for our waterfowl, and they have turned out to be 89 1 premier waterfowl areas in the Tennessee River 2 Valley. 3 At the custodial level we maintain the 4 current agreements and assessments, or assets rather, 5 that we have. 6 At the flagship level we would rebuild 7 some of the assets. We have some pumps and 8 infrastructure that may need to be modified or 9 updated, things of that nature, and that's something 10 we would look at up to the flagship level. 11 We would also promote those areas to 12 try to develop some ecotourism opportunities there 13 because these places are great birding areas. They 14 are great areas to go into with canoes and kayaks 15 when the hunting season is not going full blast, but 16 allow people to come in there and use them. They are 17 also used a lot by fishermen when they are flooded. 18 The next program is forest resource 19 management. Let's see. 250,000 of the 293,000 acres 20 are forested within TVA. 21 Yes, ma'am. 22 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: This may be going 23 into the IRP, the IRP round, but I know that some 24 utilities are looking at wood products to offset 25 their energy profile. 90 1 Is TVA looking at that and would the 2 flagship program be -- it says to implement forest -- 3 to implement and develop a forest resource program, 4 would that be used to create that sort of biosolid or 5 biofuels? 6 DFO ANDA RAY: I think that, yes, 7 we're looking at it. But to get to the NRP, I think 8 that's probably a comment that we need to capture to 9 make sure that we address whether this is for -- we 10 look at forestation of hardwoods for carbon 11 sequestration or for actual harvesting of hardwoods 12 for biomass energy options. 13 So thank you for that. We will make 14 sure that we clarify. 15 MR. HILL HENRY: Very good. Does that 16 answer your question? 17 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Yes. Thanks. 18 MR. HILL HENRY: Okay. Sure. 250,000 19 of the 293,000 acres on TVA lands are forested. 20 Currently at the custodial level we basically operate 21 in a maintenance mode, that means if we have issues 22 with dangered trees and things like that that could 23 cause a public health issue we go in there and take 24 care of them quickly. 25 Sometimes if we have outbreaks of pine 91 1 beetles that are going to go over on to adjacent 2 landowners, we can go in and take care of those 3 situations too. For the most part, the forestry and 4 management activities are -- we handle them on an 5 as-needed basis. 6 Okay. At the flagship level what we 7 would do -- and within that whole spectrum we would 8 look at developing and implementing a forest resource 9 program inventory to assets, that type of thing, see 10 what all we have and how best to manage those, do 11 something a little more comprehensive. 12 Wildlife habitat enhancement 13 partnerships, currently we have 750 acres that we go 14 into partnership with people like -- groups like 15 Quail Unlimited, Wild Turkey Federation, groups like 16 that, to go in and enhance those properties to 17 benefit wildlife, and that's basically what that 18 program is about. 19 Under the flagship option and within 20 that spectrum, we would increase the level or number 21 of partnerships and agreements and build that program 22 up to 40,000 acres annually. 23 Lastly under -- well, for this page 24 wildlife habitat Council, third-party certifications, 25 under the custodial level currently we have four of 92 1 those that are certified. We have one at Raccoon 2 Mountain, a pump storage facility, Muscle Shoals 3 Reservation, Cumberland -- I'm sorry, Colbert Fossil 4 Plant, and then the tailwaters release program is 5 also certified by the Wildlife Habitat Council. 6 And basically the benefit of that is 7 that you're having a third-party entity come and look 8 at what you're doing and recognize what you're doing. 9 I mean, we can work with TWRA and the federal 10 agencies all the time, but the fact that we have a 11 third-party entity coming in like that that's not 12 associated with either one of us is a really good 13 thing. 14 So custodial level is to keep the 15 current level of projects that we have, maintain 16 those. 17 All the way up to flagship, we would 18 promote up to five additional projects, and 19 ultimately promote projects that support up to 20 10 percent of TVA's land assets. 21 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Question. 22 MR. HILL HENRY: Yes, ma'am. 23 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: The order these 24 are within the different categories of terrestrial 25 and dispersed, is there a reason for that or is it -- 93 1 I mean, are we kind of treating them all equal in 2 looking at the resources we put them in? Is there a 3 priority on them? 4 MR. HILL HENRY: All of the individual 5 programs are equal, but we just put them in these 6 buckets so that they are more easily manageable as we 7 talk about them. 8 For instance, the next bucket we're 9 going to be dealing with is basically tools. So we 10 just kind of grouped them all in one little group. 11 It doesn't mean one grouping has priority over 12 another. 13 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I guess what 14 I'm asking is within this category, the difference in 15 agriculture and open lands versus forest resource 16 versus dewatering, the cost of doing the flagship or 17 custodial is different on each one. I was just 18 wondering if there was any rhyme or reason or any way 19 of knowing that you're saying, okay, if we do this 20 one we're putting a lot of resources here versus this 21 one which doesn't cost as much to do, you know, in 22 either human capital or actual capital. 23 Is that a hard question? I mean, I'm 24 not sure I'm asking it well. 25 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: If I may speak, 94 1 Randy McAdams, I think the question is -- Hill, if I 2 might interpret it right, Deb, is there a rationale 3 for the sequencing of the program in that left-hand 4 column, and I think the answer is, no, this is just a 5 way to present it. 6 MR. HILL HENRY: No. 7 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Because what I 8 was trying to figure out is if you -- if I look over 9 at flagship, the cost on them, and I don't have a 10 clue in terms of staff or money what it takes to be 11 flagship in one or the other, and so I didn't know if 12 there was any weighting internally in looking at how 13 it was or whether it was just saying we're taking the 14 levels we're currently at with each of these and 15 we're looking at ramping up proportionately or 16 whether we've made a decision of more on this or 17 that. 18 DFO ANDA RAY: I do understand what 19 she's saying. These are the categories and the staff 20 and experts have said, this is custodial, this is 21 flagship. The next part of the process is, how much 22 does it cost to be custodial and flagship? Then 23 ENTRIX will come in and say, how do we weight that? 24 Just because this cost $10 and this cost $10, maybe 25 this $10 gets weighted 110 percent and so it gets a 95 1 higher priority. 2 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: This is a dream 3 list. 4 DFO ANDA RAY: This is the boundary, 5 the dream list, and then they will put costs 6 associated with them and work on the prioritization. 7 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Okay. Thank 8 you. 9 MR. HILL HENRY: The ENTRIX discussion 10 that we have later on today will really shed some 11 light on that and the values and dollars associated 12 with that type of thing. That's a very good 13 question. 14 Okay. The last section for 15 terrestrial habitat management, non-invasive plants, 16 non-native invasive plants rather, you know, we have 17 an Executive Order to deal with invasive species, and 18 that's what this is addressing. 19 You know, to keep that -- to put that 20 in perspective, for those of you who drive back to 21 North Alabama you're going to see Chinese Privet on 22 every hedge row in North Alabama and along the banks 23 of the river all the way back. 24 Is there anything we could 25 considerably do with that, especially with the 96 1 abundance of that plant on back-lying lands, I don't 2 think so. 3 I think what we can do is do targeted 4 projects that look at and identify new types of 5 invasive species that are growing on their property 6 and dealing with them up front. The literature 7 suggests that that's a much more effective way to 8 deal with that than going out and trying to do 9 something broad scale, like trying to address the 10 issue of Chinese Privet. Okay. Cogongrass, things 11 of that nature, when it comes into the Valley we're 12 monitoring for that. 13 So what the invasive plant program 14 would do is basically we would take the results of 15 the land condition assessments that our guys out on 16 the ground do, and when they identify issues like 17 that that needs to be addressed it will be 18 prioritized and we will handle that in a prioritized 19 manner. That's at the custodial level. 20 At the flagship level, the other end 21 of the spectrum, we would expand that to where we 22 would be looking at 40,000 acres per year. We would 23 become more involved in the State Exotic Pest Plant 24 Councils. We already do touch base with them and we 25 actually have some staff on those councils, but we 97 1 could take a larger role with that group. 2 Nuisance animal management, I 3 discussed this in great detail last tame. Basically 4 we have issues with feral animals, cats that are 5 deposited on TVA reservations. Muscle Shoals has -- 6 is a prime example of that taking place. We have 7 that throughout the Valley. It's not just there. 8 We also have issues with birds, Avian 9 issues where birds get on power line structures and 10 short out those and it actually damages assets. So 11 what we do right now at the custodial level is deal 12 with that on a project-by-project basis. 13 The flagship level would entail 14 developing programmatic guidelines to where we handle 15 things systematically. The problem is TVA is so 16 large, as with any other large federal entity, and we 17 often have people in one part of the Valley dealing 18 with issues one way and other people dealing with it 19 another way. We need to do it systematically in the 20 same way and approach it in a programmatic manner. 21 That's what flagship and several other options 22 between flagship and custodial would address. 23 Lastly, terrestrial greenhouse gas 24 management, that sort of gets into where you were 25 going. Right now we are developing a plan to examine 98 1 how to become involved with that. We have a small 2 little project. It's called an Integrated Carbon 3 Sequestration Environmental Stewardship Pilot Project 4 that we're doing at Watts Bar Dam. There's a parcel 5 there that we're examining. 6 We're letting the folks come in and 7 examine how to do carbon sequestration there while at 8 the same time incorporating a wildlife habitat, 9 management techniques so we can, you know, do 10 multiple things at one time, achieve multiple goals 11 at one site. 12 Let's see. Basically what we will do 13 there is if we go all the way up to the other end of 14 the spectrum of the flagship, we would expand the 15 research program to about 250 acres per year and try 16 to develop demonstration projects, keeping in mind 17 that this will not ultimately offset TVA's 18 contribution to the greenhouse gas issue. 19 Okay. But what we can do is provide a 20 leadership role or go out there and demonstrate some 21 really good processes that can be absorbed by the 22 industry as a whole. 23 Land stewardship programs, this is 24 basically a toolbox of tools that we use to help 25 prioritize our work, okay, and keep us in compliance. 99 1 The land condition assessment, you 2 have heard about that. You have heard that term 3 passed around. We also call it the LCA. The land 4 stewardship maintenance checklist, those are tools 5 that we use to identify issues on our properties and 6 to prioritize our work so we can hit the hard spots 7 really fast and focus our efforts as best we can at 8 the best places. 9 The LCA examines a suite of variables 10 to see if TVA lands meet their desired condition. 11 Okay. It really drives a lot of what our future work 12 is going to be doing. There are many variables that 13 are measured in LCA, but basically they are captured 14 under four categories. 15 Public health, we want to identify 16 anything that can harm the public out there and 17 address it immediately. Second of all, we want to 18 protect sensitive resources. Thirdly, address issues 19 with soil and water and erosion, that type of thing, 20 and then vegetation and wildlife issues. That's what 21 that tool allows us to do. 22 At the custodial level evaluate 20,000 23 acres annually. Whatever the highest needs are, 24 that's what gets the focus. 25 Okay. On the flagship, we will kick 100 1 that up to 50,000 acres annually and increase our 2 focus to identify those areas that need to have 3 remediation on them so that they will meet their 4 desired condition basically. 5 Next is the natural resource 6 management implementation plan. Currently we have 7 ten unit plans that we developed around 1998 to 2000, 8 2001, that time period, and these plans are basically 9 small plans that look at a variety or a collection of 10 units that we manage collectively. They are very 11 comprehensive. They have all the NEPA work already 12 done on them. They have a lot of public input in 13 them. The public there at those sites really get 14 involved and say, we want X, Y, and Z to happen on 15 these properties, and that is what we try to address. 16 Under the custodial level we will 17 focus implement -- continued implementation of those 18 unit plans. 19 At the flagship level, we will develop 20 and implement plans on the five reservoirs annually. 21 What we're doing there is expanding that unit concept 22 to a reservoir concept to where we have a very 23 comprehensive land management program per reservoir. 24 Okay. They are very comprehensive. 25 That's the point I want you to understand is with the 101 1 biological resources management, a lot of these 2 activities that we are involved in are interrelated. 3 So it's best to handle those things collectively in 4 an integrated fashion. 5 The TVA Regional Natural Heritage 6 Database and Wetlands Database, these are tools that 7 we use to help us comply with various regulations. 8 Currently we use them in a compliance process for the 9 most part, but that's not all together true because 10 we also use them with some management aspects as 11 well. 12 Under the flagship program what we 13 would do is we would expand those to incorporate a 14 lot of these regional conservation cooperative-type 15 initiatives that are taking place in the Valley and 16 also try to, you know, do some modeling and that type 17 of thing so we can model where all the bald eagle 18 sites and potential habitat for the bald eagle would 19 be, for instance, in the Valley, do something like 20 that. 21 Lastly within this group is the 22 boundary maintenance. It's not so much a tool as it 23 is a process. As I have said many times before, it's 24 a fundamental land management action that takes 25 place. 102 1 When you mark the boundary you're 2 letting people know where a TVA asset is and it lets 3 you know where the TVA asset is, TVA. So that will 4 help us better with our enforcement and help us 5 identify management issues that we may not be able to 6 address currently because we're not sure where that 7 line lies. 8 Okay. So right now we're just 9 handling that on the highest priorities first. For 10 instance, you know, right now we don't really need to 11 be concerned about where the boundary is when the 12 back-lying landowner is the Forest Service, you know, 13 we work together and that's not really a big issue. 14 If it's some type of development going 15 in or something like that, we need to know where that 16 boundary is specifically. I am sure the Corps deals 17 with very similar issues related to that. 18 At the flagship level we will develop 19 a five-year cycle of boundary maintenance. We will 20 go in and hit that routinely on a five-year basis. 21 Any questions at this point? 22 Sensitive biological resources, the 23 key facts I have expressed this several times, TVA 24 region is one of the most biological and significant 25 areas in the U.S. We have a lot of species that are 103 1 only found in this region, and the TVA lands have 2 contributed to that overall diversity of those 3 species. 4 TVA is actively involved in managing 5 those sites for sensitive resources. We will talk 6 about -- more about that when we get to endangered 7 species just briefly. 8 Conservation planning, right now we 9 have limited efforts and involvements with 10 conservation planning with various entities. What 11 we're looking at in the flagship option is to become 12 involved with these regional landscape conservation 13 cooperatives. 14 Basically that's an initiative by the 15 Fish & Wildlife Service in conjunction with other 16 federal and state agencies where people get -- we all 17 get together, the various agencies, and we 18 collectively address conservation issues together, 19 you know, budgets are tight, we're losing staff, and 20 of all the agencies we were told again and again that 21 that was a big issue. So it behooves us to pool our 22 limited resources together and address these issues 23 collectively. When you do that with our combined 24 land base together, that really makes an impact in 25 the Southeast in terms of biological resources and 104 1 cultural resources. 2 So basically at the flagship level 3 we're going to become more involved in those. And 4 one statement we did hear is, where is TVA at the 5 table? Y'all used to be at the table and you need to 6 be at the table with us, and that's what we would be 7 examining under the flagship option. 8 Endangered and threatened species 9 program, currently at the custodial level, continue 10 compliance and voluntary monitoring of our 11 populations. We have several populations we monitor. 12 There are nine species we monitor routinely at 40 13 sites. 14 Okay. What can you do beyond 15 monitoring? The monitoring results tell you 16 something. So what can we do beyond that to help 17 benefit the species? That's what the flagship option 18 would do is help us ramp that up. Again, we're 19 talking about s spectrum here. 20 Migratory bird management, at the 21 custodial level we would comply with the Executive 22 Order, you know, our federal responsibilities for 23 migratory birds. When we do environmental 24 assessments we make sure we address issues with 25 migratory birds. When we do land management 105 1 activities, we try to incorporate items that benefit 2 migratory birds. 3 At the flagship level we will try to 4 -- we would expand that to a much larger scale. We 5 would look at these dewatering units. Yes, they are 6 fantastic for waterfowl, they are a fantastic 7 resource for waterfowl, but can they be used for 8 other species as well? Can we bump up the diversity 9 there? That's what we would be looking at. 10 We also have the Tennessee River 11 Valley Shorebird Working Group that we just 12 completed. It was a fantastic collaboration with 13 federal agencies, and we all worked together to 14 address -- to identify where shorebirds are in the 15 Valley. We just didn't know collectively where they 16 were, and now we know. 17 On the Natural Areas Program, 154 18 natural areas at the custodial level. Monitor them 19 at a three-year cycle. When we're doing our land 20 condition assessments, that's one of the areas we 21 target, the natural areas, to go in and identify any 22 issues we need to address. 23 At the flagship level, we would 24 develop formal areas -- natural areas and management 25 plans that are a little more comprehensive. We would 106 1 also be a little more rigorous about nominating 2 areas. I have got one site in mind already that I am 3 working on a plan for that would make a good natural 4 area, an ecological study area, it's very unique, and 5 that's the type of thing we would be looking at. 6 Lastly is wetlands management. We 7 would continue to comply with the Executive Order to 8 protect wetlands. 9 At the flagship level we would develop 10 a programmatic methodology for dealing with wetlands 11 collectively and providing the policy to TVA on how 12 to deal with wetlands. Right now we kind of deal 13 with it on a project-by-project basis. 14 All right. Last slide. Just to give 15 you a perspective, the last time this took an hour 16 and 15 minutes. So we've been able to cut it down 17 quite a bit. 18 Public outreach, I can boil this down 19 in just a basic phrase, we need to communicate with 20 the public to tell them how to use TVA lands, where 21 they can use TVA lands, where they cannot use TVA 22 lands. 23 I see a TVA police officer in the back 24 shaking his head. I have talked to several of those 25 guys in the past and they get questions all the time, 107 1 where can I go hunting? Can I go hunting on the dam 2 reservation? The answer is no. What they always say 3 is, give me a map where I can just pull it out and 4 show it to the people and let them see where they can 5 go hunting. 6 When I am in the gas stations near TVA 7 lands I always ask them, what can we do better with 8 the TVA lands? They always says, give me a map, 9 plain and simple. That's a need that we have out 10 there. 11 So the environmental education program 12 and the other associated activities would be an 13 attempt to address some of those things. Currently, 14 for the most part, we deal with that on the web site, 15 but not everybody has a computer. So we have got to 16 be able to address that. 17 Under environmental education, it's a 18 public outreach effort to teach select audiences 19 about biological and cultural resources. We need to 20 tell people what we're doing out there and why we're 21 doing it and get their buy-in, plain and simple. 22 Some agencies do this well. I mean, 23 you guys have a really, really, really good volunteer 24 program, it's exemplary. Other agencies don't do it 25 well. So we need to figure out how we're going to 108 1 play, what we're going to do, and when we do get 2 involved do it the right way. 3 Okay. Natural resource communication, 4 basically that's where we go out and tell folks what 5 we're doing, I've touched that basically. 6 The flagship aspect of that is 7 increase our web presence a little bit more, put some 8 educational-type information out there to explain why 9 we're doing warm season grasses, that type of thing, 10 let the public know. 11 Resource stewardship campaigns, that's 12 something very similar. That's something we would do 13 under the flagship initiative. We would -- it's 14 basically educate and provide technical support for 15 resource initiatives that are out there, whether they 16 are ours or somebody else's. 17 We have a lot of expertise on TVA's 18 staff that people come to on occasion, quite often 19 frankly, and we need to be there to answer those 20 types of questions and provide that information to 21 those people, that expertise. 22 Lastly, the volunteer program, we need 23 to at the custodial level establish a volunteer 24 program. Here's the issue with volunteers, they are 25 a great workforce, but if you don't manage that 109 1 workforce it comes and goes. It's very cyclical. 2 People get really excited about new 3 projects. They want to get out there and get 4 involved. Then once they do, it kind of fizzles out. 5 You have got to have somebody dedicated to 6 maintaining those -- that connection with the 7 volunteer workforce. 8 At the flagship level we would -- yes, 9 sir. 10 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Kelly. 11 DR. KELLY TILLER: I wanted to go back 12 to the Resource Stewardship Campaign, since that's 13 not something or an activity that you're currently 14 doing, could you give us some examples of what those 15 directed resource initiatives might be? 16 MR. HILL HENRY: Let's see. It's 17 escaping me at the moment. 18 Jason, do you have any -- anything 19 that you know of? 20 MR. JASON MITCHELL: I don't. Some of 21 the other folks may. I don't know. 22 MR. HILL HENRY: What I will do is I 23 will make a call to the guy afterwards, he's waiting 24 for me, and I will get some examples for you right 25 off the bat. 110 1 Basically, as I understand it, those 2 are initiatives that can be external to TVA, and we 3 would become involved in them to help move those 4 projects. Then we can also become a partner 5 associated with that to contribute our land base to 6 that overall initiative. That's my understanding, 7 but I will get some clarification for you. 8 Okay. Lastly the volunteer program, 9 the flagship, emphasize the program more. Provide a 10 stronger, major education implementation tool to help 11 nurture that and keep those connections with the 12 volunteer workforce growing. 13 Some examples I have heard is get 14 involved with the -- is it volunteer.org, Tiffany? 15 There's a volunteer.org that we can 16 get involved with that helps people know where they 17 can volunteer on TVA lands, that type of thing. 18 Well, that's it, that's all I have. 19 Just briefly I want to appreciate -- I want to tell 20 you that I appreciate you guys being here. We really 21 do value your input, and we thank you for taking time 22 to interact with us. 23 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Any 24 questions for Hill? 25 Okay. Randy. 111 1 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Thank you, Hill. 2 We will now continue into the next resource area of 3 discussion, which is around cultural resources. 4 Maybe two quick points that I would like to make 5 prior to that. 6 First of all, Anda, thank for you 7 reminding me. I meant to make the points you made 8 about the eight-lane highway prior to Hill going 9 through his presentation. 10 I might direct everybody to the 11 questions that Tom pointed out at the beginning of 12 the meeting, and really question No. 2 is exactly the 13 point that Anda made. I meant to emphasize that. 14 It's really asking the group, you 15 know, about the discussion that we're going to spend 16 much of the day on about these options that we're 17 talking through. So, Anda, thank you for reminding 18 me of that. So that's one of the fundamental 19 questions that's being put to this group. 20 Secondly, just maybe an administrative 21 task, as everybody knows we asked the RRSC members 22 for their thoughts on weighting of the different 23 benefits that we're going to talk about later today. 24 We got responses from a number of you but not from 25 all, and I think we have got that tool that ENTRIX 112 1 helped us develop in this room. Beth Keel back there 2 is holding them up. I think it takes ten minutes to 3 fill out or so. 4 So for those of you who have not 5 filled that out and want to maybe at lunch take ten 6 minutes to fill it out and hand it in to us, we will 7 make sure it gets incorporated as part of the 8 process. So just a quick administrative 9 announcement. 10 With that we will now go into the next 11 area, which is cultural resources. To lead us 12 through that discussion is Eric Howard. Eric is the 13 manager of cultural compliance. 14 Eric. 15 MR. ERIC HOWARD: Thank you very much 16 for having me here. TVA is a responsible agency for 17 complying with cultural resource legislation. 18 Cultural resources is a general term for what we use 19 a lot for the term historic properties. What 20 historic properties are is historic items that have a 21 certain level of significance. We even use historic 22 items today at our plant sites. 23 Historic sites are where an event 24 occurred that was of some regional or national 25 importance. That could be a Civil War battlefield. 113 1 Also, historic structures that even TVA manages 2 today, such as their dams or plant sites. And 3 lastly, archeological resources that have information 4 now that are important to prehistory and history. 5 With that, the next slide, please. 6 There are two major components in the 7 cultural resource management of the NRP, and that's 8 compliance with this federal legislation and 9 partnerships and public education which will tier off 10 of that as more of a flagship aspect than just 11 custodial. 12 In cultural resource management we 13 have the National Historic Preservation Act, and this 14 was passed in the 1960s from the concerns of the 15 public that the government had historic properties 16 under their purview that they needed to consider for 17 preservation. 18 Then there was also another act of 19 legislation class called the Archeological Resources 20 Protection Act, which was to address the looting that 21 had been going on federal properties as well as 22 adjacent development that had occurred and encroached 23 on federal lands. 24 The Native American Grace Protection 25 and Repatriation Act was to address the archeological 114 1 collections that federal agencies had accumulated 2 over time. During the construction of these dams and 3 plants TVA did a lot of intensive and archeological 4 investigations, and we did acquire quite a bit of 5 material that includes cultural items that are of 6 significance to Native Americans as well that may 7 involve human remains, associated funerary objects, 8 and other items of cultural patrimony. 9 Then there are additional Executive 10 Orders that kind of work together in relationship to 11 these other acts of legislation of extensions of 12 consultation procedures as well as partnerships. 13 With cultural resource partnerships, 14 we are looking at partnering with universities as 15 well as other groups, other police enforcement 16 groups, and then there's public outreach programs 17 that we are also considering. 18 We're going to be executing a 19 programmatic agreement to address the effects of the 20 NRP on cultural resources, and we're doing that in 21 consultation with the State Historic Presentation 22 Officers in the seven-state region, the Advisory 23 Council on Historic Preservation, federally 24 recognized tribes, as well as additional stakeholders 25 that have interest in the area. 115 1 Under the -- sorry. The National 2 Historic Preservation Act, Section 106 Compliance, we 3 will continue, even in a custodial fashion, to follow 4 through with the existing regulations. 5 Section 106 is referenced to any kind 6 of action that TVA may be involved in, whether that's 7 finding a project or project that's a development of 8 their own or permitting a project to be conducted. 9 We will follow mitigation obligations 10 that we already have in existing programmatic 11 agreements and memorandum of agreements. We would 12 further implement the standards and procedures that 13 we have set forth. 14 In a flagship program we would look to 15 go further detailing the programs that we have in a 16 manner to streamline the consultation process with 17 the tribes, the State Historic Preservation Officers, 18 the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. 19 Those would be repetitive actions that 20 we do that might be able to speed up those kinds of 21 projects without such delays that can happen if 22 there's really no adverse effects to historic 23 properties. 24 Also, development of emergency 25 procedures to address disasters that could occur on 116 1 our lands. We currently have those in the 2 regulations. However, this would be more in tune 3 with TVA's needs specifically. 4 The native American Consultation and 5 the Native American Grace Protection and Repatriation 6 Act, over the last 20 years the President, as well as 7 other agencies, have included in consultation 8 procedures the Native American Tribes to meet the 9 demands of the Executive Orders, as well as including 10 them because they are a valuable stakeholder in that 11 process. 12 Along TVA lands we have 11,500 13 archeological sites that are recorded, and these 14 individuals have a vested interest in that material 15 as well as providing input on how we manage those. 16 The consultation process goes beyond 17 just the projects that we do but also looking at 18 meaningful dialogue to develop and improve and adjust 19 TVA's strategies on those consultation procedures. 20 We have a consultation workshop every five years 21 currently, as well as suggested in the custodial 22 level. We are in a flagship proposal looking at 23 doing that every two years. 24 Please go back to the next slide. 25 Also, we are -- we have noticed in 117 1 these consultation workshops that the major topic of 2 interest to Native American groups is the Native 3 American Grace Protection and Repatriation Act. 4 So what we are planning to do with 5 that is, whether it's custodial or flagship, to 6 follow through with the regulations set forth in that 7 legislation; and that is, to inventory the items that 8 we have, submit inventory of completion information, 9 and consult with museums and tribes to try to 10 culturally affiliate this material so we can transfer 11 control of those items to the appropriate tribe. 12 Thank you. Next. 13 We also have a preservation program 14 listed. This is under Section 110 of the National 15 Historic Preservation Act, and we have had this for a 16 number of years. We have different actions and 17 activities that are involved in this program. 18 We look at our lands for archeological 19 sites and try to identify areas that may be of more 20 concern. We look -- at a custodial level we would be 21 looking at about 1,000 acres a year and up to 5,000 22 acres a year, depending on the funding level, of 23 course. 24 We would also develop a comprehensive 25 database under our custodial option which would be 118 1 used as an effective and efficient means of managing 2 those resources on our lands. We would further 3 implement the standards and procedures that we have 4 already set forth. 5 On doing these types of surveys, 6 whether they are with historic structures or 7 archeological sites, part of what we are required to 8 do as well is to list items on the National Register 9 that have some greater degree of importance. 10 I'd say on average about 25 percent of 11 our archeological sites meet the criteria of 12 eligibility for this National Register. However, we 13 would not go through the effort of the getting over 14 2,500 sites listed. So we would look at two sites or 15 structures or any historic items or historic sites 16 listing those per year in a custodial approach. If 17 we were to go with flagship, we would look at listing 18 six of those or submitting those for listing. 19 Also, for traditional cultural 20 properties, we look at those under any kind of 21 projects that we're involved in. A traditional 22 cultural property is an area that has some form of 23 significance of tradition or cultural identity to a 24 regional group or Native American tribe. 