Review of the Lower Susquehanna Watershed Assessment

Abstract

The Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) assembled a team of 11 professionals with backgrounds in resource economics, and watershed, riverine, and estuarine processes to review the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed Assessment report. As stated in the first five sentences of the LSRWA report’s Executive Summary (p. ES-1),“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District (USACE), and the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) partnered to conduct the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed Assessment (LSRWA). This assessment concludes with this watershed assessment report to better inform all stakeholders undertaking efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay. The purpose of this assessment was to analyze the movement of sediment and associated nutrient loads within the lower Susquehanna watershed through the series of hydroelectric dams (Safe Harbor, Holtwood, and Conowingo) located on the lower Susquehanna River to the upper Chesapeake Bay. This included analyzing hydrodynamic and sedimentation processes and interactions within the lower Susquehanna River watershed, considering strategies for sediment management, and assessing cumulative impacts of future conditions and sediment management strategies on the upper Chesapeake Bay. The need for this assessment is to understand how to better protect water quality, habitat and aquatic life in the lower Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay.