Great Bay Pollution Tracking and Accounting Project 

Element C – Nitrogen 
Reduction Planning Sub‐Committee Meeting 1 
MEETING NOTES from May 6, 2021 


DRAFT 

Attendees: Bill Arcieri, VHB; Renee Bourdeau, Geosyntec; Terry Desmarais, Portsmouth; Jamie Houle, 
UNHSC; Caroline Kendall, Rollinsford; Daniel Macadam, UNHSC; Jennifer Perry, Exeter; Sally Soule, 
NHDES; Gretchen Young (Chair), Dover 

 
The meeting opened with a review of meeting/sub‐committee purpose – to 
develop Nitrogen 
Reduction Plan (NRP) templates to fulfill Element C of the Great 
Bay Total Nitrogen Permit (GB 
TN); draft templates to be presented at the upcoming PTAP workgroup meeting (5/18) and 
for 
communities to populate by early June for internal 
municipal review. 
 
The NRP templates will include three main content areas which will be completed/filled out by 
municipalities – with technical assistance from UNHSC, NHDES, and municipalities. Note that for 
populating the templates, there is a difference between what a community has actually planned 
to do (CIP, cb cleaning, street sweeping, potentially fertilizer 
bans, 
pet waste, etc.), 
and what is 
in the arsenal for potential areas of improvement 
(enhanced leaf pick up etc.), and what is just 
informative for planning future work (hot spot maps). 
o 
Planned Structural Projects – structural projects in 
municipal CIPs or existing on‐going 
efforts with potential to reduce 
nitrogen; to complete this template, municipalities 
would look at CIPs to see what’s planned 
and use pollutant load reduction calculation 
methods presented in Appendix 
F of the NH MS4 permit to estimate load reductions for 
projects. 
o 
Non‐structural BMPs – this template will be populated with a list of all on‐going and 
planned 
non‐structural BMPs to reduce TN loading including: I & I, street sweeping, 
catch basin 
cleaning, fertilizer reduction 
programs, IDDE, septic system 
upgrades (for 
these efforts, TN 
load reductions may be estimated using MS4 methods or other 
literature‐based methods). This template would also include other efforts such as 
general outreach, land/buffer conservation, etc.; although, load reduction estimate 
calculation methodology may not exist 
for some practices and would likely need to be 
reviewed/developed/improved. 
o 
Future Structural 
Projects 
– municipalities can populate this template using sorted lists 
from the hot spots data to identify 
municipal or other lands with high TN loads for 
future retrofit projects. Load reduction estimates are provided in the lists using the MS4 
methods. The list may also help to fulfill requirements in the 
MS4 permit for TN 

reduction planning (Appendix H – Section I.2.b). This template 
likely needs 
a caveat 
explaining that these projects are 
strictly in the 
planning phase and no commitment or 
funding is available at this 
time to 
implement them; 
however, they represent a range of 
possibilities and show a good faith effort to identify future 
projects. 

 
Pollutant load reduction (PLR) estimates included in 
the template 
provide targets for use in 
planning; these estimates should be 
considered “planning level” 
estimates only. 
The 
committee 
recommended 
including 
a disclaimer in the 
templates to 
indicate that the 
PLR 
estimates are 
planning level only and are not to be used for as‐built/final accounting for BMP 
implementation. 
 
Discussion around units of measurement for non‐structural BMPs 
– volume vs. area; group 
discussed keeping EPA MS4 methods now, but acknowledged 
that improved metrics may be 
developed 
over time. Expert panels are underway to evaluate load reduction credits for leaf 
litter 
collection; additional panels could 
be stood up 
for other BMPs as needed. 
 
How to approach DOT owned roads vs. town owned – a suggestion was made that DOT has its 
own obligations under MS4 so determine what they own and leave it out of town’s 
spreadsheet. 
 
Group discussed the need to dial in on fertilizer reduction efforts for municipal lands and private 
property. Fertilizer reduction could result in significant TN load 
reduction. 
However, the MS4 
permit does not have methods for estimating 
PLRs for TN (only phosphorus) so load reduction 
estimates would need to be developed. 
 
Next steps: 
o 
UNHSC 
will finalize the 
NRP templates based on the committee’s discussion; NRP 
templates will be presented at the PTAP 
workgroup meeting on May 18th. 
o 
UNHSC 
will also sort municipal hot spot data for inclusion in the NRP templates.