25 So we would look at that custodially 119 1 through any of the projects, but if we were to go 2 flagship we would partner with them to actively 3 identify those traditional culture properties. 4 Next slide, please. 5 Also, in our preservation program we 6 have some historic data, historic photograph 7 collection, historic agency information, as well as 8 historic cemetery data. The historic photograph 9 collection contains 17,000 photo negatives which we 10 have been scanning and preserving over the years, 11 which we will continue to maintain. 12 During the inundation of the 13 reservoirs we relocated a number of graves, about 14 20,000 of those. We maintain a database of those 15 locations for the public to access on the web site if 16 they are inclined to do so. 17 And if we were to go flagship, we 18 would continue to maintain this type of information 19 but would make more of an interface that was more 20 user-friendly to the public to access the cemetery 21 data. 22 We would also maintain the historic 23 artifact collection. There are currently about 24 35,000 artifacts that TVA maintains, records and 25 movies as well. You may have seen some of these in 120 1 displays in some of the TVA buildings that you have 2 been in. So we would continue to maintain those even 3 in under custodial or flagship. 4 However, some of that in a flagship 5 may be considered in other types of flagship programs 6 as well as some of this historic information. 7 We would also conduct historic 8 structure surveys. We have about 5,200 or so 9 structures that are on TVA lands or adjacent to TVA 10 lands that we are aware of. We would further address 11 and review those to see if they still met the 12 criteria of a historic structure, and we would 13 utilize that information in a flagship program for 14 other types of activities. 15 As previously mentioned, archeological 16 monitoring is of an interest to other stakeholders 17 within the Valley as well as a protection of those 18 resources. We are proposing to continue to conduct 19 archeological monitoring of sites. 20 Those along the shorelines, as well as 21 the caves, they can be impacted due to just 22 recreational use, erosion or vandalism. So we tend 23 to address those and try to stabilize them if we can. 24 There's different types of stabilization procedures. 25 One we use in most cases is what we 121 1 call riprapping the shoreline, and that's where we 2 hard armor the shoreline to protect the property as 3 well as the resources there. It also has a secondary 4 benefit because it deters looting, which is also 5 still occurring on TVA lands. 6 We are proposing under a custodial 7 level for shoreline monitoring looking at 150 miles 8 of shoreline a year up to 500 miles of shoreline a 9 year for the flagship. Then the stabilization of 10 areas that seemed to be getting highly impacted will 11 be up to .6 miles of stabilization in custodial and 12 up to 2 miles in flagship. 13 The Archeological Resources Protection 14 Act is -- excuse me. 15 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: On the 16 shoreline stabilization, is this stabilization just 17 as it relates to the archeological site as opposed to 18 stabilization that might relate to something else in 19 the -- 20 MR. ERIC HOWARD: Yes, this is 21 specifically related to archeology. 22 For the Archeological Resources 23 Protection Act, we have a lot of support from the TVA 24 police, as well as other law enforcement groups in 25 the area, to deter the looting and destruction of 122 1 sites. 2 There are both criminal and civil 3 penalties involved with the Archeological Resources 4 Protection Act. We will be pursuing both of those 5 with the support of these resources. 6 If we were to proceed with the 7 custodial, the security checks would be performed by 8 TVA police on an as-reported incident. If it was up 9 to a flagship level, we would have support of 10 officers, as well as partnerships with these other 11 agencies, to provide at least 5,000 site visits. 12 These are specifically where 13 archeological sites are present that may be of 14 additional concern of looking at how we can protect 15 them. 16 Developing codified regulations, which 17 we do not currently have, but to help support the 18 police and enforcement of trying to establish 19 prohibiting removal of artifacts from TVA lands. 20 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: Can you give an 21 example of what those regulations might be as far as 22 prohibiting the removal of artifacts and historic 23 items that goes above and beyond ARPA? 24 MR. ERIC HOWARD: It would be able to 25 cite them. We would be about to cite them there 123 1 which -- and potentially fine them, that would have 2 to be further defined by the legal counsel, I 3 believe, but it would give them more of a -- we're 4 talking of something of ARPA and we're looking at 5 them taking any kind of artifact, yes, it would go in 6 line with ARPA but it would have something tangible 7 for them at that time. 8 What we have -- the concern is there's 9 different states that -- we approach things 10 differently in different states, and we want to make 11 it consistent like other agencies do on their lands. 12 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: So you're 13 talking about a civil penalty that doesn't involve 14 taking it to the U.S. Attorney? 15 MR. ERIC HOWARD: Yes. 16 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: I understand 17 what you're saying. 18 MR. ERIC HOWARD: That's what we like. 19 Next slide, please. 20 Whereas, the conversation so far has 21 been about preservation and protection of historic 22 properties, the Preserve America is an excellent 23 example of how to promote those historic properties 24 to be utilized by local communities for an economic 25 benefit. 124 1 We would continue to do adaptive 2 re-use studies of our historic structures, which we 3 continually use our plant sites for that, but we also 4 have other historic structures that could be utilized 5 by the local community and we are considering those. 6 We would like to in a flagship 7 direction partner with heritage tourism, as well as 8 partner with local communities, to preserve and 9 utilize those types of facilities. 10 We would continue to submit the 11 progress reports that we currently do under Preserve 12 America and would look toward partnerships through 13 heritage tourism of actively pursuing local 14 communities or other stakeholders of looking at three 15 to five partners a year. 16 We would, for just partnerships 17 external of Preserve America, look at partnering with 18 universities to actively conduct archeological 19 studies on our lands. We have done that from time to 20 time. 21 In the past we have considered these 22 requests, but in a flagship program we would actively 23 pursue and fund part of these or partner with them. 24 We'd also provide research grants, 25 which we do not do at this point or in the custodial 125 1 level, but we would consider up to one to two grants 2 a year for academic or non-academic publications that 3 would promote ARPA or the Archeological Resources 4 Protection Act. 5 Next slide, please. 6 And that leads us to the public 7 outreach. What we have there is this would be more 8 of an extension of flagship opportunities for TVA, 9 but there are some custodial aspects as well. 10 We would incorporate a corporate 11 history program, and that corporate history program 12 would involve an oral history program which would 13 contain interviews of present and past TVA employees 14 of who contributed to how TVA has developed over 15 time. We have current recordings of those, but we 16 would also supplement those with new recordings of 17 remaining TVA employees. 18 Also, it would include the web site -- 19 interactive website for the cemetery database, as 20 well as potentially a museum that would or possibly 21 could curate archeological material or be a research 22 location for the public, as well as providing 23 historical information. We would update the TVA 24 timeline up to TVA's -- up to the present date as 25 well. 126 1 We would continue with the 2 archeological outreach that we already have going on 3 with three to five events a year. That's where we go 4 and speak to school groups, as well as other 5 societies or interested groups that may request it 6 from us, but we could actively pursue 10 to 15 events 7 a year in a flagship and five to ten partners which 8 could assist us through this kind of development and 9 extension to be a national leader. 10 That's what I've got for cultural. 11 Any questions? 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Any 13 questions for Eric? 14 Okay. Thank you, Eric. Appreciate 15 it. 16 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: The last resource 17 area we will talk through prior to lunch is water 18 resource management. 19 And Tom, you had asked a question 20 earlier about how does the Reservoir Operations Study 21 dovetail with the NRP, I think this discussion may 22 get at that. 23 To lead us through that is Tiffany 24 Foster. Tiffany is a specialist in partnerships and 25 educational outreach. 127 1 So, Tiffany, the floor is yours. 2 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Good morning. I 3 am the last one before lunch, that's always kind of a 4 tenuous place to be, but hopefully y'all will bear 5 with me. 6 So as Randy mentioned, my name is 7 Tiffany Foster, and I'm a partnerships and outreach 8 education specialist for land and shoreline 9 management. So basically I provide support to our 10 recreation folks and our natural resource management 11 folks in our water quality in building partnerships 12 and kind of expanding some of our outreach programs. 13 Today we're going to focus on the 14 water resource management section during my talk. 15 Next slide. 16 I guess I am going to kind of back up 17 to hit on what some of you guys were asking about of 18 what's covered in what plans, when we have taken the 19 Natural Resource Plan out to our folks we have had 20 some good discussion and comments on, hey, TVA has 21 some great water programs, why don't I see them in 22 the Natural Resource Plan or kind of what happened to 23 some of these programs. 24 So I thought it might be good if we 25 kind of refreshed our memory on what was included 128 1 within the scope of the Natural Resource Plan and 2 what was in some of these other plans that we have 3 already gone over. 4 So two of the programs that folks were 5 asking about were the work that TVA does to reduce 6 thermal impacts that are related to our power plants, 7 and those programs are included in the Integrated 8 Resource Plan. That's in the left-hand column. 9 One of the other big questions we got 10 out from what you guys were talking about was, what's 11 included in the Reservation Operations Study, and 12 that addresses some of the work that we do that 13 involves the aeration of the rivers downstream at the 14 dams. It also maintains minimum flows in the areas 15 in the rivers downstream at the dams. It also kind 16 of controls on how TVA operates the dams and 17 reservoirs. 18 Those are all great programs, and 19 we're hoping to integrate a lot of our natural 20 resource plans within those. Since they are already 21 covered in the Reservoir Operations Study, we won't 22 be duplicating efforts and including them in the 23 Natural Resource Plan. 24 They have already -- all of these 25 programs or plans have already gone out to public 129 1 review, and we have got great comments and they have 2 already gone into the environmental impact studies. 3 So I just wanted to kind of clarify that. 4 Does that kind of answer folks' 5 questions on what was included and what was not? 6 Sorry. My throat's a little dry. I 7 may be sipping some water. 8 Okay. So our next slide, please. 9 So what is included in the water 10 resource section? 11 Well, our programs are all focused on 12 reducing pollution in our streams and rivers and 13 reservoirs and also maintaining the clean water that 14 we all need. 15 So we have our programs. And while 16 they're discretionary programs, they are not required 17 under strict regulation, they all align really well 18 with TVA's environmental policy, and a few components 19 in particular, which are to protect and improve water 20 quality and water sufficiency, to collaborate and 21 coordinate with internal and external stakeholders, 22 and to maintain an in-depth knowledge of TVA's river 23 systems. 24 So during my talk today I am going to 25 go over 11 programs that are proposed, and we have 130 1 divided them kind of like Hill was talking about, 2 into four different program categories. You will see 3 those on your left-hand side. 4 So next, please. 5 The first program category is the 6 water resource improvement programs categories. With 7 that and several other programs basically the work is 8 that we collaboratively work with partners and 9 stakeholders throughout the Valley to solve water 10 pollution problems by sharing our technical advice 11 and our experience and come up with really great 12 ideas together. 13 Now, five of our 11 programs that I am 14 going to go over today are lumped into this category. 15 This slide contains the first two, the Water Resource 16 Improvement Campaign and the Targeted Reservoir 17 Initiative Program. 18 The water resource improvement 19 campaigns are short-term efforts that are 20 strategically set to reduce pollution in streams and 21 rivers. They can be focused on particular subject 22 areas, whether it's looking at stormwater runoff 23 problems or whether it's looking at vegetation 24 management or lack of around shorelines or if we're 25 looking -- working with folks on how to reduce 131 1 nutrient excesses in streams and reservoirs. 2 We can also use these water resource 3 improvement campaigns to provide technical support 4 for different groups and stakeholder groups 5 throughout the Valley or we can use TVA's expertise 6 and help them develop watershed restoration plans or 7 maybe we can help the group develop a watershed group 8 if they are interested in working in their particular 9 hometown. 10 Then we have looked at another 11 potential option on how we could use a Water Resource 12 Improvement Campaign would be to really build on the 13 expertise TVA has and our partners and put some of 14 the great, you know, plans and monitoring plans in 15 some of the brochures and things that people have 16 developed and make those available to everybody on a 17 web site. So that way if you're kind of looking into 18 the interest of water quality programs or in water 19 conservation -- I'm sorry. 20 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: One quick 21 question. With the Water Resource Improvement 22 Campaign, on the slide are those backwards between 23 custodial and flagship? 24 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: No, they are not. 25 I can go ahead and jump and address that, if you 132 1 would like. 2 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: If you would 3 because, I mean, it looks like under a flagship 4 program less is being done. 5 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: And that is true. 6 In some of our water resource programs the way we're 7 kind of couching it is a little unique. 8 Our -- under custodial we would put 9 more resources into doing water resource improvement 10 programs, where maybe some of our other funding and 11 staffing would go into other areas. 12 The reason why this is what you said 13 looks switched is under custodial we would put a lot 14 of resources into doing the water resource 15 improvement campaigns but we would not maybe do the 16 Targeted Reservoir Initiatives that you see at the 17 bottom, that is not done. 18 There's a couple of other programs 19 under custodial that we would not be doing, but we 20 would be putting more effort on the water resource 21 improvement campaigns. 22 We have -- we would be doing fewer 23 programs and fewer projects in the flagship because 24 we just determined that's how we would shift the 25 resources between custodial and flagship. 133 1 I'm sorry. You're right, that does 2 look extremely confusing. 3 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: It just looked a 4 little goofy. 5 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: It does. To be 6 honest, when I was first going through it I'm like, 7 whoa, I messed up my slides, and it's like, no, okay, 8 that's how it's supposed to go. 9 So thank you. I appreciate it. 10 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Is that kind of 11 a switch then from short-term reactive campaigns to 12 when it's needed to longer term, more comprehensive? 13 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Yes. These would 14 be short-term kind of responsive campaigns, and then 15 some of the other programs would allow us to think 16 and kind of do a little more long-term planning, as 17 you said, and work with some other partners. 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. I 19 was looking at this, and I guess anytime I see a 20 quantitative criteria, how does -- and Randy 21 mentioned field discussions, but I didn't see the 22 water quantity agencies listed. 23 So how does this relate to specific 24 state level watershed basin management plans which in 25 general have specific quantity reduction or target 134 1 concentrations that they are trying to achieve on an 2 individual watershed basis? 3 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: And that's a good 4 question. This doesn't relate like parallel 5 watershed-to-watershed obviously. With our TVA plans 6 we're looking Valley wide. So it's a little 7 difficult to drill down on a specific watershed. 8 But how we came up with these numbers 9 is we have been fortunate and done a lot of work on 10 several water-scale projects. So we have an idea 11 for -- if we put in this many projects or best 12 management practices, whether it's stabilizing stream 13 bank or fencing cattle out of a creek or putting in 14 some other treatment that would reduce stormwater 15 runoff, there's scientific data that tells us if we 16 do X we will get Y reductions in pollution. 17 So when we went through here we used 18 our professional judgment and this data to kind of 19 determine if we can do X amount of resource 20 campaigns, and we're going to assume that will allow 21 us to put on this many projects on the ground, we 22 will get these kind of reductions. 23 This is across the Valley. So, you're 24 right, it doesn't align perfectly with like the total 25 maximum daily loads or the watershed management plans 135 1 that they do, but we do have that as criteria in 2 looking at that in some of our other programs. 3 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And these 4 numbers would be Valley-wide numbers but would vary 5 based on individual watersheds in terms of the 6 targets that are listed? 7 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Yes, this is our 8 estimate on what kind of reductions we would get 9 Valley-wide on an annual basis. But you're right, 10 depending on what kind of practice you're doing is 11 how much pollution reduction you would get. 12 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Anda, can 13 we go to Renee and then come back to you? 14 DFO ANDA RAY: Uh-huh. 15 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Thanks. 16 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Yeah. Just to get 17 back to your question. This won't -- I don't think 18 interrupts -- at least in Tennessee won't interrupt 19 watershed management planning or TMDL's because the 20 state refuses to put a limit for sediment, 21 phosphorus, and e-coli into their permits. 22 So this would be the only way you 23 would be getting it into numeric reduction, I think, 24 statewide in Tennessee. So it wouldn't really affect 25 any other ongoing programs that the state offers. 136 1 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Anda. 2 DFO ANDA RAY: Can we have a process 3 check? 4 In these -- and I am going to back to 5 George's comment. I think this is the one case, 6 Tiffany, where we have actually switched custodial 7 and flagship and -- because you were balancing off 8 multiple program priorities, but I don't think we 9 have done that other places. 10 Can we just take a -- take an action 11 maybe for a process check for you to look at this 12 before we end up weighting -- weighting these this 13 way, Randy, unless you have further clarification? 14 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: No. I think 15 that's a good point. This is one of those few cases 16 where we actually sort of linked two different 17 programs, and therefore, to George's point, you know, 18 custodial represents perhaps a greater level of 19 effort because other than flagship. So your point is 20 dead on. 21 Why don't we take that as an action 22 and kind of reconcile that? 23 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Sorry. I was 24 trying to make sure I didn't miss anyone else's 25 cards. I apologize. If I do, you guys yell at me. 137 1 So -- okay. So we will get that 2 cleared up. 3 The next program on this slide is the 4 targeted reservoir initiative program. This program 5 would allow TVA to take a strategic approach to 6 addressing pollution within specific reservoirs. 7 This is where TVA would work with 8 partners within the Valley and select a watershed to 9 focus on, identify the pollution and the likely 10 pollution sources that were contributing to problems 11 within that reservoir and then develop a 12 corroborative plan and how to go about setting 13 pollution reduction goals and kind of arriving at 14 that. 15 We have -- these are definitely large 16 scale efforts. Our reservoirs, as most of you guys 17 know, are pretty vast which -- 18 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Tiffany. 19 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Yes. 20 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: You go ahead. 21 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: You go first. 22 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: You're in a pay 23 grade way over mine. When you talk about reducing a 24 certain amount up here, reaching streams per year 25 versus another amount reaching reservoirs, I don't 138 1 know whether we're doing less, more, improving. I 2 don't know the significance of any of that. So I 3 can't quite follow what we're doing. 4 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: I guess there 5 might be -- 6 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: And let George 7 weigh in, too, because he -- 8 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Okay. I'm sorry. 9 If you have a similar question. 10 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: I doubt if I 11 will make sense, but I guess where I was going is 12 that you might have to look at every industrial 13 installation on the river system. And then would you 14 be getting into requiring them to do more than their 15 permit which they use as an assumption and basis for 16 building that factory in the first place? How does 17 this mesh in with, you know, national standards and 18 so on? Are their permits going to be changing in any 19 way as a result of something EPA is doing? 20 It looks, I guess, a little confusing 21 to me right now. 22 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Okay. You guys 23 both have good questions. They are kind of a little 24 separate. So I was going to address one and then the 25 other, if that's okay with you guys. 139 1 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: Fair enough. 2 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: I apologize if I 3 am doing, you know, apples and cheetahs on here in 4 comparison. It's not even close. 5 This is kind of what we're working 6 with. The reservoir improvement campaigns, and I 7 should have stated this, I apologize, is focused more 8 on streams and watershed basis, like small scale 9 problems and small scale projects. 10 So, therefore, what we have to look 11 and see if were successful or not is looking at the 12 amount of pollution that is entering a particular 13 stream or water body. 14 It will make it difficult. And I am 15 hoping that Randy and ENTRIX, as they are kind of 16 working this out on weighting and giving 17 environmental benefits and cost analysis, they can 18 find a better way to compare this. 19 Basically just from a -- from my 20 standpoint, I apologize, I am not really sure how to 21 do cost benefit as ENTRIX does and everything else. 22 So this is more kind of, you know, 23 streams and small scale. The reservoirs can be 200 24 square miles or greater. So I apologize for not 25 having a better explanation on kind of how to 140 1 parallel them, but I am hoping that as they proceed 2 to do some of the cost benefits we can get there. 3 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: But the 4 focus of this is non-point source contributions, 5 right? You're not really looking at managing point 6 source? 7 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: The focus on the 8 water resource improvement campaigns will be 9 non-point source pollution, yes. 10 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. So 11 you're not going to -- I think there's an authority 12 issue to the degree TVA steps into -- 13 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: That's what I 14 was worried about. 15 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: And what we're 16 hoping with the targeted reservoir initiative program 17 is we would be working with partners that are within 18 the Valley. 19 In some of our cases we have talked 20 wastewater treatment plants. One thing that we have 21 had experience doing is -- we have no control, you 22 guys are right, on telling them that they need to 23 adjust their MPDF's permit or they need to, you know, 24 put less effluent into the reservoir, that's -- you 25 know, you're absolutely right, we do not have the 141 1 authority to do that. 2 One thing we were thinking we can work 3 with some of these folks is if we can get the 4 wastewater treatment plants and maybe make them, you 5 know, aware that there is some grant funding 6 available to upgrade their systems or maybe helping 7 them maintain funding by us helping them do grants or 8 you can get some grants to upgrade your wastewater 9 treatment plants or other facilities just by the mere 10 fact that you're in an area that has the strategic 11 planning to reduce pollution. 12 So we're looking at it more as kind of 13 a corroborative effort, that we could work with some 14 folks that do have point-source pollution, but we 15 wouldn't be telling them what to do. We would be 16 working collaboratively with them saying, hey, we're 17 going to talk to our lake users and we're going to 18 talk to the folks that own property and we're going 19 to look at TVA lands and see what we can do to reduce 20 pollution and will you join us and see what we can do 21 together. 22 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I guess 23 that's what I was referring to with regards to basin 24 management. At the state level planning processes 25 they are kind of done under the auspices of EPA with 142 1 individual states. 2 But, you know, especially looking at 3 phosphorus, for example, within the ag. community 4 where you're trying to develop BMP's to help reduce 5 some of those runoff problems that are created and -- 6 you know, the idea is -- I guess I am trying to 7 capture, where would that fit in this range of a 8 tighter integration with state level planning 9 processes on an individual watershed basis in this 10 context of custodial means you may read the plan and 11 try to do what TVA does at corporate and in 12 coordination with that versus a flagship that says 13 you reach out and you actively participate in the 14 plan and you actually maybe even contribute or donate 15 resources to help make that work? 16 And the same would be true as we get 17 down to talk about monitoring, those same kind of 18 concepts. 19 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: I think -- I 20 think that's a great point, and we do have that 21 integrated in several of our programs. We have great 22 partners with the states, both in Tennessee and 23 Alabama and across the Valley, and do a lot of our 24 work and a lot of targeting on determining where we 25 work, whether it's a, you know, small stream or a 143 1 watershed based on what the states determined the 2 water quality to be, you know, good or bad. 3 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah, the 4 focus areas. 5 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Deb. 6 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: What concerns 7 me about this area is not what you're doing but in 8 how it is communicated or how it is phrased, the 9 message it could send in terms of current industry 10 agricultural and recreation or the potential for 11 future. 12 I think very carefully you need to 13 look at keeping your message very strong that we're 14 cleaning up our reservoirs streams and rivers but at 15 the same time that it's not going to be deterrent to 16 the economic recreational growth that you're also 17 looking at. 18 I think some of the discussion I am 19 hearing around here is we've already started raising 20 that, which kind of leads me at one point, and maybe 21 it comes with the ENTRIX thing, we're looking at 22 everything in silos and buckets right now, but where 23 do they start cross fertilizing? 24 Is that a staff thing in 25 implementation or is that an element of the plan 144 1 where -- whether it's this program or whether it's, 2 you know, shoreline erosion for archeological or 3 environmental or industrial, where does that -- how 4 do they come together at some point instead of being 5 a list of things that different people do but a 6 comprehensive thing that the Agency does? 7 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: And that's a -- 8 that's a great point, it really is, and I appreciate 9 that. And you're right, we do need to be careful to 10 make sure that when we're presenting this that we are 11 not, you know, looking like we're quashing one 12 interest over another or look like we're overstepping 13 our bounds. 14 As far as the integration, it is a lot 15 of information as a lot of folks have mentioned and 16 maybe a little difficult to present or to listen to 17 because we are doing it by resource area. 18 One good thing is all of us that have 19 been presenting and all within the land and shoreline 20 management staff, we all work really well together 21 and we do integrate our projects together. 22 When Eric, who was just up here 23 before, was talking about the eroding shoreline and 24 you asked about is that specific, you know, to just 25 archeological protection or is that beyond, I have a 145 1 component in this one as well that talks about 2 reservoir stabilization. 3 So a lot of the programs, although it 4 may not appear that way in the presentation, and I 5 apologize if it seems like we're extremely siloed, we 6 are really working hard to make sure that we have 7 great overlap and support of each other. 8 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: And I think in 9 the task force I have sat on, TVA does a phenomenal 10 job of that. I think you have a real opportunity 11 here as you write plans and present them to the 12 public to let them realize that you're doing it, too. 13 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: That's a great 14 point. 15 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: And it's hard 16 because you -- it's very -- this is very simple and 17 concise and let's people look at individual things 18 and check them off. At the same time I think you 19 have got an opportunity to be comprehensive, and that 20 strengthens your value. 21 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Thank you. 22 That -- those are some really good points. I 23 appreciate it. 24 I have to look and see what slide I 25 was on. 146 1 The third program that we have within 2 the water resource improvement programs is our 3 targeted watershed initiatives, and this program 4 basically focuses on the watershed scales that I 5 mentioned earlier. 6 Usually we're looking at areas that 7 are 25 square miles to maybe 100 square miles. The 8 goal of this is to work collaboratively with 9 stakeholders that are local to reduce pollution in 10 the streams and in the watersheds. 11 So we usually, you know, build 12 partnerships. We work with them to identify the 13 problems within the streams. Then we look, you know, 14 at the sources of pollution. Then we work with the 15 partners to develop a plan on how we're going to go 16 about fixing things. 17 Then there's always the hunt for 18 funding, trying to figure out how we're going to pay 19 for everything. Then we get to put projects on the 20 ground with folks and have -- really see some really 21 meaningful improvement in water quality. 22 This work is targeted, meaning we 23 select the watersheds that we're going to work on by 24 using biological monitoring. Biological monitoring 25 is basically some folks going out in the streams and 147 1 rivers and looking at the fish and the other aquatic 2 animals and determining if the streams are in good 3 condition or maybe need a little help. 4 So how we have it set up is in the 5 custodial we will not be implementing this program, 6 but in the flagship program we will implementing it. 7 And with this program, as in the previous slide, we 8 do have pollution reductions that are noted. 9 And again, we came up with these 10 numbers based on, you know, putting in X amount of 11 projects and using a model that will generate X 12 amount of pollution reduction. And we will try to 13 make that a little clearer in our presentation. 14 Yes. 15 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Go ahead. 16 DFO ANDA RAY: Can you clarify the 17 water resource improvement campaign and the targeted 18 watershed improvement -- initiative program both deal 19 with streams and both have tons of -- ton metrics of 20 reducing phosphorus and sediment, are those additive, 21 cumulative? How do those -- how do those relate? 22 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: You mean how do 23 the actual reductions that are listed -- 24 DFO ANDA RAY: Well, you have got 25 1,300 tons here of suspended sediment reduced. 148 1 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Versus 360. 2 DFO ANDA RAY: Versus 360 under the 3 water resource improvement. Does that mean a total, 4 if you were to implement both of those programs, of 5 1,600 or are they -- 6 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: The pollution 7 reduction that is listed under each of them are for 8 that -- implementing that program only. 9 DFO ANDA RAY: Okay. 10 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: So, yes, if we 11 implement them at the full flagship level, then we're 12 estimating you would get that reduction level. 