New York’s BMP Data Collection

The Importance of BMP Data Collection in Light of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL

New York (NY) is required to develop and maintain a Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) outlining practices and procedures that will be in place by 2025 to restore the Chesapeake Bay. By submitting data, we document the implementation progress of Best Management Practices (BMP) made by NY for soil and water conservation and we provide the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the reasonable assurance that NY continues to do the work year after year to meet water quality goals.

Water quality targets are set by the EPA utilizing a complex computer model. These targets aim to achieve reductions in nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads through continued implementation of farmstead and field conservation practices. NY’s progress toward their planning targets is evaluated annually using the model to estimate the nutrient and sediment load reduction based on the type and number of conservation practices implemented and reported to the EPA. Practices are credited by the Chesapeake Bay model toward reduction goals. The annual evaluation is called a “Progress Run.” In addition, NY is required to provide 2-year milestone planning targets. The milestones provide short-term objectives and are key check-in points on the way to having all practices in place by 2025 to restore the Bay. If states fall behind on goals in the future, the EPA has suggested they may take actions to ensure progress.

The Upper Susquehanna Coalition (USC) is the designated data manager for agriculture in the NY portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and is responsible for submitting BMP data to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for both the annual progress and 2-year milestones. Farm BMP data is collected under the NYS Agricultural Environmental Management (AEM) umbrella and is thereby held confidentially by SWCD’s. The data submitted to the DEC and eventually the EPA for the Chesapeake Bay Model is aggregated to the county level; so individual farms are not identified. Practices such as stream restoration, cover crops, conservation tillage, nutrient management, manure storages, precision feed management, prescribed grazing, stream exclusion fence, forest and grass buffers, runoff controls from barnyards and heavy use area protection that are implemented by farms can all be credited by the Chesapeake Bay toward the nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment reduction goals for NY.

The Upper Susquehanna Coalition (USC) is the designated data manager for agricultural Best Management Practices (BMP’s) in the New York State (NYS) portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and is responsible for submitting the BMP implementation data to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for both the annual progress and 2 year milestones. The data is entered by each counties Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) into the USC Online Tool. Data is then aggregated by county, submitted to the DEC, and eventually transferred to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the Chesapeake Bay Model. Individual farms are not identified. All farm BMP data is collected, recorded and reported under the NYS Agricultural Environmental Management (AEM) umbrella and is thereby held confidentially by the SWCD.

The AEM Law has a subpart addressing confidentiality, which exempts AEM on-farm surveys, assessments, and plans from the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) disclosure. The subpart serves as a useful tool for encouraging farmers to voluntarily participate in conservation work with SWCDs. As a note, information directly linked to NYS Agricultural Nonpoint Source Abatement & Control Program (AgNPS) contracts are technically a part of District’s own programs.

So, if AEM Law maintains confidentiality of inventories, assessments, plans, and evaluations (that includes that data captured in the AEM Online Tool) in New York State, what about when its sent to the EPA? For starters, data that is entered into the USC AEM Online Tool is being stored on a server in an office located in the NY portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and overseen by a USC staff member. USC staff has exclusive access to this data. Once the Tier 1 and BMP implementation data is in the system, it is only used by the USC for the annual progress runs and individual SWCD planning.

Data from the USC AEM Online Tool is cleansed of farm specific details (name, location, contact info, AEM ID number, etc.) and aggregated to the county level, so the report communicates all the collective work in a county and not per individual farm. Then, those anonymous county-aggregated data are sent to DEC for packaging into a standard nationwide database format required by EPA (the NEIEN node), and transmission to EPA for TMDL progress.

Any FOIL request to DEC or FOIA request to EPA for the Chesapeake Bay data would result in a county-wide, aggregated dataset being released (not farm specific). The USC data is demonstrating good stewardship by farmers and only provides specified number of acres, or animal units that were treated by a specified number of practices in a given year by a county. It does not point out what still needs to be done within the NY portion of the watershed.

The BMP data collected on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) permitted farms for Chesapeake Bay TMDL progress runs and 2 year milestones is handled as described above. Beyond these efforts to collect BMP data for the TMDL, though confidentiality of data is different for CAFO-permitted farms; All information sent to DEC for CAFO permit purposes (NOIs, Annual Compliance Reports, Spill Reports, etc.) as well as inspection reports and documents associated with enforcement actions can be obtained via FOIL requests to DEC. DEC is also obligated to send Clean Water Act (CWA) permit info to EPA per their delegated authority to run the CAFO CWA permit on EPA’s behalf in NYS.

In short, the work that the USC SWCDs are doing to collect, record, and report Agricultural BMP data is protected under AEM Law. Data is aggregated at the county level so that no individual farm is identified when reporting to DEC and EPA. CAFO farm data may fall into a different category because inspection reports and documents associated with enforcement actions can be obtained via FOIL requests. However, these requests would go through the DEC and not the USC or the SWCDs.