13 DFO ANDA RAY: Okay. 14 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: And also as part 15 of the targeted watershed initiative program we have 16 listed 75 stakeholder products, and basically that -- 17 that was kind of a generic term that we use in a lot 18 of these programs. 19 It's basically that 75 products could 20 be brochures that we helped to develop for community 21 groups to talk about water quality and their 22 watersheds. It could be presentations that we give 23 to talk with either school groups or the City Council 24 or other folks on, you know, the watershed and the 25 water quality and what's going on or it could be 149 1 hosting public meetings or other support that we 2 could do for folks that live in the watershed. 3 Next, please. 4 Okay. The last two programs that are 5 in the water resource improvement programs category 6 are the water resource grant program and the 7 reservoir shoreline stabilization program. 8 Now, the water resource grant program 9 would provide funds to non-profits and other local 10 groups and local governments to implement projects to 11 reduce water pollution. There -- these projects 12 would be targeted on polluted streams. They would be 13 for areas that have, you know, a restoration plan 14 that's in place, and hopefully their projects would 15 be able to leverage additional resources besides the 16 funds that TVA was offering for them to use. 17 The projects also would need to show 18 that they have a good chance at pollution reduction 19 and that the folks that are receiving the funds would 20 have a good chance at actually carrying out the 21 program. 22 Yes. 23 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: Do you have a 24 scope or budget size in mind yet for the grant 25 program? 150 1 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Currently we do 2 not, no. 3 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: Okay. 4 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: The grants will 5 be awarded and -- yes. 6 DR. KELLY TILLER: As far as the 7 grants program goes, would the -- you know, a cost 8 share or leveraging requirement, would that be a 9 requirement or is that just something that is under 10 consideration? 11 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: It's under 12 consideration. To be honest, this is a -- it's one 13 of the newly proposed programs. So it's not 14 something we have done before and we haven't -- what 15 I am kind of going over with you guys today are kind 16 of how we have -- tentatively see this being framed, 17 but nothing is set in stone right now. We definitely 18 welcome any input that everyone has on it. 19 So we would award the grants annually, 20 and then we would have certain criteria and oversight 21 to make sure that the folks that were getting the 22 money were doing what they said they were going to do 23 and making sure that everything kind of followed 24 through well. 25 The next program on here is the 151 1 reservoir shoreline stabilization program, and that's 2 what Eric Howard talked about previously. This would 3 be a little more general. It would not be 4 specifically aimed to looking at archeological sites 5 because that's covered under their program, but this 6 would be looking just across all the TVA shorelines 7 and working on ways to secure banks and to stabilize 8 the banks. 9 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Let me -- 10 can I ask a question on that one? 11 You say under the custodial, does that 12 imply there is no non-archeological site 13 stabilization effort? 14 Because I thought under shoreline 15 management plans there was a recognition of where 16 there were problem areas and those were being 17 addressed within some limitations. 18 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Under the SMI, 19 the shoreline management initiative and the program, 20 you're -- they did have, I think, a monitoring and a 21 surveying component of that as well as, you know, 22 stating plans that TVA, you know, will go in and look 23 at these eroding areas and see what they can do about 24 that. 25 Maybe we should have included it on 152 1 the previous slide, but because some of that 2 information is already included in the shoreline 3 management initiative and that has kind of also gone 4 through public review and process, some of the things 5 that have already been included within that area 6 won't be included in here. 7 So I guess, you know, this kind of 8 misrepresents things saying we're not doing, you 9 know, any work on any of the shoreline stabilization 10 at all and you're -- that's a very good point. I 11 apologize. We need to kind of clarify that. 12 This is just saying within our water 13 resource improvement program under the Natural 14 Resource Plan we would not be expanding efforts to 15 address critically eroding shorelines, and then under 16 the flagship we would be -- I think it's 8 miles of 17 critically eroding shoreline. 18 DFO ANDA RAY: You definitely need to 19 clarify that. 20 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Yes. 21 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Just ask -- 22 I'm sorry. Going back to what Kelly raised, it would 23 be interesting to see how ENTRIX can value that -- 24 the grant program when it's so relatively undefined. 25 But did TVA historically in past lives 153 1 provide grants to utilities for water quality 2 initiatives, do you know? 3 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: I am not sure 4 exactly if we provided grants through some of our 5 targeted watershed initiatives or some of the other 6 programs under like the clean water initiative that 7 we have. 8 We have had contracts with other 9 partners, but it was watershed groups or sometimes 10 local soil conservation districts. Sometimes it's 11 been also with local county stormwater groups to 12 provide them funding to either do some water quality 13 monitoring or to put some actual best management 14 practice projects on the ground or to support some 15 other of their efforts. So we have done that under a 16 couple of different programs. 17 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 18 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: But we have not 19 done a grant program that I am aware, and you guys 20 please correct me, where we're actually putting out a 21 notice for, hey, this money is available, submit your 22 requests and follow this criteria. 23 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 24 Thank you. 25 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Okay. So our -- 154 1 we're moving on to another program category, and it's 2 aquatic monitoring and management. As you might 3 guess, this program focuses on the fish and the other 4 aquatic animals that are in the streams and 5 reservoirs and rivers. 6 So the first program we're going to 7 look at is the aquatic ecology management, and we can 8 look at this as kind of a two-pronged approach. We 9 have a management aspect, which would be TVA working 10 with other partners on how to address, say, aquatic 11 exotic and invasive species in the waters. 12 It could be collaborating with other 13 partners on developing or protecting habitat for fish 14 or mussel species with different -- in certain river 15 sections or it could be just working on long-range 16 strategic plans on how to make sure that the habitat 17 that the fish and aquatic species need is maintained 18 and we're not doing anything that harms that. 19 The other kind of prong of the aquatic 20 ecology management program is the outreach aspect, 21 and that is something that we have done a lot of in 22 all of our different other program areas. 23 One thing we're thinking that would 24 be -- that could work in this program is you can 25 provide opportunities for stakeholders to, you know, 155 1 go out and spend a day with the biologists. They can 2 go out and kind of -- if they have interest, they can 3 go out and see what kind of fish and mussels and 4 species are in the water. I think that would really 5 go a long way in helping folks kind of understand 6 what we have and what we can appreciate within the 7 Valley. 8 Some of the things that we could do 9 within the aquatic management would be to partner 10 with some of our partners on increasing the mussel 11 habitat in some of our streams and reservoirs. 12 And the next program is the stream and 13 tailwater monitoring program, and this program 14 basically is biologists evaluating water conditions 15 using biological -- yes. I'm sorry. 16 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Just a quick 17 question, and it's just not this one, but there's 18 been a couple of times under custodial it was not 19 available. I mean, I am a little bit confused 20 because I thought custodial was the baseline of what 21 we would do under this plan and flagship was the most 22 we do, and I don't know if this means we're not doing 23 anything in that area now or we would -- I don't know 24 what it means. 25 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: I'm sorry. I 156 1 should probably let you do that. 2 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Again, I'll remind 3 you, Deb, of the construct that the definition of the 4 custodial option is that which is required to meet 5 legal, regulatory, and policy requirements. So N/A 6 is really not applicable. It's not available but not 7 applicable. 8 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Okay. So that 9 means in an aquatic/ecology program that custodial we 10 would -- we have a flagship option and we have an 11 option to do nothing. 12 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: If there is 13 nothing required, an existing law or regulation, 14 right? 15 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That is correct. 16 George, that is correct. 17 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I was going 18 to say, it's not that there's nothing required. 19 There are basic or general requirements. It's just 20 you're basically meeting state and federal 21 guidelines. 22 And I think it just communicates to 23 me, kind of like Deb says, it communicates you're 24 doing nothing when, in fact, you're doing what's the 25 minimal required. And in many cases, you know, it's 157 1 potentially some periodic monitoring or compliance 2 with state coordination processes or something, but 3 that term seems to imply that you're doing nothing. 4 I guess it's more of an education that 5 as you get ready to go to the general public with 6 this it seems to convey that message. 7 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Great input. It 8 needs to be very clear. 9 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I don't think 10 it's consistent with how you read the other areas. 11 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: And I guess we do 12 need to figure out -- I really appreciate that. This 13 is very helpful to get that information from you guys 14 now in a nice, friendly forum. So thank you. 15 DFO ANDA RAY: A little bit of 16 clarification. As we have gone through here, I think 17 the custodial includes all minimum requirements for 18 compliance, but there's also a minimum to be 19 responsible to carry out our mission because there's 20 a couple of things like using the web site, that's 21 not required, but it's the minimum we think that is 22 responsible. 23 So I just wanted to make that little 24 nuisance that not everything is tied to a regulation 25 or a requirement in the custodial. 158 1 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Question 2 over here. What's your name, sir? 3 MR. RON FUGATT: I'm Ron Fugatt. My 4 question is: How much of this on streams is already 5 being done by state agencies? 6 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: I guess -- I'm 7 sorry. Do you mean like the -- how much like at the 8 monitoring or -- 9 MR. RON FUGATT: Like Tennessee has 10 regulations over streams. In fact, the legislature 11 almost made it during this last legislation -- 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. 13 MR. RON FUGATT: -- so that TVA could 14 regulate it. I know Tom is with Alabama, but I know 15 they have some laws involving the streams and what 16 you can put in streams. So I am curious as to how 17 TVA is coordinating this effort with what exists 18 within the states. 19 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: And our state 20 environmental quality or environment conservation, 21 depending on which states you are in, are some of our 22 greatest partners in not only developing some of the 23 water quality programs that we have implemented in 24 the past but also they have given us input on us 25 moving forward. 159 1 I know within the State of Tennessee, 2 and you're right, they have the regulatory authority 3 and they develop their impaired stream list and they 4 develop the, you know, watershed plans on a large 5 scale basis on kind of how much pollution should go 6 in this area and what can be done and kind of looking 7 long-term. 8 We're not saying we're going to usurp 9 or step in and take any of their duties because they 10 do a great job and, you know, we -- you know, we 11 obviously are not the same as the states. 12 How we're stepping in with some of our 13 programs is kind of beyond what the states' 14 responsibilities are. They can go this far with 15 their regulations and their monitoring and their 16 support, and then TVA can kind of go beyond that in 17 working collaboratively with other partners and 18 pulling folks together to do strategic plans or to 19 help cost share and help find funding to kind of put 20 it all together in a pot to do some good projects. 21 So we're definitely aware of the 22 states' efforts and we're really, really appreciative 23 of the states' efforts, and we kind of see us as 24 working, you know, in a really great partnership with 25 the states and other agencies. 160 1 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: That's 2 where, I guess, I try to look at this in terms of 3 level of involvement or investment from TVA's 4 standpoint. 5 This custodial versus flagship is -- 6 given the fact that resource agencies and water 7 quality agencies have plans in place, sometimes on a 8 large scale, but in many places there are projects 9 that are ongoing and it's a case where TVA looks at 10 those plans, coordinates with those offices and makes 11 sure that they are not duplicating or overlapping 12 maybe at a custodial level, and then at the flagship 13 level actually stepping in and donating some level of 14 resources to enhance, expand what the states are 15 doing. 16 In all cases, you know, at the 17 custodial level you're certainly of knowledge of what 18 the state is doing and you're working to comply or 19 avoid duplication, that's kind of how I sort of 20 picture these kinds of initiatives. 21 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: No. That's a 22 great point. I appreciate both of your comments. 23 That's good. 24 I guess we are at stream and tailwater 25 monitoring program. As you were just mentioning, you 161 1 know, the state doing monitoring and we do 2 monitoring, in most of our monitoring projects that 3 are in the reservoirs and also in the streams, which 4 this is getting to, we do coordinate with our state 5 agencies because, you know, their resources are thin. 6 Sometimes TVA may have, you know, little thinning 7 resources as well. 8 So we will do coordinated efforts with 9 them where we may say, hey, if you can get -- you 10 know, monitor these streams, we will monitor these 11 streams and we kind -- we're able to get better 12 coverage, you know, a lot more kind of current data 13 on the water quality throughout the Valley by doing a 14 lot of coordination with state agencies. 15 TVA uses those stream and tailwater 16 monitoring to not only support our water resource 17 management programs that I have been mentioning to 18 help us kind of target where to work, we also use 19 them in the Reservoir Operation Study and in 20 environmental reviews for other projects as well. 21 I'm sorry. Can you go back real 22 quick? I will hurry. I am probably running long. 23 So within the custodial effort there 24 are -- we would be doing 50 stream assessments per 25 year. This is where we have biologists going out in 162 1 the field and they are looking at the fish and they 2 are looking at the other aquatic species within the 3 waters, and also the habitat within those streams, 4 and determining -- they are kind of rating them with 5 the matrix and determining if the streams are in 6 good, fair or poor condition, just to kind of put it 7 real simply. They would continue doing this in the 8 custodial level. 9 We also have all of this data, and we 10 do share it with other agencies. It's one of those 11 things that if agencies or other groups or 12 universities want the data, they will have to send in 13 a request to TVA and then we get the data as quickly 14 as we can to them. 15 Within the flagship initiative we 16 would be conducting up to 150 stream assessments per 17 year, the same kind of biological monitoring that I 18 mentioned in the custodial, but we would also be 19 looking at developing an interactive web-based site 20 where we have our data on-line and it could be 21 accessible to other agencies and to universities and 22 the public. We think that would -- you know, that 23 might help facilitate and help support some other 24 research and improvement efforts by other folks and 25 it might just help kind of speed up people having 163 1 access to data. 2 Thanks. 3 The next program area is partnerships 4 and programs. I think you guys have kind of got the 5 feel from the other presentations so far that 6 partners are really important to TVA. That's been 7 kind of a recurring theme throughout all of these 8 presentations, and water resource management is no 9 exception. 10 So with this, we have the two 11 programs, strategic partnerships programs and the 12 case study and research initiative program. 13 Under the strategic partnerships, you 14 know, it's building strong relationships and 15 maintaining those. We have a lot of great ones with 16 some that I have talked to and some other people I 17 have talked to already. During our custodial area 18 we're just going to work on maintaining those, making 19 sure that people know that we're here and we're 20 interested and we're involved with them. 21 Now, if we take this to the flagship 22 level, we're still going to work with the 23 partnerships we have been working with and we will 24 maintain those relationships, but we would like to 25 maybe step it up a little bit and maybe enhance some 164 1 of those relationships, see how we can work better to 2 develop strategic long-term planning so we don't 3 have -- make sure we don't have duplicative efforts 4 and make sure we're all kind of thinking about things 5 and looking for a common goal. So we think if we can 6 develop these common goals that we will get even 7 greater results than we already do. 8 The next program is the case study and 9 research initiative. This would be TVA working with 10 partners within the Tennessee Valley to find 11 solutions on water quality problems and water 12 pollution problems and sharing that information 13 throughout the Valley and beyond that. 14 We look at some of these -- to give 15 you an example, using some public lands to test the 16 longevity of, say, a stormwater management project or 17 some materials that are kind of experimental and 18 people aren't sure if they want to try those 19 practices on, you know, their own property or their 20 own business, we could work with universities and 21 install some of these and people could come by and 22 see them, kind of like a demonstration projects. 23 It's just really kind of working with partners to 24 advance the technology we have for reducing pollution 25 in the areas and developing new methodologies and 165 1 sharing that. 2 Next slide. 3 Okay. This is our final category. 4 It's the public outreach programs category. This is 5 working with the public, encouraging environmentally 6 friendly actions to be taken. 7 So two of the programs we have are the 8 Tennessee Valley Clean Marina Program, and this is a 9 voluntary program. I think a lot of you guys are 10 probably familiar with it. It's working with marinas 11 and also boat operators to adopt some environmentally 12 friendly activities that they can do at their marina 13 and also around the area. 14 We have a guidebook that's on-line 15 available for folks. We also have TVA staff to 16 provide assistance to marina operators to try to see 17 what they can do to make sure the marina is ran in a 18 way that does not negatively impact the water quality 19 that they rely on. 20 So most of the activities within there 21 would affect the water quality and also maybe the 22 erosion around the shoreline of the marina. 23 During the custodial we will maintain 24 certification for 80 marinas, which basically means 25 there is 80 marinas across the Tennessee Valley that 166 1 have already become Clean Marina certified. They 2 have gone through the guidebook and they have 3 followed a certain checklist to make sure they have 4 taken care of treating their waste correctly, that 5 they are handling any kind of gas spills correctly, 6 they are stabilizing the shoreline. They are just 7 taking steps that go above and beyond normal 8 operations. We want to be able to recognize that and 9 applaud folks for doing that. 10 Within the flagship initiative, we 11 would kind of increase our efforts a little bit. We 12 want to get a couple more marinas certified each 13 year, which would require a little more staff time, a 14 little more kind of ingenuity to find these other 15 marinas that are willing to do it. 16 We are also looking at maybe doing 17 little revisions to the guidelines. We have heard 18 some folks talking about that, you know, maybe we 19 should look and see if they need to be a little more 20 stringent. 21 Our main goal is to make sure that 22 we're, you know, allowing to have, you know, a great 23 recreation opportunities and the marinas have 24 thriving businesses and we take care of the water 25 quality that allows everyone to do this. 167 1 Then our last program is our water 2 resource outreach campaigns, and these are kind of 3 awareness campaigns. It's going out talking with the 4 public and talking with other groups on the 5 importance of water quality and pollution and steps 6 people can do. 7 Some things that could fall into this 8 would be like a shoreline vegetation campaign where 9 we work with people that own property around the 10 reservoir and talk to them about the benefits they 11 could have by planting trees and shrubs along the 12 shoreline versus kind of mowing it down. We could 13 also do things on water conservation as well. 14 Most of these programs are the same in 15 talking to folks and kind of getting the word out and 16 helping this come to people's forefront when they are 17 thinking about water quality. 18 So this was the last of my program 19 categories. So I really appreciate you guy's 20 patience and the great input. 21 Do you guys have any more questions? 22 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I was going 23 to ask, and I realize this sort of overlaps between a 24 lot of the ROS stuff, but the water quantity issues, 25 for example, in conservation related programs or a 168 1 drought response where you may be working with TVA 2 users to encourage efficiency, is that outside of the 3 bounds of this effort? Where is that encompassed in 4 this planning umbrella? 5 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: I am going to say 6 yes and no and then explain what I mean by yes and 7 no. 8 Water conservation could be a tool 9 that we use in working through some of these water 10 resource improvement campaigns or as part of the 11 targeted watershed initiatives where we're working 12 with folks in watersheds in their community, like one 13 more thing that you can do as -- you know, that I 14 could do it at my house or you can do at your house 15 that will just help, you know, to protect our water 16 resources, and I think that's something that we're 17 all comfortable with. 18 On a larger scale, TVA has, as do 19 other federal agencies, Executive Orders to look at 20 water reduction and water sufficiency. Some of the 21 in-house work that TVA has been doing, both in our 22 facilities and just our offices around town and other 23 areas, are recovered within our sustainability plan. 24 So those efforts are outside the scope of the Natural 25 Resource Plan. 169 1 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: But in 2 terms of the majority of the water use, which is 3 other users using this water, those -- they are 4 really not covered under this plan? I mean, it just 5 seems to me they are kind of -- 6 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: It's not a 7 stand-alone program, but we have listed as -- we have 8 a water efficiency program listed as a tool that we 9 could use, along with some of the best management 10 practices that we have. These tools, I guess is what 11 we are calling them, could feed into the other 12 programs. 13 But you're right, it's not a 14 stand-alone program. We look at it as more of a tool 15 that might go into water resource outreach campaigns, 16 that might go into the reservoir initiative campaign. 17 It might go into a lot of different aspects. 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 19 Thank you. 20 Any other questions for Tiffany? 21 MS. TIFFANY FOSTER: Thank you. 22 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Randy. 23 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Thank you, 24 Tiffany. Well done. Thank you. Excellent input, I 25 think, particularly around the need to integrate with 170 1 state level planning and monitoring and integrate 2 with state-led programs so that duplication is 3 avoided, I think TVA heard that loud and clear, as 4 well as the need to look at in this area, 5 particularly at those custodial options, to make sure 6 that those are characterized right. Reservoir 7 stabilization as an example, you want us to be 8 precise on what the custodial options are. So we 9 appreciate that input. 10 We have got two more areas to discuss 11 after lunch, recreation and lands planning, but I 12 think, Tom, now is the time to break for lunch. 13 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: We're going 14 to go ahead -- we're going to tail off into another 15 discussion. So with that, Randy, thank you, and 16 after lunch we will come back and catch those two 17 other areas. 18 Briefly we wanted to pick up -- since 19 Renee indicated she's leaving tonight, we wanted to 20 talk about this stakeholder response process. So 21 Bruce is going to talk to us for a few minutes with 22 regards to some comments on the e-mail or e-mails 23 that have been submitted. 24 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: I am Bruce 25 Schofield. We have received three questions through 171 1 the Council that they forwarded to us to kind of help 2 get some information on. I wanted to kind of give 3 you our preliminary looks and where we are with those 4 and maybe a suggestion on how the Council or TVA, 5 which one should maybe provide that response. 6 The first question, it's a two-part 7 question, and I will just read the question, it was, 8 I would like to request the Council look at the 9 rapidly disappearing water access on TVA reservoirs. 10 One example is Norris Lake. The 11 general public has only a few water access areas on 12 the Knoxville side of the reservoir. TVA has 13 historically provided access to water via marinas 14 which charge for lake access and with the transition 15 of those marinas to private developments and resorts 16 it's vast becoming the rule that if you can afford a 17 gated community or condo you have water access but if 18 not you don't have that water access. 19 What we looked at was -- and the other 20 one also and for this one, I will do both of them at 21 the same time. There's another area I would like to 22 see addressed is the issue of the floating cottages 23 on the Norris Reservoir which is growing at a rapid 24 rate to the point of having too many on the reservoir 25 which is an environmental issue as well as a safety 172 1 issue. 2 Lake access, it's not just limited to 3 Norris. I will use Norris as an example. There are 4 45 public access points on Norris Lake. About half 5 of them are free, about -- and that's half of them 6 total. About half of them are on the Knoxville side. 7 We recognize that every time we have 8 an industrial customer that comes in that needs water 9 access, every time we have a new residential 10 development that comes in and wants to put a 11 community facility in, it locks up access to the 12 water. 13 We look at this through our 26(a) 14 process. We look at it as part of our overall land 15 management to ensure that we meet the public's 16 obligation and the public's need to go do that, and 17 we will continue to have that as one of the keystones 18 as we move forward for managing the 11,000 miles of 19 shoreline. 20 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: I was under the 21 impression that there was to be no more new 22 development on TVA lands and that was a Board 23 decision. 24 What was -- that was Susan Richardson 25 Williams that worked on that. 173 1 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: In the 2006 land 2 policy, the position was made that we would open up 3 no more new lands to residential development. 4 There is a portion of the reservoir, 5 and it's about 38 percent of the shoreline, that has 6 been designated as applicable residential 7 development. All of it hasn't been -- only about 8 40 percent of that has actually been developed. 9 So they still have the opportunity for 10 communities or developers to come in and open up a 11 new residential section on land that's already been 12 designated. We're just not opening up any more that 13 wasn't previously designated as residential 14 development. 15 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Okay. I understand 16 from the Charter that you're guaranteeing public 17 access through the Charter? Is it through the 18 Charter that the public gets free access to the TVA 19 reservoirs? 20 DFO ANDA RAY: I'm not sure. 21 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: The RRSC 22 Charter. 23 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: No. No. No. The 24 TVA Charter as part of its enabling legislation. It 25 is possible -- because our organization has received 174 1 several calls about this over the years. So people 2 are really becoming more and more upset that there 3 are gated communities and they feel like they have a 4 right to access and they go to their favorite places 5 that they have accessed historically and suddenly 6 there's a gated community in there and they are 7 deprived of that particular access. 8 So I was just wondering what the 9 legal -- what the Charter then requires for public 10 access and how limited is that Charter. 11 Is it possible to get some kind of 12 statement from the legal department about that? 13 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: We will go 14 answer that question. I am sure one of my colleagues 15 wrote that down, didn't you, Helen? 16 DFO ANDA RAY: TVA's lands are public. 17 So people have access to them. There are occasions 18 where TVA lands are not under some kind of agreement 19 or rezoned. When they are given over for residential 20 development, those are no longer public lands. We 21 have given them over to residential, and that's why 22 the Board had the land policy to say we need to stop 23 with whatever is there. 24 They did have a restriction on 25 commercial industrial, that they needed to have a 175 1 requirement for water access. You couldn't just put 2 something there that didn't need water access and 3 take up that land away from the public benefits. 4 So there are times we gate off public 5 lands when they have been abused and we need to 6 reduce the amount of human impact on them or there's 7 some other kind of safety issue associated with them, 8 but TVA public lands, including marginal strips, are 9 available for the public to access. 10 You can't cross private property to 11 get to them. So we don't guarantee access across 12 private property, but that's just the definition of 13 public lands. It's not in the Charter, it's not in 14 the Act, it's just the definition of a public land. 15 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: So the question 16 is of egress, not of -- 17 DFO ANDA RAY: Right. You can access 18 a lot more land by boat than you can getting to it 19 for that marginal strip that's in front of private 20 property. 21 So is that what you're looking for? 22 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Well, I have some 23 experience with this in California where the 24 California Coastal Commission said that there will 25 always be public access, and then David Geffen fenced 176 1 off his property and wouldn't let people go past his 2 property to get to the beach. The Commission took 3 the fence down. 4 So I guess my question is: Is it a 5 similar situation here where the public gets a right 6 to access to the land anywhere and these gated 7 communities may be stopping that? 8 DFO ANDA RAY: No. I think you may be 9 referring to waters of the U.S. and waters of the 10 state where the states may have a requirement. There 11 are times -- I think there's a -- and I am speaking 12 out of turn. The state has a certain amount of 13 surface acreage that they consider waters of the 14 state or waters of the U.S. and there are rules 15 associated with that about allowing public access, 16 but that's not the case with TVA. 17 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Auh, okay. 18 DFO ANDA RAY: We don't own the water. 19 We don't own the water. We just own the shoreline. 20 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Well, right. 21 DFO ANDA RAY: But the state -- 22 whoever owns the water, that's usually where those 23 rules are -- do you know anything else about that? 24 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 25 John. 177 1 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: Are we saying 2 under flagship or whatever that TVA is not going to 3 create any more public access sites, free public 4 access sites? 5 Because I know you're trying to get 6 rid of a bunch of them now and you're giving them to 7 state and local governments and all of that, but are 8 you-all in your planning not planning on any more 9 access yourself to be run by TVA? 10 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: I don't know 11 that that's in the flagship. 12 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: I mean, I'm just 13 using that as an example. 14 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: I don't think we 15 have made that statement. 16 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: But in long-range 17 planning are you calling for more TVA public access 18 sites or not? 19 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: We haven't 20 seen the recreation component of the NRP, that will 21 be this afternoon. 22 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: We will have an 23 answer during that. 24 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I think the 25 point Renee raised if I -- just based on my 178 1 involvement in previous RRSC, looking at that land 2 issues, the rate of how that availability or access 3 to the public, the rate at which those lands were 4 disappearing was one of the issues in looking at the 5 land policy and the concerns that the Council had 6 voiced. 7 So the idea is, you know, this issue 8 of statutory right, you know, I don't know, but we 9 want to make sure that TVA and the states continue to 10 make available -- where they have state parks and/or 11 TVA recreational facilities that the public will 12 continue to have access. 13 Given the TVA mandate of economic 14 development, you know, over time with population 15 growth it's a natural occurrence that there's going 16 to be a lot more competition for that land. The idea 17 is, can we find a way to balance TVA's roles and 18 missions with regards to economic development and 19 power production with the duties as a -- as a federal 20 land agency and find ways to sort of wade through 21 that course. 22 It's not an easy course and -- but it 23 has to be understood that, you know, the public 24 doesn't have a free and unencumbered right to 25 whatever they want to do because of the investments 179 1 that were made by TVA and by private entities in the 2 development process. So it's a balancing act, if you 3 will. 4 And part of the goal, in my view, of 5 the Council is to figure out how we -- if we feel 6 like TVA is starting to tilt one way in that 7 balancing act, you know, I see us as a group where we 8 can kind of say, wait a minute, let's relook at that. 9 That's my two cent's worth. 10 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I think from 11 some of the questions that I have seen is that it's 12 really a question of convenience of access, where can 13 I can go, how can I get there. 14 What might have happened over the 15 areas, the many years that TVA has here is the growth 16 patterns and the urban development. There is a lot 17 more on the Knoxville side of the lake than there is 18 on the north side of the lake. 19 So, therefore, there's probably more 20 push to get there from different places shorter. 21 Whereas, they don't want to cross the dam and go out 22 the other way. So, I mean, at some point I think TVA 23 might want to look at the balance of where they are 24 and the traffic patterns and where the people come 25 from to use it. 180 1 I think we always have to remember 2 that it's not just a question of access, people are 3 questioning their convenience, you know, I went by my 4 old place and I've always gone in there and now 5 there's a gated community, I mean, first that's 6 telling me they haven't been there real often. 7 Secondly, you know, they would cross the land but it 8 was definitely for something else. 9 So I think it's a balancing act but 10 also an educational act to the public of helping them 11 understand where to go and what to do. 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. So 13 back to the question, I guess, is how do we respond? 14 The question doesn't really ask for a specific 15 answer, if I read it right, at least the one you 16 alluded to, it's asking for us to look at the issue. 17 Really, is that not embroiled in this 18 process for the NRP? 19 Again, we haven't seen the recreation 20 components yet. So are we doing a step -- are we 21 taking a step in that direction by this NRP process 22 to address this issue? 23 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: I think it's a 24 component as to how we're going -- because it is how 25 are we going to manage public lands and to go do 181 1 that. 2 In this one it's asked -- this is the 3 one that was directed to the Council, we would like 4 the Council to consider, I can provide you with a 5 list of facts as to how we do certain items, but I 6 would recommend that the Council provide this 7 response. 8 DFO ANDA RAY: One quick one. TVA 9 lands are divided into zones. The Natural Resource 10 Plan is looking at those zones that are natural 11 resources or sensitive primarily. 12 There are other zones that are already 13 labeled as residential, commercial, and industrial, 14 those are not the lands we're looking at. And 15 although they may not be developed yet, those are the 16 ones that the policy -- the land policy addressed and 17 said no more residential development other than that 18 which is already zoned, it may not be developed yet 19 but that which is already zoned. No more commercial 20 and industrial on the water unless they require 21 access to the water, such as a barge terminal. 22 So I wanted to make that -- the 23 development of lands with respect to the NRP would be 24 what do you do with those natural resource and 25 sensitive areas? Do you make more commercial or 182 1 informal recreation or do you cord them off and say, 2 I'm protecting threatened and endangered species or 3 cultural? 4 So that's the -- I just wanted to make 5 sure that we're real clear that you're not going to 6 address in the NRP how much more residential property 7 development, that the Board already said no more, 8 other than what's already zoned that's not -- may or 9 may not be developed yet. 10 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: State your 11 name. 12 MR. MITCH JONES: Mitchell Jones. 13 Bruce, you have -- in your count do you have the TWRA 14 launch ramps and access points in your count as well 15 or only those which are TVA? 16 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: They are total. 17 It's all the public access, yes. When I did that 18 count on Norris, and I didn't do it anywhere else, 19 but the Norris is all public access. TVA is a small 20 set of that. 21 MR. MITCH JONES: And TWRA as well? 22 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: Yes. 23 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I guess to 24 close out the discussion, I will leave this to the 25 wishes of the Council, but my thought is it's a 183 1 general question and it may be appropriate, as 2 Senator Orr alluded to, have a response that's a 3 consistent response on behalf of the Council, but 4 certainly if you have received the e-mail and want to 5 make an individual response, that's within your 6 prerogative and however you feel appropriate, because 7 the e-mail didn't go to everybody, if I understand 8 right. 9 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: I don't know who 10 the e-mail went to. 11 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I don't 12 think everybody got the e-mail. It went to several 13 different folks. 14 SENATOR ARTHUR ORR: You know, 15 regarding e-mails before we leave this, it sounds 16 like you're coming to a conclusion, if it's possible, 17 Anda, to put in the database or whatever when 18 somebody submits an e-mail to require them to at 19 least give their -- they don't have to give their 20 address but their county or their city or the state 21 from which they are writing which would help us to -- 22 you know, if it's a North Carolina issue it doesn't 23 really affect me, but if it's somebody from Alabama 24 driving up to Norris Lake I would like to know about 25 it because I am kind of the Alabama -- one of the 184 1 Alabama representatives. 2 So if there's some way to factor in 3 the web site a template just to require some basic, 4 you know, information as to their location or where 5 they reside, that would be helpful. If they are from 6 Oklahoma and just coming in, we don't -- 7 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: What's your 8 name? 9 MS. AVIS KENNEDY: If the individual 10 who contacted Renee was primarily interested in -- or 11 the individuals were primarily interested in the way 12 that existing access points on lands that are zoned 13 for residential development are treated, in other 14 words, is there a possibility of leaving them open 15 for public access even after residential developments 16 go in or what are the rules on that, what's the 17 appropriate body for those people to contact? It's 18 not this Council because we're not looking at 19 residential lands, but who is looking at the rules on 20 residential lands? 21 DFO ANDA RAY: I think if they are 22 asking about their access over TVA lands, it would be 23 to us. We would say if it's a private landowner that 24 they are going to have to go directly to them, but if 25 there's a marginal strip left of TVA land in front of 185 1 residential, then that would be a TVA answer. 2 MS. AVIS KENNEDY: Do they need to 3 contact a particular TVA office? 4 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: That would be 5 me. 6 MS. AVIS KENNEDY: That may be the 7 answer that some of the people are looking for. 8 DFO ANDA RAY: 1-800 Bruce Schofield. 9 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: It comes with 10 the job. 11 MR. MITCH JONES: Mitch Jones again. 12 Bruce, I want you to answer the two questions that 13 you were asked. I would like to hear what your 14 answer will be, and secondly, the answer to -- are 15 you going to sanction, allow, prohibit, stop the 16 building of floating -- I used to call them forays, 17 for lack of a better word. I think we have changed 18 that terminology over the years, but you know my 19 position and so I am not going to state it at this 20 point. 21 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: So we are -- in 22 the first question is the count of -- 23 MR. MITCH JONES: How are you going to 24 answer this e-mail is primarily my question. 25 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: The floating 186 1 cottages piece? 2 MR. MITCH JONES: Both of them. 3 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: Well, what we 4 have got is from a floating cottage standpoint, and 5 you may hear the term non-navigable houseboats, we 6 are aware of this situation. It's become -- it's 7 brought more to light in the last couple of years. 8 We are working with both state and other federal 9 agencies to determine what we need to do with this 10 and who has jurisdiction. 11 EPA or TDEC in Tennessee has pollution 12 issues. If someone is dumping gray water or dumping 13 raw sewage in the lake, TVA doesn't have the 14 authority to enforce that. 15 What TVA enforces is navigation and 16 harbor limits and whether or not these facilities are 17 being constructed on TVA controlled land in violation 18 of the permit that allows that particular marina 19 operator to work, and then whether or not it's a boat 20 is TWRA to go do that. 21 So we have had a couple of different 22 meetings with that group of people, TWRA, TVA, TDEC 23 to look at how we can manage this issue. The one 24 thing that TVA has stepped out and started doing is 25 we have begun issuing a notification to the marina 187 1 owners that we're aware of that are producing these 2 and manufacturing these facilities that they need to 3 quit building them on TVA land because they are a 4 marina and they are not a boat builder. So they are 5 actually operating outside their permit. 6 The other one that we have done, 7 particularly on Norris, is we have notified all of 8 the marina owners on Norris to move -- to be sure 9 that any structure they have control over is within 10 their harbor limits because they are spreading them 11 out down the rivers to go do that. 12 So we are taking what we can do, which 13 is harbor limits and navigation, we have control over 14 that. Now, once you get them all bunched back in, 15 TDEC has got the authority to go in and deal with the 16 sanitation issues, the pollutant issues. 17 Once we put them in the harbor limits, 18 they should be out of the navigation issue. Then we 19 have to decide from a TVA standpoint whether they are 20 permittable structures under 26(a) to go do that. 21 We are addressing this. We're getting 22 a lot of input. We have met with several lake 23 associations. We have met with several of the marina 24 operators that are doing this, and quite frankly, 25 have got a lot of pushback because there are some 188 1 areas where they state this is a big economic 2 development initiative for us, you know, and we're 3 selling these -- this is jobs and you will send 4 people home if they can't build these properties. 5 We need to make sure that they are not 6 operating in violation of what we can control, and 7 we're working with TDEC to ensure that anything we 8 see that they need to be aware of isn't pushed back. 9 We're trying to make sure that we understand where 10 the growth is and make sure that it's inside the 11 areas that we control. 12 Does that answer your question? 13 MR. MITCH JONES: (Moves head up and 14 down.) 15 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: So to 16 resolve -- to make sure we're -- there's a consensus 17 on how this is resolved, I think what I threw out 18 before is we would provide or I would provide on 19 behalf of the Council a staff response that 20 summarizes both the limitations of the Council in 21 this and a factual response where appropriate. 22 So is there comments or discussion on 23 that issue? Okay. Then we will do it. 24 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Thanks. 25 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: The third 189 1 question that came in was, can TVA consider granting 2 partial rights to Rhea County for the abandoned 3 railway from Highway 27 along Highway 68 to the Watts 4 Bar Nuclear Plant. Maybe with a partnership with 5 local and state government, this abandoned railway 6 can be converted to a walking/bicycling trail for 7 area residents, TVA workers, and tourists. 8 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And to me 9 that sounds like a 1-800-Bruce response. 10 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: That needs to 11 just come -- 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: It's a very 13 specific question, not policy related. 14 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: Yes. TVA needs 15 to respond to that one to go do that because we have 16 to go look at what our future needs are for 17 particular rail spur given the current status of the 18 shutdown fossil plant as well as the ongoing nuclear 19 plant. 20 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Would it be 21 possible to cc the Council members who received that 22 e-mail so the person knows that the Council -- that 23 it came up before the Council? 24 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And any 25 responses on behalf of the Council, I would think, 190 1 need to be spread to all of the Council members just 2 for information, as well as appropriate TVA staff. 3 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: And if I can get 4 a list of those people, I can provide the -- you have 5 already got it. Okay. Never mind. We are good. 6 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 7 Anything else? 8 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: Those are the 9 three questions I had. 10 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you 11 very much. We are fixing to break for lunch, but 12 Kelly raised a point and Hill Henry says he's got a 13 one-minute answer to the question she raised. That's 14 about all we have is one minute and so I am going to 15 let Hill address the specifics that he wasn't able 16 get to before. 17 MR. HILL HENRY: Kelly, your question 18 was regarding the resource stewardship campaigns, I 19 have checked with the staff and there's no specific 20 resource campaign that we're going to be involved in 21 or have targeted to be involved in. 22 Kind of the example I gave earlier was 23 that if there is an initiative that we see that fits 24 within our management objectives for some of our 25 properties, we can become involved in that and then 191 1 we would promote it as a resource campaign. 2 An example would be the landscape 3 conservation cooperatives that the Fish & Wildlife 4 Service is doing. If they have some type of 5 initiative to convert pasture land to warm season 6 grasses, you know, that's something that we could 7 incorporate on our properties and then we would 8 promote it as such. That's basically all that is. 9 DR. KELLY TILLER: Thank you. 10 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Was your 11 question answered, Kelly? 12 DR. KELLY TILLER: Yes. 13 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Thank you, 14 Hill. 15 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you, 16 Hill. With that we're going to go ahead and break 17 for lunch. We're going to give everybody an extra 15 18 minutes on the schedule. So come back at 1:45. 19 Where's Beth? 20 She is going to educate us on the 21 process for getting your lunch. 22 DFO ANDA RAY: Be hungry. 23 MS. BETH KEEL: It's right out here, 24 there's a buffet, and then we're eating in the room 25 just as you keep going straight ahead. It's all set 192 1 up for you. 2 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: So 3 basically just kind of migrate that way. 4 MS. BETH KEEL: That's right. 5 (Lunch recess.) 6 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I'll ask 7 Randy to come up and kind of introduce Jerry and kind 8 of move us into the recreation focus area. 9 Randy. 10 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Thank you, Tom. 11 And as I mentioned prior to lunch, there are two 12 additional resource areas that we wanted to talk 13 about after lunch. One is recreation and the other 14 is lands planning. 15 We will start with recreation, and to 16 lead us through that discussion is Jerry Fouse, who 17 is a manager in the recreation area. 18 So Jerry. 19 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Thank you, Randy. 20 Before I get started, let me just speak to the 21 question about boat ramps on Norris quickly and just 22 say that as all of you know we work closely with the 23 seven TVA states, the fish and game agencies in the 24 states as well as the state park agencies in those 25 states. 193 1 We are currently undertaking a 2 partnership project on Sled Creek over on Kentucky 3 Reservoir with Kentucky Fish & Game Department to do 4 a public boat ramp there. 5 The gist of that is we own the land 6 there. It is properly zoned for zone six developed 7 recreation. And unfortunately, things cost a lot 8 more now than they used to. So it's taken us three 9 phases of funding to get to where we can put the 10 thing finally in place with the Kentucky Fish & Game 11 Department. 12 Those are the kind of partnership 13 projects that we would undertake, say, at Norris with 14 TWRA. Now, it may be a little more difficult at 15 Norris because Norris is an older and more mature 16 reservoir than is the reservoir on Kentucky. So it 17 may be a little more difficult, but we do do those 18 kinds of projects and we will continue to do those. 19 I think you will see that in this presentation. 20 I am going to talk to you about this 21 group of 20 recreation program elements. They are in 22 five broad categories. They are on slides two 23 through three if you want to follow in your book. 24 The first of those slides, which is 25 slide four that gets into the specifics, deals with 194 1 TVA's campgrounds. We own and operate, on slide 4, 2 12 campgrounds. There are some 670 campsites in our 3 inventory. We have -- they are broken out in two 4 groups. We have eight of those campgrounds that are 5 on dam reservations and TVA power property. 6 Now, those are the power properties 7 and those are the properties where the TVA brand is 8 most evident in terms of the signage and the quality 9 of those facilities. 10 For those eight under the custodial 11 management options, we would continue to manage all 12 eight of those campgrounds. We would update -- 13 upgrade one of those campgrounds to meet the, and 14 this is an acronym, Americans with Disabilities Act 15 Accessibility Guidelines, and I apologize if it's not 16 in parenthesis, but you will hear me refer to it 17 today as universal accessibility, which is the more 18 accepted term in the industry. We would upgrade one 19 of those under the custodial option. 20 If the flagship option were available 21 to us, then we would continue to own and operate 22 those eight campgrounds. We would upgrade eight of 23 those campgrounds to meet the universal accessibility 24 guidelines and then establish a flagship site. 25 The concept there in the flagship site 195 1 is we would apply the most recent available 2 sustainability, green technologies, and universal 3 accessibility design standards. We're fortunate at 4 TVA in that we have a full complement of the 5 engineering disciplines to call on. We have the 6 architects that help us with our design work. So we 7 would be able to implement that for the eight 8 campgrounds under flagship. 9 For the campgrounds located not on the 10 dam reservations or on other shoreline properties, we 11 have four of those that we own and operate. We would 12 continue to own and operate three of those 13 campgrounds under the custodial option. There would 14 be no upgrades to those campgrounds, and we would 15 seek contractual agreements from third parties to 16 take over and own and operate those campgrounds under 17 the custodial option. 18 Under the flagship option for those 19 four campgrounds, we would continue to own and 20 operated the four campgrounds. We would upgrade to 21 universal accessibility standards all four of those 22 campgrounds, and we would continue to seek 23 contractual agreements for those campgrounds to 24 operate in that area. 25 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Jerry, just 196 1 before you go, go back to that slide. 2 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Help. 3 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: So you're 4 talking about closing a campground, just to be clear, 5 under this scenario? 6 MR. JERRY FOUSE: In the portfolio of 7 12 campgrounds that we own, we have two campgrounds 8 that actually are subsidized. They really don't make 9 money, they break even, and so we -- we would 10 consider them to be marginal campgrounds. One of 11 those, if we could not find a third-party operator, 12 we would consider it as a possible closure, I think 13 that's true. 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I just 15 wanted to make sure everybody understood that. 16 MR. JERRY FOUSE: And it's one that we 17 don't make money on. I mean, it gets very low use. 18 I mean, it's a marginal campground. 19 Any other questions? 20 Similarly, in day-use areas we have a 21 total of 63 day-use recreation areas at TVA. These 22 are areas that are beaches, picnic areas, boat ramps, 23 fishing access areas across the Valley. Thirty of 24 those day-use areas are on dam or power plant 25 property. 197 1 Here again, they are part of a TVA 2 brand. They have all of the correct signage that 3 denote them as being part of the TVA product that's 4 on the power plant properties and dam reservations. 5 Under the custodial option, we would 6 consider -- continue to operate the 30 day-use areas 7 and we would upgrade one to meet the universal 8 accessibility standards. 9 Under the flagship alternative here, 10 we would continue to operate the 30 day-use areas, 11 upgrade four of them to be universally accessible, 12 and then establish a flagship site as a sustainable 13 demonstration area. 14 For the day-use areas that are located 15 on other reservoir properties, the 33 day-use areas, 16 we would continue to operate them under the custodial 17 option. We would upgrade one to meet the universal 18 accessibility guidelines, but we would seek 19 contractual agreements with agency partners to take 20 over and manage the operations and maintenance of 21 some of those day-use areas, if possible. 22 Under the flagship alternative, we 23 would continue to operate the 33 day-use areas. We 24 would upgrade four of those to meet the universal 25 accessible standards, but we would still continue to 198 1 seek contractual agreements for those types of 2 facilities and the operations and maintenance of 3 those. 4 Any questions about that? 5 Under greenways, trails, and stream 6 access sites, we have an ongoing program of greenways 7 and trails. We own and operate a system of about 8 90 miles of trails across the dam reservations. 9 We would continue in the custodial 10 option to provide access to TVA's lands for agencies 11 and non-government organizations to have access and 12 develop trail systems on TVA lands. 13 As some of you know, the Federal 14 Highway Administration administers an 80/20 grants 15 program for greenways and trails, and it's been 16 hugely successful. A result of that has been a 17 number of new trail and greenway projects at the 18 local levels. 19 Now there is an initiative to try to 20 begin to connect those trails into more regional 21 trial systems. So that is where TVA's land, 22 particularly our connecting lands, will become very 23 important in order to be able to help those 24 communities develop regional trails systems and 25 connect those trails. 199 1 Under the flagship alternative, we 2 would actually proactively seek partnerships to 3 develop additional trail miles on TVA lands over 4 time, and that would be up to 20 miles. 5 So just -- we would move from 6 providing land in the custodial to actually 7 proactively working to expand our trail system, which 8 is currently at about 90 miles. 9 Under stream access sites, we 10 currently own 81 stream access sites in the Tennessee 11 Valley. These are small parcels of land from about a 12 half acre in size to about 5 or 6 acres. They 13 provide access to headwaters and tributary streams. 14 Some are on the tailwater areas. Fifty of these are 15 currently in partnerships with the fish and game 16 agencies, local communities. 17 So we own and operate, and would under 18 the custodial option, 31 of these stream access 19 sites. We would provide no upgrades to them. We 20 maintain them on an as-needed basis now, and we would 21 continue to seek contractual third-party agreements 22 for others to develop and maintain and operate those 23 facilities. 24 Under the flagship alternative we 25 would look at not only owning these 31 but actually 200 1 upgrading and operating the 31 and proactively 2 seeking partnerships to actually expand the stream 3 access system in the Valley and we would -- but we 4 would continue to seek contractual agreements for 5 those partnerships. 6 Is there any questions on this slide? 7 Slide 7, this is under the recreation 8 assessments category. Boating capacity studies, 9 under the custodial option we do not currently do 10 boating capacity studies. 11 However, under the flagship option and 12 in partnership with the State Boating Law 13 Administrator's Office, we would try -- we would 14 partner and develop up to two of those boating 15 capacity studies a year. 16 Now, for those of you that -- boating 17 capacity studies take about 18 months to two years. 18 They are a comprehensive review of the boating 19 capacity of a particular body of water. There are 20 survey tools used. There are actual on-water boat 21 counts that are done. There are aerial photographs 22 used to verify those on-water boat counts. 23 We, as an agency, really feel like we 24 would be preempting the state's responsibility if we 25 were to take the lead in that. So we would position 201 1 ourselves as a partner in those types of boating 2 capacity studies. Two a year would give us the 3 option of being able to do, say, one in Tennessee and 4 at the same time partner with Alabama or partner with 5 some of the other states. 6 And for those of you who are familiar 7 with FERC relicensing activities that go on, you may 8 know that as part of their recreation use and needs 9 studies they actually do boating capacity studies as 10 a subchapter of those reports. So that would be -- 11 it's that kind of activity. 12 Moving on to boating density 13 assessments, this is a desktop planning exercise that 14 we do currently on an as-needed basis to support the 15 NEPA reviews for 26(a) permits. We use a recreation 16 inventory, we use the proposed development numbers, 17 and we compare those numbers and come up with an 18 estimate of what kind of boating density impacts 19 there will be to that particular body of water and 20 particular section of reservoir. 21 We share this information with the 22 State Boating Law Administrators. We would do those 23 as we do now under the custodial option, and we would 24 continue that under the flagship option. 25 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Let me ask 202 1 something. 2 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes. 3 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: So the idea 4 with this is you're looking at a data analysis of how 5 many boats are out there, the densities, et cetera, 6 but this isn't really a management scenario because 7 you can't really control how many boats are on a 8 project, am I correct, or the state? 9 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Actually the state 10 could. The Boating Law Administrators from the state 11 actually have the power to regulate recreational 12 boating in the states. 13 What we do in terms of doing the 14 boating density assessments is we provide them with 15 our assessment as a summary document so they can get 16 a sense of how that fits with what they're seeing in 17 terms of their accident reports and their fatality 18 reports that their patrol officers see, and we try to 19 come to some reasonable conclusion about the project 20 that's being proposed. 21 Is it too many slips? Is it too many 22 parking spaces at the boat ramp? Should we talk to 23 the proposed developer and try to get it reduced to 24 some more reasonable size? 25 Those kinds of discissions are what 203 1 that planning tool is. It's short of doing the full 2 boating capacity study, but it gets us really good 3 information from our inventory database. And then we 4 verify that with the officers that do -- that patrol 5 the various reservoirs within the states. 6 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you. 7 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Visitor assessments 8 is a way that we have annually or surveying the 9 campground and pavilion users at TVA. Under the 10 custodial option, we would continue that. It's one 11 of our operational indicator as part of a composite 12 indicator at TVA. We have a computerized battery of 13 questions that we ask in the survey by telephone, and 14 we gather that information annually from actually 15 visitors to our recreation areas. 16 Under the flagship option we would 17 expand that to include other developed areas. So we 18 would begin to survey boat ramp users, fishing access 19 users, picnic area users that are not on those 20 specific areas where we have got registration 21 information now. 22 Does anybody have any questions about 23 that slide? 24 Under recreation design tools, we 25 operate and manage a recreation inventory that's an 204 1 oracle database, and that oracle database is -- 2 provides us tremendous information on what recreation 3 assets there are on the reservoir system. 4 We can query that database based on a 5 variety of questions. We could ask it are these -- 6 you know, list us the TVA facilities, list us the 7 fish and game facilities, list us the state park 8 facilities, list us facilities by camping or boat 9 ramps or marinas or whatever. So we do have a 10 capability within that. It has GIS capabilities to 11 it. 12 So the picture that's up here in this 13 slide is an attempt at a graphic, and I apologize for 14 it being small, to show you the kind of output 15 information. That matrix happens to be Boone 16 Reservoir. Our folks in corporate communications 17 actually paid in 2009 to link our oracle database to 18 Google Map Viewer to be able to provide output 19 information. 20 What you see up there is some of the 21 output information that comes from -- to the public 22 so that the public can go in on-line and actually 23 look up specific recreation information on our TVA 24 web site. 25 We currently -- and under custodial, 205 1 we would update that inventory about a third of the 2 reservoirs a year, about a third of the inventory, 3 which would be 15 reservoirs. 4 And under flagship we would expand 5 that so that we would update the entire reservoir 6 system annually. So we would go -- we would move up 7 to 46 reservoirs a year. 8 Under recreation design principles, 9 this is the principles of universal and sustainable 10 design that we would try to employ as we move forward 11 with our capital upgrades. We would support that 12 with interpretive signage at our demonstration 13 projects so that we would have an education component 14 to be able to show the public what we had done, how 15 we had done it, the kinds of things that could be 16 done in terms of sustainable recreation developments. 17 And we do that currently under the 18 custodial option, and we would continue that under 19 the flagship option as we move forward. 20 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Does that 21 essentially mean there's no real difference? 22 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes, there would be 23 no difference. And it's something -- it's a point 24 that we're trying to just get you-all to understand 25 that we do do that. We're doing -- we're working on 206 1 one right now at a place called Melton Hill, and it 2 has some technology innovation components to it. I 3 am sure Anda will tell you all about that later. 4 DFO ANDA RAY: Jerry, I'm confused. 5 When it says sustainable capital upgrades and signage 6 supports, that's more or less? I mean, you can do 7 more capital or less capital. So isn't one less 8 money and one would be more money? 9 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Well, we currently 10 have about a million dollars a year in our capital 11 budget and -- but we would continue those. As we 12 continue our upgrades, we would apply universal and 13 sustainable design to our projects. 14 And we would also continue the 15 interpretive signs so that people understood what we 16 had done that was different there across the Valley. 17 DFO ANDA RAY: So it's not the capital 18 itself, it's the design for the recreation which you 19 could apply more or less? 20 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Exactly. 21 DFO ANDA RAY: Oh, okay. 22 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Exactly. We would 23 continue that under flagship. 24 The recreation planning and technical 25 support, as many of you know, we keep a database of 207 1 current recreation building codes, our inventory, our 2 regional data, and we share that on a routine basis 3 with communities, the states, to help them with their 4 state comprehensive outdoor recreation plans, to help 5 them with their boating inventory plans, those kinds 6 of things, and we would continue to provide those 7 kinds of planning support to our partners. We do it 8 under custodial, and we would continue that under the 9 flagship option. 10 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I guess -- 11 and maybe it's a question for Randy. It's more of a 12 process question. 13 If you're asking the Council to sort 14 of look at the filter between good and best and does 15 it make sense for each of these program areas, if you 16 have got one where there's really not a delineation, 17 does -- is it really worthy of being a separate 18 category? 19 I mean, if good is as good as it gets, 20 it's just a scale issue, you know, if we apply it to 21 another -- I don't know. 22 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I may suggest, 23 Tom, if I can respond that I would suggest calling it 24 out as a separate category because it is a separate 25 program, but I might also suggest maybe there's not a 208 1 question being put to this Council about, you know, 2 do we do flagship versus custodial. I don't think 3 that's the open question, but we did think it was 4 worthy of calling it out as a separate category 5 because it is indeed a separate program. 6 DFO ANDA RAY: So can I just add on to 7 that is that you wouldn't ask custodial versus 8 flagship, but it will be prioritized with other 9 program areas, and therefore, may show up higher or 10 lower in the ranking? 11 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's right. 12 That's why we called it out as a separate program is 13 it would be subject to prioritization, that is 14 correct. 15 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Thank you. 16 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you. 17 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Is there any other 18 questions on this slide? 19 One of our public -- the next two 20 slides are public outreach, or three, and one of the 21 programs that we had some years ago and we have 22 continued in a very modest fashion is the agency and 23 non-governmental organization recreation 24 partnerships, and currently we do share our 25 information, our inventory information, and provide 209 1 use of TVA lands for public recreation development. 2 In small part we provide some limited 3 capital funds for partnership projects. The Sled 4 Creek boat ramp over on Kentucky is a good example of 5 where we're putting about 10 percent or a little less 6 than 10 percent of our total capital for this fiscal 7 year into that project with Kentucky Fish & Game 8 Department. Then they are bringing in some of their 9 wallop row (phonetic) boating monies to supplement 10 our funds to finish that development. 11 Under custodial, we would continue 12 that level of effort in that type of activity. If we 13 could move to flagship as an option, we would include 14 a modest amount of O&M funds so that we could begin 15 to do projects in partnership with the seven TVA 16 states, and the seven per year is, in fact, a number 17 that speaks to the seven. It probably would be a 18 budget item of about 140 to $150,000 a year to be 19 able to participate at a modest level with them. 20 Under annual tours, under custodial, 21 as we complete some of these flagship projects we 22 would have some showcasing tours, and the concept 23 there is that we would have two a year. 24 We would have a spring media tour 25 where we would bring in the media and have a tour and 210 1 show them the kind of things that we had developed on 2 the properties and integrated the recreation assets 3 in with sustainable green technologies and technology 4 innovations. 5 In a similar fashion, we would have a 6 fall technology transfer tour, and we would provide 7 access to our pure federal agencies and state park 8 agencies and we would bring them on the property and 9 give them the same packet but give them technical 10 packages that would have the kinds of specifications 11 for the applications that had been made in these 12 recreation areas. They would be able to go back to 13 their state parks or to their recreation areas and 14 implement some of the things that we found to be 15 successful. 16 For those of you who don't know, at 17 Melton Hill we're going to be testing about six or 18 seven different types of solar panels, three 19 different types of power inverters, hot water solar 20 technology, a number of things that we will be 21 testing at Melton Hill. 22 Hopefully someday we will be able to 23 go there and take a tour and we will be able to see 24 all of the things that we have done at Melton Hill. 25 It's about 20 miles, 30 miles west of Knoxville. So 211 1 it's fairly close to the office. 2 Yes, Anda. 3 DFO ANDA RAY: This is another one, 4 going back to Deborah's comment, N/A looks like 5 you're not doing anything. So custodial is 6 maintaining the one that you have -- 7 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's correct. 8 DFO ANDA RAY: And then not doing any 9 more? 10 So we will work on those N/A's, I 11 guess, right? 12 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Yes. 13 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Thank you. Under 14 flagship for annual tours, we would expand that and 15 we would try to do up to six tours per year. In 16 other words, rather than having our facilities all in 17 and around the Knoxville area, we might be able to 18 have facilities closer to Chattanooga and then closer 19 maybe to Muscle Shoals or Nashville. 20 So we would be able to spread out 21 those tours and be able to cover more. In that 22 concept, we would have a combination of not just 23 facilities with the campgrounds, but we would also 24 have some day-use areas that would be upgraded in 25 that. 212 1 For the clean and green campground 2 initiative we do not currently have that, but the 3 concept here is it would be somewhat like the Clean 4 Marina Certification Program in that we would move in 5 to the flagship option and we would recognize those 6 commercial campgrounds on TVA property that actually 7 begin to adopt best management practices, universal 8 accessibility, sustainable technology so that we 9 could actually have them in there and recognize them 10 as part of the clean and green campground initiative. 11 MR. RON FUGATT: I have a question. 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Say your 13 name. 14 MR. RON FUGATT: Ron Fugatt. 15 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes. 16 MR. RON FUGATT: My question is: How 17 big are these partnerships with, like, agencies? 18 When we were talking about this 19 before, it just occurred to me, and I am more 20 familiar with Tennessee than any other states but I 21 think they are very similar, that we have a state 22 organization that does parks and recreations. 23 Has TVA given some consideration to 24 partnering with them so that they are advertised on 25 their sites? 213 1 TVA provides some of the funding for 2 maintaining but these people manage them and maintain 3 them and do all of that as opposed to having TVA as 4 an agency doing the same thing. 5 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Well, in answer to 6 your question, our partnerships traditionally have 7 been one or two agencies involved. 8 Typically from a recreation program 9 standpoint, we have worked with the fish and game 10 agencies in the state to provide land for boat ramps 11 and we have worked with the state park agencies in 12 the state to provide land for state parks. 13 In addition to that, as budgets have 14 ebbed and flowed, we have had funding to assist them 15 with supplemental funding to help them develop 16 certain facilities in those state parks and certain 17 parts of their boat ramp facilities, not total boat 18 ramps, but parts of the boat ramp facilities. 19 In exchange for that, you're exactly 20 right, they assume the long-term operations and 21 maintenance of those facilities. So we have been 22 there, we have contributed land, we have contributed 23 sometimes a little funding, and we do get credit on 24 those signs, but then the day-to-day operations and 25 maintenance ends up being the responsibility of, in 214 1 that context, those state agencies. 2 We have, in addition to that, 3 partnered with communities, counties, cities, and 4 towns to do similar public park projects over the 5 years. There we pretty much limit our participation 6 to providing the land rights, but those have been 7 very successful. We do get credit for those on signs 8 from time to time. 9 MR. RON FUGATT: I guess my question 10 is, and I am learning, does TVA take reservations and 11 have employees or somebody that schedules all of 12 these campgrounds and those kinds of things or do you 13 reserve them on-line or is TVA in the tourism 14 business is what I'm trying to ask? 15 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Well, we're not 16 directly in the tourism business. In an honest 17 fashion, we do take reservations for our picnic 18 pavilions. The facilities management folks have the 19 software and the hardware to take those reservations. 20 We do not take campground -- campsite reservations on 21 our 12 campgrounds. They are first come/first serve, 22 and we have operated them that way for many, many 23 years. So that's the way we operate our facilities. 24 MR. RON FUGATT: I guess what I'm 25 suggesting is that maybe you need to consider 215 1 expanding that to talk to those folks that are in the 2 tourism business to take over all of that and get TVA 3 out of that business, meaning they could still put 4 money in to maintain the lands and whatever because 5 they are doing that now, but all of this other 6 overhead might be worth considering and then it would 7 be -- to me to it would make it better available for 8 the citizens because when somebody wants to come to 9 Tennessee they don't go to TVA's web site to see 10 where the campgrounds are, they go to the Tennessee 11 state web site and they find TDEC and then there they 12 are and that's the way to go. So it looks to me like 13 that ought to be expanded to be considered. 14 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Thank you. This is 15 slide ten. 16 Under public outreach programs, under 17 the commercial recreation management, we manage some 18 300 commercial recreation agreements for campgrounds 19 and marinas on TVA properties. We would continue to 20 do that under the custodial option, but under the 21 flagship option we would initiate the clean and green 22 certification to the contract holders for these lands 23 right agreements as we continue to visit those 300 24 facilities and do our annual inspections. So that 25 would be the expansion there to the flagship option. 216 1 Yes, ma'am. 2 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Does this 3 dovetail, overlap, repeat what we were talking about 4 in the land use where we talked about -- I think 5 there was a little bit in there about marinas and 6 clean, green initiatives. 7 Is this a separate thing? Is this -- 8 I don't know how they fit. I don't know if I am 9 asking if they are the same thing or different 10 things. 11 MR. JERRY FOUSE: These are commercial 12 agreements where we have actually provided land 13 rights to TVA land either through license, leases or 14 easements. So what I think you're referencing is the 15 fact that we also provide 26(a) permits in a 16 different context. 17 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I'm just asking 18 the difference in, I guess, the Tennessee Valley 19 Clean Marina Program and what we're doing here. 20 MR. JERRY FOUSE: This would be taking 21 the Clean Marina Program and applying it to our 22 campgrounds, the commercial campgrounds on TVA land. 23 So it would be an expansion of that concept where we 24 would recognize those campgrounds that -- 25 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Does that 217 1 include marinas then? 2 DFO ANDA RAY: No. 3 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Thank you. 4 MR. RON FUGATT: I get full of 5 questions sometimes. 6 MR. JERRY FOUSE: That's good. 7 MR. RON FUGATT: My question is: What 8 is the difference in certification and contract 9 requirements as far as use of land, TVA land? 10 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Well, historically 11 our contract requirements are legal documents and 12 binding, while the certifications are volunteer, best 13 management practices that either the marinas, or the 14 campgrounds in this case, would actually begin to 15 apply to their operations, and we would recognize 16 them for doing that. 17 So one is a requirement, the legal 18 agreements, of course, and then the other, the 19 certifications, are, in fact, a volunteer activity. 20 MR. RON FUGATT: I understand that. 21 But how many of those things would you like for them 22 to volunteer to be -- would you like to see in those 23 contracts? 24 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: That's a 25 responsibility. 218 1 MR. RON FUGATT: That's right. 2 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Well, certainly I'm 3 sure there's some of them, but not all of them would 4 fit into the contract language. And I see what 5 you're asking. 6 DFO ANDA RAY: Why don't we ask -- 7 Mitch, you guys have Clean Marina Certifications and 8 you also know about the contracts that we have for -- 9 what -- do you have any input or any insight into 10 whether clean marina requirements would be part of a 11 contract? 12 MR. MITCH JONES: Mitch Jones. In the 13 case -- I would venture to say that in all cases it 14 is to the benefit of the marina operator to go 15 through the process that is outlined in the Clean 16 Marina Program and establish their marina as a clean 17 marina. It is good for all of the entities and 18 stakeholders that may be a part of that waterway, a 19 contingent neighbor, a customer, the public good. 20 So to -- if there is a clear and 21 concise message that could be delivered to an 22 operator of a commercial property, whether it be a 23 campground or a marina that is clear, concise, and 24 gives enough time for that operation to become a 25 clean campground or a clean marina, it is -- it would 219 1 be -- let's switch this half over to resource, it is 2 in this interest to have that in the contractual 3 easements and/or leases. 4 And Bruce, if you tell anybody that I 5 said that in an open room I will -- it is something 6 that should be a part of that. 7 Now, if I may expand on that one more, 8 there's another part of that that's green. Marina 9 operators are being approached frequently and often 10 to establish silicone panels on the tops of their 11 docks and attaching to your network. 12 DFO ANDA RAY: Good. We have got a 13 program for that. 14 MR. MITCH JONES: So hopefully you've 15 got a checkbook for that -- 16 DFO ANDA RAY: We have a checkbook for 17 that. 18 MR. MITCH JONES: -- because it's very 19 expensive to do, but you have to look at an ROI in 20 that phrase. So with that I wanted to kind of put 21 the green piece to the clean piece. 22 Thank you. 23 DFO ANDA RAY: That's a good comment. 24 Thanks. 25 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: And when you're 220 1 looking at the contractual obligations, you can do it 2 two ways. You can contractually require certain 3 things that are done or you can contractually 4 incentivize going down a certain route with the 5 expectation that at renewal something should be in 6 place. It depends on how long the renewal is. If 7 it's 25 years, I mean, it doesn't work, but there's a 8 positive way to do it. 9 MR. MITCH JONES: Mitch Jones. Can I 10 address Deborah because she's brought up a really 11 good point? 12 If you -- if, let's say, you have a 13 contractual obligation that is outside of the Clean 14 Marina Program for a moment, and in that obligation 15 there is a fee that is paid to TVA for the use of its 16 real estate, of its public real estate, the use of 17 the public real estate, and then you said over here, 18 but if you do this it's going to cost you a little 19 less, we're on to something. It makes sense. 20 So thank you. 21 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes, ma'am. 22 DR. KELLY TILLER: So this question is 23 just out of my ignorance and lack of knowledge about 24 the program, but if it is a win/win for all the 25 stakeholders involved, then we would expect that they 221 1 would all have already voluntarily become certified. 2 So, you know, if there are some of 3 those that have not achieved the certification, 4 what's been the stumbling block? 5 MR. MITCH JONES: Do you want me to 6 go? 7 DFO ANDA RAY: Go ahead. 8 MR. MITCH JONES: I just got here, 9 folks. 10 MR. RON FUGATT: You have all the 11 answers. 12 MR. MITCH JONES: I have suggestions. 13 Your name again? 14 DR. KELLY TILLER: Kelly Tiller. 15 MR. MITCH JONES: Hi, Kelly. Dr. 16 Tiller? 17 DR. KELLY TILLER: It is. 18 MR. MITCH JONES: Thank you. Okay. 19 To address her point, ten years ago these were boat 20 docks, I am speaking about the marinas, but 15 years 21 ago they were boat docks. They were -- the word 22 proper word would be that they have upgraded a lot in 23 the last 15 years in its ownership structure, I guess 24 I can say it that way. 25 So as people become more educated in 222 1 operating these businesses and they have become more 2 interested in the public good along the way, it is -- 3 those folks are, in fact, adopting these programs. 4 Then there are still marina and 5 campground operators that are 30-year, 40-year 6 operators, 25-year operators they may or may not be 7 on a TVA lease or easement, they may own their 8 property fee simple as an example of a couple of 9 properties that I have, they take this, well, it will 10 just come along and we will see what happens 11 attitude. 12 So as the educational process in the 13 marina industry has come up over the last 10 to 15 14 years, they are, in fact, adopting the clean and 15 green mindset. It helps them with their customers. 16 Their customers are expecting that. 17 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. I 18 was going to just clarify that a little bit. It 19 would seem to me that in terms of the context that 20 we're looking at relative to the NRP that it -- from 21 a custodial standpoint there would be little TVA cost 22 associated with, maybe using Deb's term, 23 incentivizing that process for contracts from here 24 out. 25 You know, you're just talking about 223 1 developing a staff perspective of what's a proper 2 incentive and then writing a couple of new 3 paragraphs, I'm maybe oversimplifying it, into 4 contract vehicles as you move forward. 5 So under the custodial kind of 6 scenario you would think that wouldn't be that 7 difficult to maintain as long as you had proper 8 standard organization. You know, clean and green may 9 be different things to different people. You would 10 have to legally be able to define that. 11 And then maybe under the flagship you 12 look at potentially reopening existing contracts 13 where there is a cost involved trying to figure out a 14 way to incentivize where they are not currently in 15 place and then they may have 10 or 15 years left on 16 their contract. 17 So, I guess, I'm thinking of a way of 18 taking that discussion and beginning to apply it to 19 what you're asking us for input here. I thought I 20 would just throw that out. 21 MR. JERRY FOUSE: No. No. I 22 appreciate that. That's good. 23 Yes, sir. 24 MR. BILL TITTLE: I have two 25 questions. I think you said earlier there are about 224 1 80 marinas. 2 MR. JERRY FOUSE: That are certified. 3 MR. BILL TITTLE: That are certified? 4 MR. JERRY FOUSE: As clean marinas, 5 yes. 6 MR. BILL TITTLE: How many are not 7 certified? 8 MR. JERRY FOUSE: About another 40 or 9 50, does that seem right? About another 40 to 50. 10 MR. BILL TITTLE: So two-thirds of 11 them are certified? 12 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes. 13 MR. BILL TITTLE: And who certifies 14 them, BPA? 15 MR. JERRY FOUSE: We have the 16 certification and we certify them, TVA does, yes. 17 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Do they have to 18 be recertified on a regular basis? 19 MR. JERRY FOUSE: We do recertify on a 20 regular basis, yes, ma'am. 21 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Great 22 questions. 23 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Continuing on slide 24 ten if there's no more questions, as an outreach, the 25 external partnerships, this is an overarching item 225 1 here. This is one that as we get agency visits we 2 realized that the Forest Service and the Corps of 3 Engineers had already moved in this direction. So 4 this was some of the benchmarking data that we picked 5 up from there. 6 We do not currently do these external 7 partnerships in this context under the custodial, but 8 under the flagship option we would actually try to 9 develop and implement a conservation foundation and a 10 trust fund to help us secure funding from outside 11 sources for corporate entities to support all of the 12 work in the four natural resource areas, not just 13 recreation, but cultural, water, habitat management, 14 biodiversity as well. 15 So that's an overarching -- one of the 16 items, and there's a couple more in my presentation 17 that are overarching, but that one needs to be 18 pointed out as that. 19 Recreation information management, 20 this is where we provide technical assistance to you 21 from our inventory and regional data to planning 22 support for stakeholders and partners. We also have 23 an inventory of 171 site plans that we have done over 24 the years for various community parks, and we provide 25 access to that inventory of site plans from time to 226 1 time. We would continue to do that under custodial 2 and we would continue to do that under the flagship 3 option. 4 The last slide under public outreach 5 programs, both of these items are overarching. One 6 of them you have seen -- both of them, I think, you 7 have seen before. 8 The top one is that we would have a 9 recreation management code of regulations. This 10 is -- we would have a Federal Code of Regulations 11 just like the Forest Service, just like the Park 12 Service, just like the Corps of Engineers. 13 As a federal land holding agencies, we 14 are one of the largest land holding -- remaining 15 federal land holding agency that does not have a Code 16 of Federal Regulations that dictates the type of 17 conduct that people need to provide when they are on 18 TVA public lands, when they are in TVA recreation 19 areas. 20 So that would give us some federal 21 statute to support our -- I am sure you have heard 22 this from the others, that we do not have that 23 currently under the custodial option, but we would 24 certainly under the flagship option hope to gain that 25 as part of our work in this area. 227 1 The next item is the volunteer 2 programs, and the example here is our campground 3 host. We have volunteer campground hosts that work 4 in our campgrounds during the year, during the 5 recreation season. 6 We currently recruit and do 7 campground -- I mean volunteer programs on a 8 time-available basis. I mean, we just do it when we 9 have got time. 10 Now, we know how to do the host 11 projects because we have done those, and they really 12 benefit us. It saves us a lot of time and money of 13 having campground hosts. 14 As we benchmarked the federal 15 agencies, one of the things that we found out was 16 that the Forest Service and the Corps of Engineers 17 and others had a natural formalized management system 18 for publicizing their needs, recruiting volunteers, 19 training volunteers, and scheduling volunteers to 20 their projects. 21 So this would be another overarching 22 activity where we would do this in some sort of 23 centralized system, and it would benefit not just 24 recreation programs but it would benefit water 25 quality, habitat management, the biodiversity, water 228 1 quality, all of our cultural, all of our various 2 natural resource programs, and that one was added for 3 that reason. 4 That concludes my presentation. Does 5 anybody else have any other questions they would like 6 to ask? 7 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I had a 8 general question. When you began the discussion on 9 design tools you alluded to the surveys and the 10 concepts of taking that information out to the public 11 through the interface of Google maps, and I was -- in 12 this outreach I don't see any outreach vehicle geared 13 towards the general citizens or users. The user 14 community maybe is a better word. 15 MR. JERRY FOUSE: That was in there 16 and I probably glossed over it, but what we have done 17 is we have provided access to our inventory of our 18 oracle database inventory through the map -- the 19 Google map viewer interface. 20 And in fact, I was just in 21 conversations with corporate communications a couple 22 of weeks ago where they are really trying to figure 23 out how they can adapt that to handheld appliances 24 now and move it to a handheld platform. 25 So it requires us, as recreation 229 1 practitioners, to just keep inventory up-to-date, and 2 then the IT folks work their magic to loop it all 3 together. So as long as we have the latitude and 4 longitude coordinates right, it will feed into the 5 map viewer and function as a map viewer application. 6 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: So for that 7 particular program initiative the custodial -- all of 8 the information is available on the web. The 9 custodial versus flagship is just how much resources 10 are devoted to the surveys and having more detailed 11 information about each site. 12 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes. And how often 13 would we update our inventory. Do we do a third of 14 the reservoirs a year, which is what we do now, or do 15 we actually apply resources to update the whole 16 inventory system once a year? 17 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: But in 18 terms of advertising recreational opportunities to 19 the users, there's really -- is there a program 20 element that I am missing that would take TVA's 21 resources and either do standard level public 22 information venues versus an enhanced level? 23 There's not -- I guess I am saying 24 there's not really a program element to do that, 25 right? 230 1 MR. JERRY FOUSE: I don't think so. I 2 think -- I mean, we're providing that information. 3 It's just a matter of how often do we update that 4 information and will it move from the current 5 web-based platform that we have on the server and 6 move to some kind of handheld, and corporate 7 communications would pay for that. We wouldn't 8 budget that. 9 DFO ANDA RAY: Can we take that as an 10 action because it's a difference between proactively 11 looking at your parks and recreation and advertising 12 them and creating a draw versus just keeping the data 13 up-to-date? I think that's -- 14 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Absolutely. 15 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. The 16 idea, for example, of tying in to state parks' web 17 sites or communication venues, you know, in Alabama 18 we have outdooralabama.com that may be a vehicle to 19 tie into so that people can go to one web site and 20 have information about multiple opportunities. 21 DFO ANDA RAY: Thank you. 22 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Thank you. Oh, yes. 23 MR. BILL TITTLE: For clarification, 24 earlier a comment was made that you were thinking of 25 closing one park because it was not profitable. 231 1 MR. JERRY FOUSE: One campground. 2 MR. BILL TITTLE: One campground? 3 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes. 4 MR. BILL TITTLE: Going back to Ron 5 Fugatt's question or comment of eliminating costs for 6 TVA, if you turn all of that over to the state parks 7 I would assume that you're at least revenue neutral 8 in operating these campgrounds and parks? 9 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes. The 12 10 actually cash flow pretty well. 11 MR. BILL TITTLE: Okay. 12 MR. JERRY FOUSE: And we have two in 13 the system that -- and in fact, your point is well 14 taken. I mean, we have offered those to state park 15 agencies. 16 MR. BILL TITTLE: But they are not 17 really costing the ratepayers anything, it's revenue 18 neutral from that perspective? 19 MR. JERRY FOUSE: The whole 12 20 portfolio, yes, it is revenue neutral. It does not 21 cost the ratepayers. 22 Is that correct? 23 DFO ANDA RAY: For the most part. 24 Yeah, I wanted to mention one other thing, adding 25 that I really appreciate y'all bringing that up. 232 1 National Geographic has come in and 2 partnered with the state and partnered with TVA on 3 the National Geographic Ecotourism, and I think that 4 that's part of what you're getting at is making sure 5 that all of these things are connected somehow and 6 easy to access and transparent to the public on whose 7 campground they are on. It's just getting that 8 activity in place. 9 So I do think that's a really good 10 comment, and we will add that as an action to expand 11 on what Jerry's done. 12 Thanks, Jerry. 13 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Deb. 14 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: A couple of 15 questions, and I think they our separate. One is we 16 have thrown out a lot about increasing what we're 17 doing there, adding things in, all of that, and this 18 may come in the ENTRIX study, I don't know where it 19 comes in, the legal liability in doing some of that. 20 The second question is just for my own 21 lack of knowledge. If we start talking about turning 22 a lot of stuff over, giving it to the states to do, 23 at some point do we run into some kind of problem 24 with TVA demonstrating its requirement to meet public 25 needs, public recreation? 233 1 I mean, if you give them all your 2 campgrounds and you give them all of your things, 3 then all of a sudden you're sitting there saying, 4 what do I demonstrate besides saying that I gave it 5 away? You know, you're not going to get credit next 6 year for what you did last year. 7 So those are kind of two separate 8 questions. I don't how they fit in. 9 MR. JERRY FOUSE: I think those are 10 good points. 11 DFO ANDA RAY: Go ahead. 12 MR. JERRY FOUSE: The second one, yes, 13 I think we -- the history is that we had about 44 14 campgrounds some years ago and in 19 -- in the late 15 1990s we went ahead and we began to partner those off 16 into private sector and into the community sector. 17 So the 12 that we currently have or 18 the 12 remaining campgrounds that we have in the 19 system, I don't know that we want to -- particularly 20 the ones that make money, and there are a few and 21 they are on dam reservations, I don't know that we 22 would want to turn those over and have third-party 23 operators on our dam reservations, that's kind of a 24 security tricky kind of question. 25 DFO ANDA RAY: And you raise a very 234 1 good point. I think as long as it remains TVA land 2 and fee and there's a re-entry opportunity, we 3 maintain that. I think there's one thing we -- we 4 said commercial agreements are excluded, and we have 5 over how many? 6 MR. JERRY FOUSE: 300. 7 DFO ANDA RAY: 300 between marinas and 8 campgrounds, 140 campgrounds, something around there? 9 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes. 10 DFO ANDA RAY: 140 campgrounds where 11 we already contract out for them to manage. It's 12 just that these remaining 12 out of that 140 happen 13 to be sitting on TVA dam reservation property, not 14 something you want to have a third-party go ahead and 15 necessarily manage because it's sitting right there 16 by the operations. 17 But that's a -- it's a very good point 18 to continue to realize, but as long as TVA has it in 19 fee and we control how -- what the contract is, I 20 think we're maintaining our stewardship 21 responsibility, it's just -- 22 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: It's just a 23 public perception role. If someday you wake up and 24 TVA has no public properties because, you know, 25 everything is out somewhere, is there backlash to it? 235 1 I guess that's my question. 2 DFO ANDA RAY: And the question, yes, 3 of course, there is. And you raise a -- there's one 4 campground that says, keep out, private property, 5 there's no even indication that it's TVA land or that 6 it's available to the public. 7 So we have -- that is one of Jerry's 8 big initiatives, Jerry and Bruce this year, is to get 9 them all up and get the signage right, get credit for 10 TVA, get them all up to an operating standard that 11 you want to take your family to, and we are not 12 there. Yes, you're right, it could be a backlash. 13 MR. JERY: Thank you. 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: John, did 15 you have a question? 16 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: Hey, Jerry, have 17 y'all done anything about putting your trails on 18 connectwithtn.com on the interactive web site? 19 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Yes. We have worked 20 with Bob on putting those on there. We have one set 21 of PDF files that have already gone on, and we're 22 working on another set now, but, yes, in cooperation 23 with the State of Tennessee. 24 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: That's an 25 interactive site you can go to and click on the 236 1 county to see what trails are out there, what trail 2 heads, conditions, which would be a good way to, once 3 again, promote TVA's trails and access points. 4 MR. JERRY FOUSE: Thank you, John. 5 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Any other 6 questions for Jerry? 7 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Just a quick 8 comment in that because it's -- and it's not on this 9 area, but I think there's a lot of things -- I know 10 back when we're talking about the archeological and 11 the historic, we talked about creating an interactive 12 cemetery database. There's a lot of databases out 13 there in the genealogy world that are already 14 interactive, that you partner with and getting credit 15 on as opposed to -- so I think it's looking at lots 16 of opportunities like that. 17 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 18 Randy. 19 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Thank you, Jerry, 20 well done and great input. We're capturing all of 21 this input from all of this discussion, and we will 22 feed it into the process. So thank you very much. 23 The last resource area we're going to 24 talk about is reservoir lands planning, and the 25 construct of this discussion will be a little 237 1 different than everyone that we have had yet today. 2 This will not be a laundry list of 3 programs with the custodial versus flagship option, 4 but rather, a discussion of planning methodologies 5 more than anything. 6 So to lead us through that is Chellye 7 Campbell. She's a project manager and leading the 8 land planning efforts. 9 So Chellye. 10 MS. CHELLYE CAMPBELL: Hello. I'm 11 going to let you work the slides for me. I will mess 12 it up with this. 13 Hello. I am Chellye Campbell. I am a 14 project manager with the land and shoreline 15 stewardship, and I am here today to talk to you a 16 little bit about the reservoir lands planning. 17 As you know and as we have discussed 18 here today, there's approximately 293,000 acres of 19 public lands around 46 reservoirs across the Valley. 20 These lands are managed for multiple uses, anything 21 from a public park to industry development, natural 22 resource conservation. 23 Since lands planning, and like Randy 24 said, is a little bit different in the fact that it 25 encompasses all of the different natural resource 238 1 areas that we have discussed here today. We have 2 sort of taken a different approach to it and sort of 3 looking at it a little differently. 4 Today I am going to talk to you about 5 the planning methodologies, and I am going to talk to 6 you about the planning management options or 7 approaches that we're taking. I am going to give you 8 a refresher of the current zone definitions and how 9 we standardize those. 10 Next slide, please. 11 The planning methodologies, in about 12 the 1960's TVA began using the forecast system to 13 kind of systematically plan and allocate their lands. 14 The uses were varied and they were very broad and 15 they are all different uses across the reservoirs and 16 across the Valley itself. 17 In about 1979 to about 1999 TVA 18 started using the multiple tract allocations. This 19 is another systematic way to look at our lands and to 20 allocate them in different uses, but with the 21 multiple use you may have had an informal and a 22 forest management allocation on the same parcel. So 23 that's the name multiple use. 24 These -- this methodology did not 25 include the zone seven or the marginal strip, our 239 1 typically residential lands, and it didn't -- it also 2 did not include those lands that were committed with 3 the license lease and easements. 4 In about 1999 until the present we 5 have been using the single-use parcel allocation. 6 This allocates properties into single uses, such as 7 recreation, natural resource conservation, and 8 industrial. 9 One use is applied to each parcel of 10 land, and this is what we're currently using. The 11 single-use parcel allocation methodology, it actually 12 does take into consideration those marginal strip 13 lands and it takes into consideration those committed 14 lands that are under agreement. 15 In 2006 TVA did the rapid lands 16 assessment, and this is a way that we could look at 17 all of our lands to compare apples with apples. You 18 have got some reservoirs that are still under the 19 forecast system, you have got some reservoirs that 20 are still under multiple use, and then you have got 21 those that have had board approved plans under the 22 single use. 23 So the rapid lands assessment allowed 24 us to pull all of those together and come up -- so we 25 could compare apples to apples, like I said, and pull 240 1 them all into the single-use allocation. So 2 everything now has a tag on it that's the same so you 3 can compare them. 4 We use that for statistics mostly. 5 This is not a Board approved plan methodology. So 6 this is really just so that we can get a comparison 7 of how our lands are across the Valley. 8 Next slide, please. 9 The planning approaches that we have 10 used, there's two of them. The first one I will talk 11 about is the programmatic planning approach, and this 12 is what we're currently using now. It utilizes the 13 single-use parcel allocation methodology and it 14 focuses on individual reservoirs as opposed to 15 looking across the Valley. 16 So you're -- you can look at an 17 individual reservoir or you could look at maybe like 18 some of the smaller reservoirs, the mountain 19 reservoirs, for example, were all in one plan. It 20 doesn't speak comprehensively about the uses as they 21 relate across the Valley. 22 These plans are cycled for replanning 23 and updating, and that cycle has typically been about 24 every ten years, but we have -- we have had sort of 25 an unsuccessful, I guess you could say, updating of 241 1 those on a frequency. 2 A very wise woman once said that lands 3 planning is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. So 4 by the time you finish, it's time to start doing it 5 again. 6 The second methodology -- next slide, 7 please. The second methodology that we have looked 8 at -- I'm sorry. The second planning option that we 9 have looked at is the comprehensive Valley-wide plan. 10 This does allow us to take a holistic 11 approach to looking at lands planning across the 12 Valley. This would give us the flexibility to look 13 at individual pieces, portions of reservoirs, entire 14 reservoirs or groups of reservoirs, just however at 15 the time the need is. 16 It would use -- it would utilize the 17 single-use parcel methodology. And by using data 18 that we already have, this is the Board approved 19 plans and the reservoir -- rapid lands assessment 20 data, we would establish ranges for each reservoir of 21 acreages. This would vary -- let me back up. 22 The information and the data that we 23 have currently, the Board and the RLA would help us 24 establish a baseline, and then we would establish a 25 range of acreages ranging from conservation focus to 242 1 recreation focus. 2 We kind of expect a little bit of 3 variation in those acreages just because some of them 4 are the rapid lands assessment. So during 5 implementation we would verify what the actual 6 acreage is, and, you know, our goal is to stay within 7 that range. Each reservoir land plan, if necessary, 8 would tier off of the NRP or EIS from this point 9 forward. 10 These -- our plans are to take a look 11 at these every three to five years as needed. Like I 12 said before, it's -- we could look at little pieces 13 of the reservoirs, we could look at individual 14 parcels or we have the ability to look at the entire 15 Valley, I guess, if needed. 16 One thing that has helped me to kind 17 of keep programmatic and comprehensive is if -- with 18 the programmatic, if you could imagine a bookshelf in 19 the library, you have got a bookshelf with multiple 20 books on it. They are all books and they are all on 21 the shelf. 22 With the comprehensive Valley-wide 23 plan, if you can imagine another bookshelf with a set 24 of encyclopedias on it, you know, the encyclopedias 25 make up the set and they all feed into to make up a 243 1 set of encyclopedias. So you have got the different 2 volumes which make up the whole. So that's kind of 3 how I have tried to keep it straight. 4 Nest slide, please. 5 I will give you a refresher on the 6 zone definitions and the different allocations of the 7 parcels of land out there now. Zone 1 is non-TVA 8 land. This is typically flowage easement lands, 9 lands that TVA does not own. 10 Our Section 26(a) permitting 11 jurisdiction still applies there. Typically we have 12 the right to flood this land. More often than not, 13 we have flowage easements that are on top -- that are 14 in place on this land. 15 Zone 2 is projects operations. This 16 is line the dam reservations or this could be a 17 public utility works, such as a water or a sewer 18 treatment plant, or it could be public roads or 19 highways. 20 Zone 3, which is sensitive resource 21 management, is managed for the protection and 22 enhancement of sensitive resources such as those 23 habitat protection areas, small wild areas, and the 24 significant cultural sites. So it kind of goes back 25 to what I was saying earlier, how lands planning kind 244 1 of takes in all of the resource areas. 2 Natural resource conservation, which 3 is Zone 4, is managed for the enhancement of natural 4 resources for human use and appreciation. This is 5 habitat improvements and dispersed recreation 6 activities. 7 Zone 5, which is industrial, is for 8 economic development purposes. That could be for a 9 business such as distribution, assembly, production 10 or a light manufacturing, and those would have in 11 common the -- a water-use need, maybe water supply, 12 maybe an intake or it could also be a barge terminal, 13 but it would have to some way those -- we would give 14 a preference to those industries that did have the 15 water-use need. 16 Zone 6 is developed recreation, and 17 these are recreation activities that would require 18 capital improvements. These are like your marinas 19 and your campgrounds. 20 Zone 7, general shoreline access, 21 these are your residential areas. These are the 22 areas that are the marginal strip that have the 23 deeded ingress and egress rights to allow them to 24 apply for a dock. 25 Typically, these are generally in the 245 1 residential area. This is where the -- I guess the 2 abundance and most of our 26(a) permitting occurs. 3 As for that, I appreciate you letting 4 me come today and speak. That is the end of my 5 presentation. 6 So if there are any questions, I will 7 be glad to answer. 8 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Any 9 questions for Chellye? 10 Yes, John. 11 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: Does TVA know -- 12 each reservoir, does it have -- do you know its 13 services area, who it serves, how far out does it go? 14 Like who is using each reservoir and the demographics 15 of that, have y'all gotten into that? 16 MS. CHELLYE CAMPBELL: Yes, I think we 17 have. Recreation may be able to expand on that a 18 little bit. 19 Bruce, I hate to put you on the spot 20 there. 21 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: This is Bruce 22 Schofield. Yes, we have that information. We have 23 it accessible, you know, as far as who uses it and 24 what the counties are, what type of -- part of the 25 issue we looked at is who's using it and where you do 246 1 it for recreation or commercial. 2 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: I was just curious 3 if you actually knew because I am sure each reservoir 4 is -- they serve a different demographic or a 5 different profile, you know. When you start looking 6 at Norris, it may serve a different profile. 7 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: I'm not sure we 8 take it down to -- 9 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: Wilson may serve a 10 totally different type of person. I am just 11 wondering in your planning if you ever divide the 12 facilities and take that into account. 13 MR. BRUCE SCHOFIELD: We will take an 14 action and we will make sure we get back to you on 15 that. I'm not sure we have the detail that you're -- 16 the connotation that you used it in. 17 DFO ANDA RAY: Let me come back to 18 that. When we do their individual reservoir plans 19 for each reservoir, and those are put out for public 20 comment, so the kind of demographics where the public 21 says, well, you know, we have high-end residential 22 homes in here and we want to make sure that we have 23 more access, they will come out and provide that 24 input, and that's where we get the demographic input. 25 We don't change the way we've plan 247 1 that land based on the economics or the demographics 2 of the people using that particular reservoir, but 3 that's part of what the Natural Resource Plan now is 4 about, is looking about where the priorities are, and 5 there will be some reservoirs that have more priority 6 because they have more access for informal recreation 7 and some will have more access for commercial 8 recreation. 9 But I don't -- right now we don't plan 10 those land plans based on how that -- about what the 11 demographics of the people using that reservoir is, 12 and that's what you're asking is, hey, why don't you 13 do that. 14 MR. JOHN WILBANKS: Yeah. 15 DFO ANDA RAY: It's a good comment. 16 MS. CHELLYE CAMPBELL: Thank you. 17 Anyone else? 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you, 19 Chellye. 20 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: We have now talked 21 through all of the resource areas today. And as you 22 recall, we started the morning talking about scenario 23 planning, and it kind of had four fundamental 24 elements, if you remember that graphic I showed at 25 about 9:00 this morning. 248 1 We just completed talking through one 2 of them, which is the laundry list of programs and 3 the options that are being considered from flagship 4 to custodial or custodial to flagship, I should say. 5 TVA is also going through the process 6 of identifying roughly resource requirements for each 7 of those options. That's not going to be a topic for 8 today. 9 One of the challenges that TVA has 10 going forward is now to prioritize these programs, 11 and the key part of the prioritization, as this body 12 has advised, is to make sure that TVA gets the best 13 bang for the buck, that things are done 14 cost-effectively. To do that we have to understand 15 what is the benefit of these various programs. 16 To accomplish that, TVA has gone out 17 and hired one of the leading natural resource 18 economist firms in the United States, if not the 19 leading, which is ENTRIX, and they have developed 20 benefits for each one of these programs and program 21 options that we have talked through today. 22 So Barbara Wyse is their senior 23 economist, and she has agreed to come here from 24 California today to walk us through their process and 25 kind of give the highlights of that -- of their 249 1 study. 2 Barbara also has the added gold-plate 3 qualifications of being a fellow Duke University 4 graduate. So, Barbara, let's go Blue Devils. 5 Welcome. 6 MS. BARBARA WYSE: Thank you for that 7 introduction, Randy, and thank you all for being -- 8 for inviting me here today. 9 As Randy mentioned, we were hired last 10 fall to look at the benefits of the NRP, and it's 11 been a really fun and interesting project for us and 12 I am really happy to be here today to talk with you 13 about it. 14 So I just want to give you a quick 15 overview of what I am going to talk about. First I 16 just want to give you a little introduction to Cardno 17 ENTRIX, which is the firm that I am with, and then 18 also go through the general methods that we use to 19 evaluate benefits, talk through some of the findings, 20 and then really allow time for questions from you-all 21 throughout. 22 So there's been a few questions raised 23 already about that info. So I will try to address 24 those as I go along, but anything else that comes up, 25 please ask questions. I guess I can run -- okay. 250 1 So just a little bit of background on 2 my firm Cardno ENTRIX, as Randy mentioned, we do have 3 a really large group of environmental and natural 4 resource economists. That was the group that worked 5 on this particular project, but we also have a lot of 6 natural scientists at the firm and cultural resource 7 specialists and biologists. 8 And throughout the project, given the 9 different resource areas, not only did we access the 10 TVA resource specialists, but we also directed 11 questions to those within the firm that has 12 specialties in those areas, too. So it was a great 13 resource for us throughout the project. 14 And then one thing to -- that I wanted 15 to point out, in terms of economics group we have 16 about 30 of us that are in the natural resource 17 economics team. The team has expertise in a really 18 broad range of resource areas and also in using 19 different types of economic techniques. So given the 20 breadth of the NRP, that was really great for us to 21 have that versatility in terms of expertise in 22 different resource areas. 23 So, in general, the scope of the work 24 that we received from TVA was to take a look at all 25 of the NRP programs that we have talked about earlier 251 1 today and quantify, to the extent possible, in dollar 2 terms what the benefits are of each of those 3 programs. So that was the general objective. 4 And as Randy has pointed out and 5 several others, the purpose of this was to be able to 6 use that type of information to prioritize all of the 7 different programs and be able to think about how to 8 make best use of the funds available to TVA. 9 Some of the advantages of taking an 10 economic approach to valuation is that it gives 11 you -- it really makes you -- forces you to think 12 about the relevancy of these programs to people in 13 terms of who is it that's benefiting, what is really 14 the outcome that we're shooting for, what is our 15 objective in these programs, and how does it benefit 16 people? How many people does it benefit? How much 17 do they benefit? 18 These are all really important 19 questions to think about when you get down to 20 prioritization, and the answers to those questions 21 can really help you be transparent in your 22 prioritization process and really help you justify 23 why you allocated funds in the way that you did. 24 One thing also that we will point out 25 as we go along through the presentation today, a 252 1 number of the programs we were not able to put a 2 dollar value to. There are various reasons for why 3 we were not able to do that on some of the programs, 4 but recognizing that when the benefits are being able 5 to put things in dollar values is to have a common 6 metric. 7 So if you have one program that's 8 valued at $10 and another program that's valued at 9 $100 and another one valued at $50, you -- they are 10 not then in cultural resources and biological 11 resources and recreational resources, but they are 12 all in one common metric of dollars and you can 13 compare the benefits against each other. 14 Well, when you have some programs that 15 you can't put into dollar terms where the benefits 16 are, you still need some kind of common metric, and 17 that's what Randy was referring to earlier when he 18 talked about the tool that I think you guys have been 19 looking at in terms of weighting benefits, different 20 types of benefits against each other. 21 So we worked with TVA and Scott Madden 22 to adapt a tool we have used in the past to be able 23 to compare different types of benefits against each 24 other, and that's the tool that Randy will talk about 25 a little bit later. 253 1 So in terms of scale, previous 2 presentations have talked about the geographic scope 3 of of NRP. Basically all I wanted to say here is 4 it's big. There's a lot of different programs, as we 5 have gone through them today. There are about 180 6 individual line items, and the resource specialists 7 have talked about it by program level. 8 This chart shows it also by the goal 9 and activities. With any program muffle there's 10 multiple goals and activities. And in total across 11 the four resource areas, there's about 180 of those 12 management activities and goals, which really run a 13 really wide gamut of different types of activities as 14 we have discussed here today. 15 And then for the four different 16 management options, that means when we combine four 17 management options across 180 goals, we have over 700 18 total varying levels of resource management that we 19 could do through the NRP. So it's a really big 20 universe that we're looking at here. 21 So to try to organize this in a way 22 that would make the analysis actually be doable, we 23 looked at, well, what are the main benefit types that 24 you get from these 700 programs? 25 They really boil down to about six 254 1 different types. We worked with TVA and Scott Madden 2 in developing these categories to make sure that we 3 really were covering the main types of benefits that 4 the NRP provides. 5 In general, the four -- the first four 6 types match up a little bit with the four resource 7 areas. So we have recreation and visitor-use 8 benefits. Within that category, recognizing as we 9 have talked about today, a lot of these resource 10 areas really provide -- they overlap in terms of the 11 types of benefits that they provide. 12 And in particular, for recreation and 13 visitor use, there's a lot of overlap where you have 14 recreation and visitor use benefits that accrue 15 because of water resource programs, because of 16 cultural resource programs, because of biological 17 resource programs. 18 So this recognizes that and this is -- 19 the first category of recreation and visitor-use 20 benefit is trying to look at all of the visitor-use 21 benefits that accrue not just from recreation 22 programs but from all the other resource areas as 23 well. 24 And then there's additional benefits 25 that are directly, what is the change in the water 255 1 resource quality, what is the change in the species 2 habitat abundance and conservation through these 3 programs, and then similarly with cultural 4 preservation, how much are we actually increasing the 5 preservation through these programs. 6 And then the last two benefits are 7 perhaps the two that are the hardest to quantify but 8 that are very much at the center of a lot of the NRP 9 programs. One being, what is the increased 10 management knowledge that we have? 11 There's a lot of programs that are 12 focused on data gathering, data sharing, that sort of 13 effort, and that's a major benefit of a lot of these 14 programs. And with that, we can actually reduce 15 compliance costs to TVA. So it actually turns into a 16 direct dollar sign for TVA and its ratepayers. 17 Then finally the partnerships and the 18 public perception, that was something that Randy 19 pointed out was -- that really shone through in the 20 agency visits. These partnerships are really 21 important. While it's difficult to put a dollar sign 22 associated with them, we really wanted to recognize 23 this as a primary benefit of a lot of these programs. 24 So there's a lot going on in this 25 slide, and this is actually sort of the meat of our 256 1 methodology. How do we go about -- with these six 2 benefit types and these 700 programs, how do we go 3 about assigning a dollar value to the ones we could 4 and assigning other types of values as we could 5 throughout the process? 6 So, in general, most people probably 7 had some form of Econ 101 or some sort of 8 introduction into economics, and as we know from that 9 background quantity and price are what really matter 10 in economics. So when it comes to the NRP programs, 11 the quantity change is really important. How does 12 the resource quality, how does resource the quantity 13 change because of the program? 14 And then we think, well, who is it 15 that's benefiting and how much do they benefit by it? 16 So that's kind of the price. 17 So we have on one hand the change that 18 occurs from the NRP program, which is kind of a 19 quantity change, and then we have, well, how does 20 this affect people, how many people, and how much do 21 they value it? So you have the price. 22 Both of these things are hard to 23 define. So on a price standpoint we can't just go to 24 the store and say, how much does 1 percent improve 25 water quality? We don't have a price sign on it at 257 1 the store. So we have to use other methods to come 2 up with what that value is. 3 Similarly, on the quantity side, most 4 of these things don't have easy units associated with 5 them where we may not know the quantity outcome or we 6 may not even know the type of outcome we might 7 receive from these programs. 8 So it's important to think about each 9 of the steps and valuation and provide as much 10 information as we possibly could. So that's the 11 approach we took when we broke it down into these 12 five steps. 13 So the first one was, to the extent 14 possible, what is the change in the program? And the 15 width here shows how much we were able to do as 16 across the 700 NRP programs. So we actually have a 17 fairly narrow band for quantifying the resource 18 change because of the types of programs that are in 19 the NRP. It was actually quite difficult to do for 20 many of the programs. 21 The second step was, what are the six 22 types of benefits does this program provide? That 23 one, as you can see, is quite wide. For actually 24 every single program we could say, these are the 25 types of benefits that we can expect from this 258 1 program. 2 Then the third step was, how many 3 people are benefiting? So do we have 100 people or 4 do we have the entire population in the TVA service 5 area? So that was a really important piece as well. 6 And for nearly all of the programs we 7 could say, this is the expected population that we 8 think can actually benefit from this. 9 The fourth step was, okay, now we know 10 how many people are benefiting, what's the actual 11 value per person? How do we think about the 12 magnitude of this benefit? You could benefit a whole 13 lot of people, but if the value is really small, your 14 overall benefit might be small. So that's another 15 important piece. 16 And then finally you kind of put all 17 of that together and you say, okay, if we have all of 18 these pieces we can provide a dollar value estimate 19 of each of the NRP programs. So those are the steps 20 that we can come across. 21 And as you can see at the bottom, the 22 percent that we actually were able to assign a dollar 23 value may have been a small proportion, but we were 24 able to assign a lot of different types of 25 information, at least about those programs, in terms 259 1 of the number of people benefiting or the types of 2 benefits that were accruing. 3 So just to kind of go through an 4 example here. If we think about one of the 5 recreation programs, one of the ones that we were 6 able to assign a dollar value to was the number of 7 trails or trail miles or increasing the number of 8 trail miles. So the quantity change would be the 9 number of trail miles. So if it was 20 additional 10 trail miles, the quantity change is 20 trail miles. 11 Then we would say, okay, benefit 12 categories, what is the benefit there? Well, 13 primarily it's recreation, visitor-use benefit from 14 the trails. There's also a public perception benefit 15 from that. Those are the two primary benefits from 16 trails that we ascribed to it. 17 Then in terms of the estimate of the 18 number of people benefiting, and here's where I will 19 actually get into Avis' question on the dispersed 20 recreation, the number of folks that are actually 21 participating in recreation on TVA lands, so to 22 estimate the number of people benefiting for a lot of 23 these programs is -- well, it's called a process 24 actually. 25 People sometimes make fun of 260 1 economists because we make a lot of assumptions. 2 Sometimes assumptions are really necessary because of 3 the amount of data available. For the number 4 benefiting, this was often the case. 5 And in the case of recreation for 6 dispersed areas, there isn't available information 7 right now on -- in terms of visitor use numbers that 8 have actually been tracked on TVA lands. So we 9 couldn't go to TVA and say, tell us how many hikers 10 you have or how many campers you have back in the 11 country, we don't have that information. 12 So what we did was we looked at the 13 Army Corps of Engineers data, and they have really 14 good data from the reservoirs in this region, both in 15 terms of the total number of boaters, and then they 16 also attract the number of hunters. So hunters is a 17 type of dispersed recreation that occurs throughout 18 the lands around the Army Corps' reservoirs. 19 Then we used that as an indicator of 20 the amount of recreation that could be occurring 21 around the TVA reservoirs as well since they are 22 similar types of land use. 23 So the number of hunters on the Army 24 Corps' land turned out to be about 200 per acre. And 25 then we looked at and said, okay, it's not hunting, 261 1 there's all these other types of recreation. We used 2 participation data on recreation in the area. It 3 turns out that, in general, hunting accounts for 4 about 10 percent of this type of general recreation 5 in the TVA service area. 6 So we took the 200 per acre, so that's 7 10 percent, and we get about 20 total people 8 recreating per acre. Multiply that by the roughly 9 300,000 acres, and we come up with 6 million 10 dispersed recreation users. 11 It's not a perfect methodology. And 12 throughout all of this we're really focused on saying 13 there's a lot of uncertainty associated with these 14 numbers, but that's the best information we had 15 available right now. So that's the number we used 16 throughout the analysis. 17 So based on the 6 million 18 recreation -- dispersed recreation user estimate, we 19 then said, what percent of that is hiking? We came 20 up with roughly about 17,000 people per mile hiking 21 on each of the 90 TVA miles, trail miles. So that's 22 where we come up with the number people benefiting in 23 this example. 24 Then the value per person, the value 25 that we used in this study was all based on existing 262 1 literature that was within the scope of work that TVA 2 gave us. They want us to not do any original 3 valuation studies but to look solely at existing 4 literature. 5 And from the literature, it's roughly 6 in the realm of $10 per person per hiking trip of the 7 benefit that the person receives in excess of 8 whatever it cost them to go recreate. So that's the 9 actual benefit to recreator. 10 So then we have the numbers. Okay. 11 We have the number of people and we have the number 12 of miles and we have the value per trail. So with 13 that we could come up with roughly a range of 150 to 14 $215,000 per mile on TVA lands for hiking trails. 15 Those are kind of the process that we 16 went through, and these are the main data sources 17 that we used throughout the process. In general, I 18 really want to express that the TVA resource 19 specialists, we had a lot of conversations with them 20 and they provided a lot of information and a lot of 21 data, all that they had that could really help us in 22 this valuation process. I really want to thank all 23 of the resource specialists that are here, they 24 provided a lot of the information and it made our 25 jobs much easier. 263 1 In general, in addition to the data 2 from the resource specialists and from the NRP 3 itself, we used all the publicly available 4 information that was easily available in terms of the 5 population, recreation participation trends, and then 6 we combined that with expert judgment to come up with 7 these values. 8 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Deb, did 9 you have a question real quick? 10 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Yeah. When 11 you're looking at this scenario and how you do it and 12 some of the things we have been through today, 13 particularly in the water management where we got 14 into clean water, better water, is it still just a 15 straight value for doing it or do you put in a risk 16 assessment that -- do you calculate in a risk if you 17 don't do it against the value of doing it? 18 I am not sure I am asking it right, in 19 the right terms, but expedientially it seems like if 20 there's a risk in not doing it and there's a value in 21 doing it, then the ultimate value is greater than one 22 where there's a risk in not doing it, which might be 23 recreational? 24 MS. BARBARA WYSE: If I am 25 understanding correctly, so you could have a cost of 264 1 not doing something, is that what you're referring 2 to? 3 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Well, some of 4 the things we looked at in the clean air was 5 reducing some of the -- was getting cleaner water, 6 there could be some risks in not doing that. 7 MS. BARBARA WYSE: Right. 8 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Some liability 9 and some risks to individuals. Is that risk factor 10 of not doing it calculated anywhere or do we really 11 just look at the benefit if we choose to do it? 12 MS. BARBARA WYSE: That's a good 13 question. And in terms of what the benefit is, if 14 you have a cost associated with not doing something, 15 that's -- you kind of think it's a negative that 16 wouldn't occur if you did the program. So that's a 17 benefit actually. We call it sort of an avoided cost 18 benefit. 19 So in cases where we could define a 20 risk, such as one of the ones that we looked at was 21 property damage associated with shoreline property 22 that might -- that shoreline stabilization could 23 prove some kind of property loss. So we tried to 24 look at those where possible. 25 In the -- and in terms of water 265 1 quality, from that we tried to look at what possible 2 avoided treatment costs there might be if you didn't 3 approve the water quality. The feedback we got from 4 the water resource team was that the magnitude of the 5 water quality improvements that would be seen from 6 the NRP probably wouldn't translate into any change 7 in the water treatment costs for municipalities or 8 that kind of thing. 9 What we ended up doing for water 10 quality was focused on the -- most of the programs in 11 water quality were focused on improvement at the 12 hydrology unit level. So the things that were 13 presented, that Tiffany presented, in terms of 14 reduced sediment and phosphorus, the whole aim of all 15 of that was an improvement in the rating of the water 16 quality within our hydrologic unit, and that's what 17 we valued. 18 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Thank you. 19 MS. BARBARA WYSE: Any other questions 20 on this? 21 So this gives an overview by benefit 22 category type of how successful we were able to be 23 given the information available at quantifying each 24 of these steps for each of the six categories. 25 So you can see that for recreation and 266 1 water, those were the steps -- the programs for which 2 there was the most information available that we 3 could actually give a dollar value of what the NRP 4 programs are. 5 For species and habitat, in 6 particular, here we were able to quantify a lot of 7 dollar values as they related to recreation. So 8 within the recreation and visitor-use benefit we 9 could quantify biological improvement. 10 Within actual conservation in biology, 11 it was a lot harder for us to quantify what the 12 benefit was largely because the programs -- there 13 wasn't an outcome that we knew right now. We don't 14 know how many additional species would be -- what the 15 species population change would be from these 16 programs. 17 We don't necessarily know how many 18 acres of improvement there would be because a lot of 19 the programs are sort of an adaptive management where 20 it's we're going to survey these acres and respond to 21 the needs that are there, where we maybe don't know 22 right now what actions actually will be taken in the 23 future. 24 Similarly with cultural resource 25 preservation, we were able to quantify particularly 267 1 things related to the corporate history program that 2 have a visitor-use benefit. But in terms of 3 preservation with the cultural resources themselves, 4 in there we were mainly able to focus in on shoreline 5 stabilization because there, there was a quantified 6 number of miles of shoreline that were stabilized and 7 resources that were protected, and we used the data 8 available on the percent of lands that have been 9 surveyed, the number of known archeological sites to 10 extrapolate on how many total archeological sites per 11 mile would likely be saved. 12 And then under the Archeological 13 Resources Protection Act, the federal law, there's 14 actually a methodology for estimating archeological 15 value. So we used that methodology to come up with a 16 value for cultural preservation for that particular 17 program. But in general for the cultural 18 preservation programs, most of them we were not able 19 to put into dollar terms. 20 And then as we talked about earlier 21 with the knowledge -- improved management knowledge 22 and improved data, as well as the enhanced public 23 perception and the partnerships, those also are hard 24 to put a dollar value to, but we know they are quite 25 important to TVA and to the region. 268 1 So I wanted to discuss a little bit 2 about we went through -- as I was talking about 3 earlier, there's the 700 combinations of management 4 options and management activities. And we went 5 through on each of those and quantified, to the 6 extent possible for each of those combinations, what 7 the dollar value or what information we knew about 8 the benefits. 9 Then we took and we went to the 10 program level, which is the level at which all the 11 resource specialists today have been presenting the 12 programs, and we crossed the programs and the 13 benefits categories. 14 This gets, I think, to some questions 15 earlier about, well, when do we get to integrating? 16 When do we actually think about these resources and 17 these programs in an integrative fashion? 18 This is what we were trying to do here 19 was to say most of these programs don't just 20 provide -- the recreation program, it doesn't just 21 provide a recreation benefit. It may actually have a 22 water benefit. 23 For example, the clean and green 24 campgrounds, those provide other resource benefits 25 and aren't just benefiting the recreationists. So 269 1 this is where we were trying to acknowledge that and 2 show for any given program we have a lot of different 3 types of benefits that is being generated. So this 4 is an example from the biological resource programs. 5 And as Hill was discussing earlier, 6 the land condition assessment and the boundary 7 maintenance, there's three programs actually or three 8 management activities within each of these. So this 9 is aggreated (sic) to that level, and then it's 10 providing all of these different types of benefits 11 across the benefit categories. 12 So in summary I just wanted to 13 highlight the -- in general for a lot of the 14 programs, the main piece of information that we could 15 provide was the number of people that were benefiting 16 and some idea of the value per person of what the 17 program could provide. 18 And in general for each of the six 19 categories, for recreation we have the most benefits 20 able to be defined. And really, that's probably in 21 line with -- as Randy presented earlier today when we 22 had public comments or actually I think it might have 23 been Heather that presented the number of comments 24 from scoping that were in recreation, that bar chart 25 she provided there were -- the majority were 270 1 recreation-related comments, and that's really the 2 majority of where we were able to define benefits. 3 So it probably lines up in terms of 4 that's what the public is concerned about, that's 5 what they're benefiting from, and that's also what we 6 were able to define most here. 7 So we have about 735,000 estimated TVA 8 day-users and visitors. So that's a proportion of 9 about -- I think it's 8.7 million across all the 10 reservoirs that use day-use areas and use the 11 reservoirs. So that's just at the TVA day-use sites 12 that Jerry spoke of earlier. Then we have about 13 78,000 nights that the campgrounds -- that the 12 14 campgrounds are occupied. Then we have about 6 15 million dispersed recreation visits. 16 And for each of those types of 17 activities, we used the recreation economics 18 literature to define what the value per person was 19 and from there to define the value to each of the 20 programs. 21 For water resources we looked at a 22 number of households in the area that are benefiting 23 from an improvement in the water quality in the 24 Tennessee watershed, and then we were able to find 25 some literature that shows how a percentage change in 271 1 water quality in a region is -- how much people are 2 willing to trade off different costs of living for an 3 improvement in water quality and from there to define 4 how much it was worth to them to have an improvement 5 in water quality. That came to about 10 to $30 per 6 household per year for a 1 percent improvement in the 7 water quality of all water bodies within a region. 8 For species and habitat, for that we 9 used the population of folks that have shown an 10 interest in species protection and conservation 11 through their activities to show the number of people 12 that may be particularly concerned about species 13 habitat and species population protection. 14 As you can tell, there's about 3.2 15 million in the region that report that they view 16 wildlife and about 4.8 million that participate in 17 outdoor recreation activities that may be 18 particularly concerned about protecting habitat and 19 species populations. 20 Similarly with cultural preservation, 21 we looked at the population of the tribes. One of 22 the natural resource programs was looking at 23 consultation with Native American tribes. So we 24 looked at the population of those tribes. There's 25 about 450,000 people in the 18 tribes that are 272 1 federally recognized tribes that are consulted with 2 by TVA. 3 Then we looked at the number of people 4 that actively visit archeological sites or are 5 interested in historic sites to look at the number of 6 people that might be benefiting from increased 7 preservation of those sites. 8 And then the knowledge of increased 9 management knowledge, increased ability to protect 10 the resources on TVA lands, the cost savings to TVA 11 ratepayers, the enhanced public image and trust in 12 TVA from these program, all of that will benefit all 13 the people living in this region and all the 14 ratepayers to TVA. 15 That's the end. I keep pressing the 16 wrong button here. 17 Any further questions? 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Questions 19 for Barbara? 20 Russell. 21 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: I have a 22 comment, not a question so much. I am very sure that 23 you do your job very well and do it with honor, but I 24 am very, very concerned about the valuation of these 25 types of programs in association with a dollar bill. 273 1 It's of great concern to me. 2 And I would be very, very ashamed if 3 any of any tribal elders were here to talk -- to hear 4 discussed a dollar value assigned to the survival of 5 their cultural identity, their unique tribal Cherokee 6 identity. 7 I think about, you know, if my sister 8 died and I was asked to take care of her kids, I 9 would never ever say, well, how much money could I 10 make on the deal? I would know it would cost me 11 money, but I would know it would be the right thing 12 to do because there would be nobody else to act as a 13 steward. 14 TVA is the steward to those cultural 15 items that are in the ground, and we have no idea how 16 many there are or what cultural value, not dollar 17 value, they may possess, and we may -- we will never 18 know in our lifetimes what that may be. 19 But nevertheless, TVA has a 20 responsibility to take care of those. And so I do 21 not think you can use a dollar amount to prioritize 22 the importance of acting as a mandated steward of a 23 tribal past that was largely stolen from our people. 24 And when I heard you talk about 25 450,000 tribal members, it almost made me cry because 274 1 there should be so many more of us alive right now 2 and we're not, but we will have children and they 3 will benefit from this. 4 And I think, you know, the Mona Lisa 5 may be worth 10 million bucks, but if I set it on 6 fire right here right now today and give y'all $10 7 million bucks, I have cost the world a whole lot more 8 than can ever be valued because there will be 9 generations of people that will never see that and 10 that will never know about it. 11 I just hope it's understood that I 12 don't think you can assign a dollar amount to these 13 kinds of things. 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: And I think 15 just to echo that, I mean, that could be true with 16 cultural resources. It could be true with water 17 quality or environmental issues. It could be true 18 with habitat. I mean, there are certain things that 19 don't naturally lend themselves to an economic 20 valuation. 21 And part of what I see as a role of 22 this Council is to help provide the staff the 23 opportunity, as they are driven in many cases by 24 economics, to make sure that these non-economic 25 valuations are factored appropriately into this. 275 1 I understand what you have said. I 2 think it's very valid. I think there are other areas 3 as well that you have to be careful and not just run 4 by a green-eye-shade sort of management mentality. 5 Do you want to add to that? 6 DFO ANDA RAY: Yeah. I think -- I 7 really appreciate that. That was very passionate, 8 and I intend to quote some of the words that you 9 used. 10 We have to look at it the same way 11 with the IRP, you have got to start somewhere. So we 12 start -- we're going to start with the economics 13 making the assumptions that were discussed, but then 14 that is the role of this committee, as well as 15 others, is to then superimpose on top of that, what 16 is the value system, what is importance to TVA, what 17 is important to the Valley, what do you do with 18 things that are priceless because you can't put a 19 price on them, that's what we will do with that list 20 after that. 21 Go ahead, Randy. 22 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's right. If 23 I could add or make one clarification. Having 24 looked, as she described, at 700 line items and the 25 types of benefits, she has focused here on the 276 1 financial benefits in her summary. 2 Maybe you could summarize, of all of 3 these benefits what percentage roughly was financial 4 versus qualitative, and maybe you can address that. 5 MS. BARBARA WYSE: Yeah. And I want 6 to say really, thank you, Russell, for bringing that 7 up. I think it's -- your point is very well taken. 8 We actually work with often a lot of tribes and we 9 don't value cultural resources for the very points 10 that you raised. 11 And as Randy points out, for most of 12 the programs we did not assign a dollar value. One, 13 sometimes because of lack of information; and two, 14 sometimes because assigning a dollar value is really 15 not the best way to evaluate benefit. 16 And in particular for cultural 17 resources, and also for many of the biological 18 resources, there are federal mandates that we have 19 recognized as people that some of our resources are 20 priceless and that we will not destroy them. We will 21 not act in a manner such that will cause harm. So we 22 have recognized that as a cultural, and that's 23 embedded in our regulations. 24 So I think it's important to recognize 25 that and that economic valuation, in terms of what we 277 1 were trying to do here, was to take it beyond the 2 traditional 3 this-has-a-dollar-value-because-I-can-sell-it sort of 4 valuation and look at things that we know have value. 5 In particular recreation, recreation 6 has been studied a lot and there are people that is 7 more easily turned into a quantitative dollar figure 8 because it's an activity -- it's an economic activity 9 that we engage in even if we don't pay for it that 10 people can assign a value to. 11 So in those, that was really where 12 most of the dollar values were, and I think it's 13 probably -- of the 700 programs, we might have been 14 lucky to assign value to 15 or 20 percent. For many 15 of them we didn't try because we didn't think it was 16 appropriate. 17 So great point. 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Any other 19 comments or questions? 20 Okay. Randy, do you want to wrap up 21 this before we take a break? 22 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Just very quickly. 23 Thank you again, Barbara. And again, to that 24 excellent point you made having looked at the benefit 25 analysis that ENTRIX has done, I would estimate 278 1 15 percent or so have been quantified, but 85 percent 2 are qualitative, and I think that's an excellent 3 point. 4 We have got one more item to discuss 5 after break, but with this, Tom, I'll hand it to you. 6 Do you want to send us to break? 7 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: The only 8 thing that I was going to add to our break is there 9 is some of you that indicated you're not going to be 10 here tomorrow, and what I would ask is that you take 11 the question sheet out of your notebook and if you 12 have comments or thoughts you want expressed, if you 13 would just give those to me or Anda or somebody -- 14 me, I guess, okay, 1-800-me, I will try to make sure 15 that those get incorporated tomorrow as we make our 16 formal input into TVA. So if you're not going to be 17 here, that would certainly be appreciated. 18 Wilson, is there anything else? 19 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Can we 20 take a short ten-minute break this time just to make 21 sure we get out on time? 22 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Ten 23 minutes. As Wilson said, look at your clock. We 24 won't do an office clock. Look at your watch clock 25 and ten minutes from now. 279 1 (Brief recess.) 2 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Please move 3 towards your seat. 4 Randy is going to talk a little bit 5 about the survey that was mailed to each of us, sort 6 of our Rorschach Ink Blot Test Analysis, we're going 7 to talk about that process and what were the initial 8 results that they found as a result of the analysis. 9 So I am going to turn it over to Randy 10 and let him take that topic. 11 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Thank you, Tom. 12 If I could go to the next slide just to sort of recap 13 the day a little bit, and then I will talk about this 14 last thing we want to talk about, which is the 15 weighting exercise and the weighting. 16 Kind of where we are in the day, you 17 see the three things we have done today. We have 18 talked about scenario planning to -- you know, the 19 process of scenario planning that TVA is using to 20 determine the best approach. 21 I will kind of refer you back to the 22 questions that you will address tomorrow as a Council 23 that Tom pointed our attention to at the beginning of 24 the meeting, that essentially is the first question 25 is this bullet, is the process being employed valid 280 1 and comprehensive? 2 Secondly, we spent the bulk of the day 3 doing this second bullet. The resource specialists 4 have developed a number of proposed programs with 5 options for those programs. We have walked through 6 those in great detail, and that is essentially the 7 second question this body will address tomorrow is, 8 does that represent a broad enough bandwidth or are 9 there other areas that require more emphasis or do 10 you -- would you propose emphasizing flagship options 11 in certain one of the programs, and that's the second 12 question being put to this Council tomorrow. 13 Thirdly, as part of the process, TVA 14 has retained a natural resource economist to provide 15 that third-party expertise to provide a valuation for 16 these different programs and the options within them, 17 and that is the third question that the Council will 18 address tomorrow. 19 And then the fourth question is what 20 we're about to address right now. Once we have 21 determined values for each of these programs and each 22 option within them, and that's what ENTRIX has helped 23 us do and -- again, I will point out Russell's 24 excellent point, I will emphasize again, of these 25 values probably 15 percent of them have been 281 1 expressed in dollar terms. Many of them are 2 qualitative, and you will see that at the appropriate 3 time. 4 But once those values -- now that 5 those values have been established, the last thing 6 that remains is, well, how do we weight those 7 different values? 8 And if you recall -- and by the way, 9 that is the fourth question that will be put to the 10 group tomorrow is, is this the appropriate weighting? 11 If you recall, if you go to the next 12 slide, as Barbara walked through the weighting or the 13 valuation process and methodology, as you will 14 recall, Barbara summarized the valuation categories 15 into these six categories which you see behind me, 16 recreation, visitor benefit use, here's the 17 definitions, I don't read those in the interest of 18 time, water resource benefits, species, habitat, 19 conservation and abundance, cultural resource 20 preservation, management data and scientific 21 knowledge and public perception, 22 partnerships/outreach. So those are the six 23 categories of benefits. There's the definition of 24 each. 25 Go to the next slide. 282 1 So the challenge is, do all of those 2 have equal weight? Does this body think all of these 3 are equally weighted or do some have more weight than 4 others? 5 So TVA has polled two groups, first 6 this body, the RRSC, and then secondly the advisory 7 team on this project. I don't know if we have ever 8 talked about the advisory team, certainly not today 9 since I have been in the room, but TVA has an 10 advisory team of which Helen Rucker in the back who 11 spoke earlier today is the Chairman. It consists of 12 eight senior leaders that sort of span the office of 13 the General Counsel and the NEPA group and the 14 environmental group, et cetera, and that's another 15 body that we polled to essentially ask the question, 16 how do you weight these different categories of 17 benefits? 18 As everybody or most of you know 19 because I think most of you have filled out that tool 20 that ENTRIX developed, I guess in conjunction with us 21 that ENTRIX developed, we sent you a tool to help us 22 in that valuation methodology or in that valuation or 23 weighting of the valuations, I guess. 24 I won't go through the mechanics of 25 that tool, other than to say I am sure it was a 283 1 painful process to fill out. But as you recall -- 2 it's very much like one of those personality tests 3 you take where they ask question one, five, seven, 4 and nine in kind of four different ways and then they 5 tabulate those results and see how they correlate and 6 then question two, six, nine and 15 kind of get to a 7 third point. So that's why a lot of that probably 8 seemed repetitive, but there's actually some science 9 behind it. 10 From that we can extract out -- with 11 ENTRIX's help we can extract out what this group 12 thinks are the relevant weightings of these six 13 categories of benefits on the preceding slide. 14 So all of this is a preamble just to 15 introduce the next slide, which that is a process -- 16 and thank you for your help, that is a process to 17 extract from this group what are the relative 18 weightings placed on those different categories of 19 benefits, and that's ultimately going to lead us to 20 help develop as part of this process a prioritization 21 of some of these programs. 22 So with that long-winded introduction, 23 the summary of the results that we have received from 24 the RRSC to date look like this. And again, this is 25 going to be one of the questions that's going to be 284 1 teed up for this group tomorrow is, does this 2 represent a fair representation? Does this present a 3 fair representation of the value that you put on each 4 one of these benefit categories? 5 Let me say that this only represents 6 about half of the respondents from the RRSC. When we 7 went to print with this document about a week ago, we 8 only received about half of responses. We have now 9 received the other half. Perhaps we can get that 10 updated by tomorrow so you will have the appropriate 11 weightings or the current weightings I should say. 12 This represents what -- with that 13 tool, the weighting and the relative value that this 14 body puts on each of those six categories of benefits 15 that are defined in two or three slides before this. 16 So with that, I will stop. And again, 17 this is one of the four questions for this group to 18 discuss tomorrow and one of the four questions for 19 this group to provide some direction to TVA on, but I 20 will stop here and just say, does this -- do these 21 results tell us anything? Is this surprising or are 22 there any surprises? Do they represent the interest? 23 And again, this is one of the four 24 questions to be discussed tomorrow. These are the 25 results. 285 1 Yes, ma'am. 2 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Kelly. 3 DR. KELLY TILLER: I have just kind of 4 a technical question. You know, if I am 5 understanding this right, two-thirds of the 6 categories have a valuating that's less than 7 2 percent difference overall. 8 So are those statistically significant 9 differences among each of the weights? 10 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I will tell you my 11 opinion, I would suggest not. I mean, what this 12 tells me, and this is my interpretation, this tells 13 me that those are weighted relatively equally. Water 14 resource benefit from this group tends to be weighted 15 most highly from everything else. Secondly, 16 recreation and visitor benefit use, second, and the 17 other four relatively equally, that's my 18 interpretation, but I invite you-all to make your own 19 interpretation. 20 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Other 21 comments or input? 22 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Other comments? 23 DFO ANDA RAY: I have a process 24 question. So going back to comments about -- two 25 different things. One is the valuing of the cultural 286 1 resources, things that once they are gone they are 2 gone. So the risks associated with not doing it 3 isn't really captured in the avoided costs that 4 Barbara talked about, and then the other risks, 5 societal costs, which I think you tried to capture 6 some of those. 7 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Right. 8 DFO ANDA RAY: Now that we have this 9 weighting and now that people see what the answer is, 10 and if it intuitively doesn't feel right, what's the 11 next step for providing that kind of input? How does 12 that happen? 13 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Well, I was trying 14 to avoid getting into the mathematic mechanics, but 15 let me do it. 16 As you recall, we have got 65 -- well, 17 we never actually gave you that number. We talked 18 through 65 programs today across those four resource 19 areas. Each of those has three options, custodial, 20 enhanced, and flagship. 65 times 3 is 195. So there 21 are 195 program options to be considered. 22 In each case we have determined -- 23 ENTRIX has determined values for each of those 24 program options. In some cases they are 25 quantitative. In some cases, you know, it's 287 1 essentially 195 program options times these six 2 categories of benefits. In many cases those cells 3 are blank, if you will, there was no benefit 4 associated in one of those categories with a program. 5 And in many cases, 80 percent of the cases, they are 6 qualitative. They are not quantitative, they are 7 qualitative. 8 The resource specialists in each one 9 of these areas have gone through and assigned a 10 number from one to four for that benefit. And again, 11 I don't want to get caught in the arithmetic too much 12 here, but have assigned a benefit of one to four for 13 each of those four areas. 14 And then ultimately those are 15 multiplied by this percentage of weighting to get a 16 weighted average benefit. Something might be a 3.4 17 is the benefit associated with that program. So it's 18 not purely driven off dollar value. 19 It's really the -- an assessment by 20 the resource specialists on a program-option by 21 program-option basis of what are the relative 22 benefits across each of these six things times the 23 weighting of -- you know, from the RRSC and 24 ultimately the advisory team, and that will help us 25 develop a prioritized list of options based on that 288 1 methodology. 2 However, if you go back to -- I am 3 going to skip ahead to page 8 if I may get some 4 assistance to do that. 5 DFO ANDA RAY: Is that a trick? There 6 is no page 8. 7 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I stapled together 8 maybe an earlier version. 9 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: I didn't get 10 the secret page. 11 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Okay. Let me 12 speak extemporaneously here. To answer the question, 13 the very relevant question of -- so how -- what 14 happens then, I emphasize again as we began this 15 discussion today, this is not a mathematical 16 exercise. This is heavily informed by the input from 17 this group, the input from internal stakeholders, the 18 input from the public that we're going to get. 19 So we will develop a prioritized list, 20 and that prioritized list, as you may recall from the 21 outset of the day, had kind of three strata. The 22 custodial stuff that must be done, that's Strata A. 23 You may recall the slide from 8:30 this morning. 24 Strata B are those strategic 25 priorities that TVA will identify as second in the 289 1 priority scheme, and those strategic priorities are 2 going to be heavily informed by the dialogue 3 tomorrow. 4 Of all of these program options that 5 were discussed yesterday, or today rather, of all of 6 these program options that were discussed, you know, 7 what are the ones that this group places the most 8 value on, and that will be -- you know, irrespective 9 of the mathematics that I just described, that will 10 be category B of the strategic priority that will 11 fall second in the priority of things to be pursued. 12 And then thirdly is that last 13 priority, that last strata, which was Strata C which 14 was the other items under consideration. 15 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Excuse me? 16 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Yes, sir. 17 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Could you 18 go to THE next presentation under Natural Resource 19 Plan, it's page No. 3, I think that's what you're -- 20 let's see if that's it. 21 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Page No. 3 of the 22 next presentation, sir, if I may. No, that's not it. 23 That's the wrong page 3. 24 This is what I just described. So all 25 of this will be categorized. This is not a 290 1 mathematical exercise. However, the scenario 2 planning construct informs the thinking, as do -- as 3 does the direction coming out of this group, but 4 ultimately programs are going to be stratified in 5 these three groupings. 6 No. 1, the custodial programs options, 7 that which must be done to satisfy legal and 8 regulatory and TVA policy requirements. 9 Then secondly here, the strategic 10 priorities, irrespective of the mathematics, but 11 relative to the input from this group and other 12 stakeholders. 13 Then thirdly, the other things under 14 consideration that will be prioritized with the help 15 of some of that mathematics that I described. 16 So, Renee, comment? 17 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Yeah. I am really 18 confused about this. I guess it probably would have 19 been nice to have all of this explanation before I 20 took the test, but I am having a hard time 21 understanding how we went from evaluating different 22 scenarios to now talking about these attributes. 23 Am I the only one that's got this 24 question? I mean, if I am you can talk to me 25 privately because I don't understand. I am so lost. 291 1 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Well, even if you 2 are, it's a valid question. The attributes in that 3 template that we gave you, those are really the 4 categories of benefits. They are called attributes, 5 but if you look at them those are the -- those map to 6 those six categories of benefits. 7 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Right. But I 8 believe the questions if I am reading this survey or 9 the thing that we were supposed to fill out, it was 10 really about different scenarios. 11 Did I -- 12 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: That's the one 13 I did, too. 14 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Okay. Yeah. I'm 15 sorry. I don't understand. 16 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I don't have the 17 tool in front of me. We may have had a nomenclature 18 problem on that. Again, those attributes line up to 19 different -- to those different groupings of benefits 20 and then again the terms -- 21 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: But we weren't 22 asked to talk about -- we weren't asked to evaluate 23 attributes. We were asked to evaluate scenarios that 24 had a number of different attributes in it. 25 So then I don't understand how you 292 1 parsed out our answers that were on scenarios and 2 turned them into the attributes. 3 DR. KELLY TILLER: I don't know if 4 this helps or not, but the methodology that was used, 5 one thing is -- what it does is it takes -- it 6 bundles attributes. So you evaluate a bundle and you 7 evaluate one bundle against a different bundle. You 8 do enough of those bundles and you can work backwards 9 and figure out what you were thinking when you were 10 assessing how those bundles were valued. I don't 11 know if that helps or not. 12 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Okay. 13 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: My concern is a 14 technical concern. With regression analysis where 15 you are looking at these bundles, two issues, one, I 16 am never going to get hired at Cape Canaveral, I am 17 not a mathematician, but do we have -- is our sample 18 size large enough to actually do anything with these 19 bundles and do we have enough bundles to really 20 represent fully the range of scenarios that TVA has 21 to look at, and I would say the answer is no on both 22 of those. 23 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's a valid 24 point. 25 DR. KELLY TILLER: If I could make 293 1 another comment. Just, you know, one of the things 2 that Dr. Wyse said in her presentation was that, you 3 know, naturally in all of these economic analyses and 4 kind of metrics, in particular, it's subject to 5 whatever assumptions you have made. 6 So one of the assumptions that was 7 inherent here is that here's an equal marginal 8 difference. As you prioritize these things, you 9 know, the difference between one and two is exactly 10 the same as between two and three and three and four, 11 and that's the same across all of these things. So, 12 you know, the assumption is that it imposes that, you 13 know, marginality assumption. 14 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Well, yeah, as I 15 was looking at the scenarios I thought most of them 16 were a wash because I was looking at them as a group. 17 I wasn't looking at them as different attributes. So 18 I said A looks like B almost the entire time. 19 So I think I didn't -- so I just don't 20 understand. Are you planning on using this with the 21 public because it was very, very confusing what the 22 goals was. And now you have broken them into 23 biological, cultural, recreation, and water, you 24 know, I just don't understand how you made that leap 25 from scenarios to the different attributes. Sorry. 294 1 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: The plan is 2 probably not to use that with the public, but I don't 3 think that decision has been made. Although, the 4 input I was hearing today probably suggests the 5 answer would be no. 6 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Okay. 7 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: But again, I mean, 8 I will emphasize again, this was just a tool to help 9 us arrive at that -- the weighting of those benefits. 10 And I would suggest that that be the focus of the 11 discussion tomorrow with this group, does that 12 represent a fair representation of how this group 13 might weight those different categories of benefits 14 or are they all equal? Are they all equal? 15 This is a tool that ENTRIX developed 16 in conjunction with its benefit assessment to help 17 the weighting of that, and that's all it is. 18 So, yes, Deb. 19 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: And I think -- 20 again, this is above my pay grade, but I think when 21 we talk about weighting it would help to understand 22 how you use a tool like this because I think our 23 first reaction when we look across and see numbers is 24 we just voted and this one went off to the island and 25 these are still there. Yet, I sense this really 295 1 isn't where we're going with it. It's not an 2 ultimate determination, but it's a recognition that 3 they are all important and then how you start working 4 within them. 5 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Yeah. I think 6 that's well said. I mean, again, I will come back to 7 you. You asked, where is this going, and this is 8 going right there. 9 Again, the NRP will present a 10 prioritization of the program options that we have 11 been discussing today, and again, will be stratified 12 in these three ways. 13 No. 1, custodial options have to be 14 done, but then the second priority will be those 15 strategic priorities that have nothing to do with the 16 arithmetic inherent in that tool. It has everything 17 to do with the direction that we will receive from 18 this group and from internal stakeholders. These are 19 the things that we must do. These are the second 20 tier priority. 21 And then the third thing, of those, 22 195 program option combinations will fall into this 23 third category. These are other things under 24 consideration over the course of the life of the 25 20-year plan, and it is in that grouping that those 296 1 will be prioritized, you know, at a high level based 2 on some of the analysis that I just talked about. So 3 that's where it's going. 4 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I think I 5 understand that, but I think when I look at the 6 weighting across there and I see water resources at 7 33 percent it doesn't mean that it's that much more 8 important or guaranteed to being up there more than 9 anything else because it's a factor. It's not -- 10 it's a direction, right? I mean, we haven't voted. 11 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: I think we have. 12 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I don't. See, 13 I don't take it that way at all. I take it simply 14 that it's another input. 15 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Well, it is an 16 input, but to some degree there was a vote held by 17 virtue of this tool. Again, I would suggest, this is 18 a tool and a tool only. 19 I think one of the questions, one of 20 the four questions being put to this group tomorrow 21 is, given the six categories of the benefits, is that 22 the appropriate weighting? 23 And if it is not, it needs to be 24 rewritten, but this is the results of the tool, but 25 the question being put to this group is, is this the 297 1 appropriate weighting of these six categories that 2 our natural resource economists have identified? 3 That's the question put to this group. 4 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Mitch, you 5 had a comment. 6 MR. MITCH JONES: Randy, I broke the 7 rules and skipped to page 6 on your previous 8 presentation that has the comparison advisory team. 9 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: You have the 10 dexterity to go back to the other presentation. 11 MR. MITCH JONES: Were you part of the 12 advisory team in this input data? 13 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I am not a part of 14 the advisory team, if that's your question, but the 15 advisory -- I personally am not. 16 MR. MITCH JONES: Okay. 17 MR. BILL TITTLE: Who was? 18 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: It is -- well, I 19 will read through the names and their titles. Helen 20 Rucker is the Chairman of that team. She's the 21 senior manager of business support, and you have met 22 her. 23 Randy Johnson is the project manager 24 of the IRP team. 25 Chuck Nicholson is the acting manager 298 1 in the NEPA group. 2 Greg Signature -- Signor is the 3 assistant general counsel of the environmental group. 4 John Myers is the director of 5 environmental policy clean and renewable energy. 6 Jason Mitchell is the senior advisor 7 in the environmental and technology group. He's in 8 the room today. 9 B. J. Gattin is the general manager of 10 client service and communication. 11 Susan Kelly is the senior manager of 12 federal determinations. 13 Bruce Schofield you all know now. 14 And Brenda Brickhouse is the vice 15 president of environmental permits and compliance. 16 So eight or ten senior people, you 17 know. 18 MR. BILL TITTLE: Within TVA? 19 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Within TVA, that's 20 correct. 21 MR. MITCH JONES: Just one follow-up 22 question to that. What was your takeaway when 23 you compared -- what was your takeaway when you 24 compared these two analysis -- analyses? What struck 25 you? 299 1 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Well, I might turn 2 that around and ask, what stuck you? 3 MR. MITCH JONES: Wrong way. 4 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Kind of two 5 things. First of all, I found these to be remarkably 6 similar weightings, quite frankly, that was my 7 takeaway, if I may say that, with maybe one 8 exception, and that being the water resource benefit. 9 MR. MITCH JONES: Mine was public 10 perception, six spread. 11 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: See, mine 12 is a little different because the staff generally 13 gets so involved in the recreational-based issues 14 that they may have a tendency to look at those 15 because they are driven -- TVA policies and actions 16 in a lot of cases have recreational tie-ins, you 17 know, the lack of facilities or the management are 18 challenges with facilities. 19 And then from our perspective it may 20 be that water is sort of is a universal aspect of 21 many, many interest areas, navigation to name one in 22 particular, but different groups look at this -- and 23 I guess my takeaway would be that some of the ones 24 that are generally close you really can't distinguish 25 between the two, but there's a general sort of flavor 300 1 as to what is the prevailing influence. 2 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Well, yeah. I 3 mean, those are both great observations. There's 4 certainly been a lot of passion in this room about 5 water resource management I've sensed. So it's 6 probably not a surprise that this group weights that 7 very heavily. 8 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I think 9 it's significant this does not include half of the 10 Council. 11 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's correct. 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I think to 13 truly talk about where the Council feels you would 14 need to know what a total evaluation or total 15 input -- how the numbers would change if everybody 16 submitted input. 17 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's correct. 18 So it's our intention to consolidate the rest of the 19 responses by tomorrow. 20 So maybe I will close this out. We 21 did want the tool to get in the way of doing the 22 right thing here and the thoughtful input from this 23 group. This is a tool that helps, you know, assign 24 these weightings to these different benefits. 25 But again, this is one of the four 301 1 questions being put to this group, is this an 2 appropriate weighting; and if not, what is the 3 appropriate weighting? Are they all equal? 4 And I think that's a valid thing for 5 this group to discuss and for Council to come back to 6 TVA on. 7 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: One of the 8 things that struck me in reading the materials that 9 were sent out with the tool is this isn't a 10 back-of-the-envelope sort of process, you know, that 11 ENTRIX developed this in different FERC relicensing 12 trying to get a flavor of -- 13 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's right. 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: -- 15 strategic directions or public perceptions in those 16 line of priorities maybe -- 17 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Right. 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: -- in the 19 relicensing process. So you may want to talk a 20 little bit about the development of the tool, and it 21 is provided -- designed to provide, I guess in my 22 perspective, a way to analytically get at something 23 that's very difficult to get at, you know, that input 24 is a real challenge. 25 Kelly. 302 1 DR. KELLY TILLER: I think Tom made a 2 very good point about not all of the responses being 3 represented here. This could change certainly 4 dramatically. 5 Another just process questioning is, 6 you know, if this is a desk-top-based model that can 7 be run on the fly fairly easily, I wonder if it would 8 be appropriate, given the information that we now 9 have and the understanding to -- and you know, it 10 does take ten minutes, to take ten minutes either 11 this evening or tomorrow morning and actually, you 12 know, rerun this based on the information we now have 13 and just -- again, it would just be another data 14 point for comparison. 15 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That could be 16 done. I yield to the group. 17 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. As a 18 way to expand that, I mean, you could take the fifth 19 term of the Council and run it and then for the sixth 20 term run it just to see what -- you know, again 21 you're just getting a collective assessment. 22 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: I guess I would 23 think with that ultimately -- I think ultimately 24 these numbers may be telling about, you know, where 25 this group stands on the rankings and importance. I 303 1 think I find that very interesting and potentially 2 useful. 3 I think there are a whole lot of 4 scenario options that were not presented, you know. 5 What, we have had 18 total, was that it, 18 or 16? 6 So one of the things I am going to 7 focus on is the cultural resources because that's 8 what I do. One option was like get rid of an ARPA 9 enforcement officer or something else. So I went 10 down the scenarios and said, I am going to vote 11 against the one that says get rid of an ARPA 12 enforcement officer, I don't care how beneficial they 13 are, that's what I am going to do. 14 So I am not sure that that's really 15 ultimately going to be helpful because even in those 16 instances I am probably the only one of 20 of us 17 that's going to do that. So that's still going to be 18 a statistical outlier. So it's not really going to 19 inform us, I don't believe. 20 But I was disappointed I didn't have 21 an option where TVA was saying, do you want to get 22 rid of an ARPA enforcement officer or maybe do more 23 NAGPRA. You know, the other tribes might want to cut 24 red on me, but I would advise TVA to say, keep the 25 ARPA enforcement officer because you can't get back 304 1 what's lost. We have been waiting 70 or 80 years to 2 do NAGPRA in some instances. We can wait another 3 five or ten until the resources are there. 4 So one of the things that I am 5 interested in doing, and it may be far beyond the 6 scope of this Council or TVA's interest in what we 7 have to say, but I would be more interested in 8 talking about the options TVA really has, the 9 scenarios in total that TVA has to pursue within each 10 of these categories because ultimately I think TVA is 11 going to have to make some decisions about what to 12 reinforce and what to sacrifice and what to come back 13 on. I don't think with 16 choices we're really 14 arming TVA with enough data to make those decisions 15 informed. 16 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Deb. 17 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: First of all, 18 let me go back to what Kelly said, which is maybe we 19 ought to look at it again in light of what we learned 20 today. 21 When I look back at this, and I'm one 22 of the people that brought it, I mean, basically we 23 just moved scenarios around and picked different 24 ones. But when I looked at the wording of them, 25 without having been through today and knowing, for 305 1 example, what's included in water resource management 2 and I read something that says reactor urgent, water 3 quality problems, and I'm weighting that against a 4 reduced number of ARPA, it's an emotional -- to me 5 the water quality, and I am not diminishing that, but 6 the water quality has an emotional urgent health risk 7 sound to it where the others sound more management. 8 I don't know whether that drove any of 9 us to look at that maybe and say, we're not talking 10 about the things -- the things -- the custodial that 11 have to be done, we're now talking about something 12 that gets dumped in the river and going out and 13 cleaning it up now, yeah, I think most people are 14 going to gravitate. 15 Now, internally when I look at the 16 numbers what I see is the more that it's regulated 17 the more they seem to come down and the ones where 18 the greatest challenge is in recreational and some of 19 the conservation is where the staff may be more 20 pushed, more challenged to find a way to go further. 21 So I don't know if I am jumping at 22 conclusions, but I know just in looking at this, when 23 you give me a choice of improving and protecting 24 water quality and reacting to urgent water needs as 25 opposed to reducing ARPA officers or upgrading 306 1 recreational facilities, yeah, you kind of take a 2 different tone to it. I am not sure that didn't 3 maybe force some -- 4 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Fair point. 5 Ron. 6 MR. RON FUGATT: Ron Fugatt. The 7 thing that concerns me here or I am interested in is 8 it's sort of like making a budget. 9 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Right. 10 MR. RON FUGATT: There are things you 11 have to do. If there's funds left over, you decide 12 what is the priority to use those funds. And I think 13 in y'all's making this analysis you look and all of 14 that was mixed up and it would be difficult for you 15 to ascertain a real priority because you mixed up 16 what you have to do with what you would like to do. 17 I didn't see that -- I didn't take the 18 survey, but it appears from what I have heard is 19 that's not -- that wasn't distinguished, and I think 20 that would weigh on how people would respond. 21 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Good point. 22 MR. RON FUGATT: If you meet what you 23 have to and then here's scenarios of what you would 24 like to do, then you get a better picture for what 25 this group -- I may be wrong, I'm new on this group, 307 1 but the group can't go against the policy and the law 2 and all the other things they are required to do. 3 It's from there it appears that TVA is seeking input 4 on, what does this group think they need to do or 5 improve or whatever within whatever budgetary 6 constraints they have. 7 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Well, the 8 purposes of us understanding this -- Randy, can I get 9 you to explain again the process of getting to -- I 10 think you mentioned an evaluation and a program area 11 of a 3.4 that would become that criteria's valuation 12 point. 13 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Yes. 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Walk 15 through how we go from here to input from the 16 resource experts and -- 17 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I will emphasize 18 again, if you recall that Strata A, Strata B, and 19 Strata C, this only applies to Strata C. Strata A 20 are the custodial things that TVA must do. 21 Strata B are the strategic priorities 22 this group, and perhaps internal leadership, will 23 identify as to the things that have to be done. 24 Okay. So what we're talking about is 25 that Strata C of other things under consideration, 308 1 and those must be prioritized. Everything can't be 2 priority one. So it must be prioritized. 3 And those are going to be prioritized 4 based on an assessment of value. The way that value 5 is determined is, again, for each of these six 6 categories, six categories with benefits, a value has 7 been assigned based on the judgment of the resource 8 specialist in that area, 1, 2, 3 or 4, 4 being best 9 and 1 being least. 10 It will be multiplied by these 11 percentages, 4 times 24 percent, 3 times 18 percent, 12 one times 19 percent, and then all of that solved, 13 and that produces a weighted average value for that 14 program option, and that will help TVA develop, you 15 know, kind of broad prioritization of all of this 16 stuff that is still under consideration. So that's 17 the mechanics. 18 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I don't know 19 whether that was a point we knew when we were taking 20 it or whether we were just looking at in the whole 21 world of everything that needs to be done, what do 22 you react to first. 23 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Fair point. Let 24 me offer a suggestion to the group, maybe two things. 25 I will come back again and emphasize that this 309 1 development of the Natural Resource Plan is not a 2 mathematical exercise. This is a tool to help with 3 prioritization of these things that fall into this 4 third strata. 5 It is a tool that ENTRIX has 6 developed, and as Tom points out, has been used in 7 other FERC proceedings. And they gave us this tool 8 to help us identify these weightings to apply to the 9 values that they have established for every program 10 option. It is not intended to get in the way of the 11 advice and the counsel of this group. It is a tool 12 to help with that prioritization. 13 Again, I will offer this suggestion, 14 but yield to the Chairman, of course, if this group 15 would like to take this test again or this tool 16 again, I mean, we would be happy to accommodate that 17 and do our best to summarize that prior to tomorrow 18 morning's meeting and give you those results. If 19 that's what you're asking, we're happy to do that. 20 But I would still invite you to 21 consider that the group -- the central point is 22 ultimately to have dialogue around whatever these 23 weightings are. And if this group feels everything 24 should be weighted equally, I think that's very valid 25 counsel to give TVA as it values these different 310 1 program options. That's very valuable. Override any 2 results from the tool and give that counsel because 3 that's probably where the most value will be gained 4 by TVA is the dialogue you would have around these 5 results. 6 So that's a suggestion from me, Tom, 7 if you would like to do that. 8 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Are these 9 results ever looked at with the cost benefit factors 10 assigned to them, and do we see those? I mean, as a 11 business person that would change my decision. 12 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's right. 13 These benefits that are -- those weighted average 14 benefits that I described, you know, the three times 15 24 percent and 2 times 18 percent, then those are 16 looked at versus the cost as well, and that helps 17 with the prioritization process of all of this stuff 18 in the Strata C. 19 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: But in our 20 looking at the weighting, we don't use that -- the 21 cost benefit as a part of assigning weight? 22 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: No, that is not 23 part of the weighting of the benefit, that is 24 correct. 25 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Is there a 311 1 reason it isn't? 2 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That is correct, 3 it is not part of the weighting. 4 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: But is there a 5 reason it isn't? 6 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Just to isolate 7 the benefit from the discussion of cost and focus on 8 the benefit and then you marry it up with the costs 9 and see what provides the greatest bang for the buck, 10 and that helps with the prioritization of this stuff 11 in this third category. 12 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: It gives you a 13 false -- 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Yeah. I am 15 struck by that process and that mathematical 16 calculation, you know, the weightings are relatively 17 insignificant compared to the staff evaluation. You 18 know, they are going to be a key driver in 19 establishing that value, that 1, 2, 3 or 4. Keep in 20 mind that we're sort of nudging that one way or the 21 other, but the real driver is what that valuation is. 22 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: I feel like 23 we're being asked to weigh and provide that input 24 with half of the information. It's kind of like it's 25 a popularity contest on the issues as opposed to a 312 1 true business weighting decision for both value and 2 cost because in the end they have to come together, 3 and a true cost benefit can change how you see the 4 importance of something. 5 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Valid point. 6 Again, just trying to -- with the use of this tool 7 trying to isolate the benefits and the value of those 8 benefits. 9 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Well, 10 Randy, just a quick process question, Tom, if I may, 11 so are we doing the tool again? 12 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Well, I 13 think we haven't resolved whether -- and you have got 14 a logistical issue in the sense that we need to 15 see -- you may want to see the total numbers, you 16 know, based on a recalculation that has the higher 17 percentages of the Council member input versus, you 18 know, sort of throwing that out and everybody doing 19 it now from a more educated perspective and just 20 redoing that versus this is the last meeting of this 21 Council and having the new Council weight it. 22 You know, there's a whole bunch of -- 23 I guess I don't know that I have the answers to that, 24 and I certainly would value what y'all feel is the 25 appropriate way to proceed. 313 1 MR. GEORGE KITCHENS: I have got one. 2 I have no interest at all in redoing -- retaking the 3 test. I was ill-prepared the first time, I will be 4 equally as ill-prepared today. And I don't know that 5 even if we all took it after having sat through this, 6 just looking at the spreads, I don't know if we would 7 come to any different conclusion than what we have 8 already. 9 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: So maybe 10 the idea is that if they are going to rerun the 11 numbers tonight based on the surveys that were handed 12 in today, for those Council members that want to 13 re-accomplish your survey, maybe we provide the 14 opportunity to throw that into the mix, and then 15 tomorrow morning we see a more representative Council 16 number. 17 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I think that's a 18 great approach. Let's take the other half of the 19 responses that are not reflected in those numbers, 20 any additional responses and we -- 21 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Anybody 22 else that wants to can replace their input, is that 23 appropriate? How does the Council feel about that 24 approach? 25 All negatives raise your hand to kind 314 1 of get a consensus that that would be okay. So if 2 you would like to resubmit your survey input, I am 3 assuming there are some blanks or score cards we can 4 make available somehow. 5 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I presume. 6 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: We can get 7 the logistics engine working to do that, but it's 8 incumbent upon you to get that to Randy and his 9 folks. I don't know how to do that, maybe at the 10 reception or something, but get that to him as soon 11 as possible. 12 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: Tom, I think 13 what I sense from the group is that when they sit 14 down and start using the weighting we have provided, 15 whether it's this one or the amended one, it's to 16 understand the limitations we felt like we did it 17 with. 18 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Okay. 19 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: And that it's 20 not a vote on who's the winner and who's is the 21 loser. 22 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Right. 23 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: But it was an 24 input that had some information, not all -- more of a 25 gut info before we heard all of this. 315 1 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's right. And 2 again, I think there will be great value in however 3 these numbers look tomorrow, just to have some 4 thoughtful discussion around this table, is that 5 representative of the weights that the RRSC places on 6 these different categories of benefits that our 7 natural resource economists has developed and if -- 8 MRS. DEBORAH WOOLLEY: If I were 9 sitting around with my staff and I had those two 10 things in front of me, what I would be looking at, 11 quite frankly, is that they are all pretty 12 statistically equal, you know, 33 percent and 19 13 percent out of 100 percent is not -- you know, it's 14 not blowing you off the map. It's not 50 percent. 15 So I would look at that and say, oh my 16 gosh, what I have got is a lot of relative 17 importance, and now I have got to start working from 18 that. I don't think it's the way the raw numbers 19 look. 20 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: I would agree, 21 Deb. I mean, as I mentioned earlier as kind of a 22 takeaway, what I took away here was that these were 23 relatively equally weighted. You know, perhaps water 24 resource benefit seems to be more heavily weighted, 25 but other than that they are relatively equally 316 1 weighted. Again, I would think there would be great 2 value in this group having a discussion around that. 3 Well, why don't we do that, Tom, if we 4 may, is that we will recalculate these numbers, which 5 again, are the input into the discussion, not the 6 output of discussion, and then bring that back, along 7 with any other additional surveys that you want to 8 give us, and again, just to talk mechanics for one 9 moment, how might we get those, Tom? 10 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I am saying 11 you have got to take -- if you have submitted a 12 survey and want to have a new survey to replace your 13 old survey, you have got -- I don't know logistically 14 how we make that happen, but you're going to have do 15 that pretty quick this evening. 16 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: My colleague 17 Michael said if you bring them here the first thing 18 in the morning we can recalculate these numbers 19 fairly quickly. They won't be here when you get here 20 in the morning, but you hand us any additional 21 surveys and we will recalculate in the morning. 22 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: That's very 23 nice. Is that agreeable with everybody? Then if you 24 need a blank score card to redo yours, if you didn't 25 bring it with you, see -- 317 1 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: See my colleague 2 Michael, he's got additional score cards. 3 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Again, you 4 know, just to re-emphasize in terms of -- this is 5 part of the discussion for tomorrow is this process. 6 I mean, that's what is really our point. It's not 7 necessarily what these numbers -- you know, we're 8 evaluating the process, not the results. Maybe 9 that's not quite fair, but that's the prioritization. 10 The first thing is, you know, does the process need 11 to be modified? 12 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's right. But 13 the fourth of the four questions, as I have 14 reiterated was, does this reflect the views of the 15 RRSC and the relative valuation -- weightings of 16 these groupings of benefits that the natural resource 17 economist has identified. So that will a subject of 18 discussion for tomorrow. 19 With that, I will close with one final 20 slide. If you can go back to the other presentation, 21 No. 13, and I will just talk about the path forward. 22 What's the process forward for the NRP? 23 Well, maybe I will -- 24 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: The next 25 to the last one right there. 318 1 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Our little graphic 2 in the middle accidentally went away, a little group 3 huddled around the conference table, and I assure 4 that was not an editorial comment, that was a 5 technological glitch. 6 The point that that would have made is 7 that scenario planning is merely a tool to help bring 8 rational discussion around, you know, an infinite 9 variety of options that can be pursued. 10 But more important than that are the 11 blue boxes there. The input from this group, the 12 RRSC, public comments, strategic considerations, 13 agency feedback, that's ultimately going to produce a 14 Natural Resource Plan. As I have said many times, 15 this is not a mathematical exercise. 16 However, with the help of ENTRIX and 17 some other inputs, we have been able to try and bring 18 some analytical rigor to it, but all of that will be 19 trumped and overridden by the input from this group 20 and from executive leadership. So that's the 21 process. 22 And the next steps going forward, kind 23 of in a broad sense, if you could go to the next 24 slide, the final slide, is this, we are here and we 25 are in mid January. The RRSC is providing its input, 319 1 and we look forward to getting the input from 2 tomorrow's meeting and the direction and the advice 3 from this Council from tomorrow's meeting. 4 The draft IRP or NRP, excuse me, the 5 draft NRP and the associated EIS is being worked on 6 concurrently now as we discussed. There will be some 7 internal review and approval incorporating the input 8 from this group over the next month. 9 The goal is by the end of February to 10 issue a draft NRP and an EIS. From that there will 11 be a -- tentatively a 45- to 60-day public comment 12 period to focus on -- for the public and this group 13 to comment on the draft NRP and the EIS that will be 14 done concurrently. 15 I think TVA has heard from this group 16 perhaps that public comment period ought to be 17 expanded was a point that was made. The point 18 Russell made about the fact these are being published 19 simultaneously is something that needs to be 20 carefully messaged. Ultimately, a final EIS will be 21 produced out here in the fall time frame. 22 But the target is by the end of 23 February to issue that draft NRP and EIS, there will 24 be a public comment period of some duration, and then 25 there will be a period in late summer where updates 320 1 and to finalize the NRP and EIS will occur and then 2 ultimately gets filed with EPA in July and then 3 ultimately taken to the Board for approval in the 4 August Board meeting. 5 There will be a series of public 6 meetings, which is not on that graphic, in the March 7 time frame. I think Heather Montgomery talked about 8 the five public meetings that are being scheduled 9 across the Valley. 10 Again, there will be some interaction 11 with some of the agencies that I talked about at the 12 beginning of the day that will probably occur in the 13 February or March time frame as well. 14 So that's the process going forward. 15 DFO ANDA RAY: And the -- we will talk 16 about it tomorrow, but in the April/May time frame 17 will be the next -- the 1st meeting of the sixth 18 Council of the Regional Resource Stewardship Council, 19 the stakeholder group. So before it's finalized in 20 that period, they will be able to have one last set 21 of comments and meetings for them to see. 22 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Great point. 23 DFO ANDA RAY: So we will meet there 24 before it's final. 25 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Well, that's the 321 1 process going forward, and that concludes my 2 ten-minute discussion on the weighting exercise. 3 We appreciate all of the input, great 4 day, a great day of input for us all. I will kind -- 5 I'm sorry. 6 DR. KELLY TILLER: Yeah. I have one 7 question. If you go back one slide, yeah, at the 8 very top, you know, what ultimately comes under the 9 scenario planning results, there are several parts 10 and pieces that go into that, one of them being the 11 weighting exercise. 12 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: That's right. 13 DR. KELLY TILLER: And so there was a 14 graphic earlier, and my eyes are not very good, but I 15 can't read any of this. And since one of our 16 questions is, is this process clear and credible, I 17 think it might be helpful if it's possible and 18 appropriate just to see a screen shot. I mean, it's 19 clearly marked these are just examples, but I think 20 it would, at least for me, help understand more 21 what's going into that if we can actually see that. 22 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Maybe we can 23 produce a blown-up version of that for tomorrow's 24 discussion, is that fair? 25 DR. KELLY TILLER: Uh-huh. I mean, if 322 1 others agree that would be helpful. I don't want to 2 request it if it's -- 3 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: I think 4 anything we can do to clarify this process is 5 helpful. 6 Other comments or questions? 7 MR. RANDY MCADAMS: Well, thank you 8 all. I will conclude the way I began here, Tom, 9 which is it's an honor to be with you-all today. I 10 appreciate the experience. I have certainly learned 11 a lot. 12 And as Anda and Anda alone knows, I 13 had to reschedule a meeting of a group of 150 people 14 who were going to give my son an award at a luncheon 15 today. I had to reschedule 150 people until February 16 so I could be here today, but it's been well worth 17 it. I appreciate working with all of you guys and 18 look forward to continuing working you. 19 So with that, I will hand it back to 20 Tom to wrap up. 21 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Any final 22 questions for him? 23 Thank you for putting this together. 24 It certainly has been very helpful compared to when 25 we got these score sheets and were trying to look 323 1 at -- especially look at what we did back in March 2 and kind of correlate or throw all of this into -- 3 trying to get the Jello to have some shape to it, I 4 guess. 5 Wilson, have you got some logistical 6 things to say? 7 FACILITATOR WILSON TAYLOR: Yes, sir. 8 Real quick, the fifth and sixth term or RRSC members 9 will be meeting for a reception dinner in the 10 Hamilton Room on the lobby level. 11 I would ask you to go ahead and take 12 your name tag with you so that you can be recognized 13 by the folks that will be there from TVA. If you 14 also remember to bring the name tag back tomorrow so 15 we can recognize you when you get back. You can 16 leave your books in this room. The room should be 17 locked up, I understand. TVA staff and others here 18 present are free for the evening once we are done 19 here. 20 Just a reminder, we start tomorrow at 21 8:00 instead of 8:30. So if you could be here at 22 8:00, that would be very helpful. We will talk about 23 those questions and get the advice from the Council. 24 And in terms of the advice, we actually would need to 25 make sure we have 11 of the fifth-term Council. 324 1 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Can I ask 2 everybody to raise your hand if you will be here 3 tomorrow, if you can confirm that, for the fifth-term 4 members just to make sure we have got a quorum. 5 One, two, three, four, five, six, 6 seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, that means nobody 7 can leave those with our hands raised. 8 MR. RUSSELL TOWNSEND: We're trapped. 9 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Renee, you 10 and W. C. got out by the hair of your 11 chinny-chin-chins. 12 MRS. RENEE HOYOS: Lock me in this 13 room, huh? 14 CHAIR MR. TOM LITTLEPAGE: Thank you 15 very much. 16 Does anybody have any closing comments 17 or questions? 18 Okay. Then we will be adjourned until 19 7:00 Central tomorrow morning. 20 END OF FIRST DAY 21 22 23 24 25