Organizational Workgroup:

Key Objective: Bring all the information gathered from the other workgroups into one document that makes recommendations on the feasibility of a coastal advisory for striped bass and bluefish based on PCBs.

Organizational Workgroup Members

(Click link above to send an email to all members, or links below to send to individuals)

Tuesday, April 29 at 10 AM Conf call notes are here

The new draft is posted HERE

Agenda:

1. Revisit anything from last meeting

2. Review new redlines - in particular Gary's summary of advisory options - ok to add? (Starts on page 196).

3. Changes to proposed striped bass advice, including supporting language. (Page 203).

4. Changes to proposed bluefish advice, including supporting language (page 204)

5. Changes to introduction - Recommendation - page 3.

6. Timeline/anything else.

The next conf call will be Thursday Friday April 11th at 10 AM : THE NOTES ARE HERE

Agenda:

1. Revisit anything from last meeting

2. Ken's toxicology email.

3. Review new redlines - in particular text in conclusions listing options for developing advisories and NY and Mass wordsmithing.

4. Bluefish - what will the advisories be for large fish

5. Small Bluefish - how do we define small and what will the advice be.

6. Anything else?

The new DRAFT is posted here: 4_7_08Draft.pdf (1.8 meg)

Major changes are on:

Page 145: Tox's description of advisory options

Page 154: changes to benefits section

Page 180: NJ's advisory updated

Page 181 De's advisory updated

Page 197: Options for developing advisories (inserted)

Page 203: Discussion of advise for bluefish.

Here is a red-lined draft of the full document for discussion. I've proposed advice to act as a starting point for discussion. I struggled a lot with the small bluefish advice, so I imagine that will require a lot of debate. You might want to focus on the conclusions to understand the basis of the recommendations rather than getting all worked up in the introduction. This is not a final draft, I realize I need to fix references, tables etc. The point is to get the discussion about the advice started.

3_10_08Draft.pdf (1.8 meg)

The next conf call will be Thursday March 27th at 10 AM: NOTES are here:

Agenda:

1. Redlines - what can be accepted for next draft vs. not.

Conclusions Chapter

Discussion of material from Tox Chapter (page 191 of the
draft). How include, what to add, re-vamp the chapter?

Advice

Striped Bass

Large Bluefish

Small Bluefish - in particular what the advice is,
and what the justification is.

Anything else?

Timeline

Next Meeting: Thursday Feb. 1 at 10 AM-

Meeting Notes are here

Objective: Identify a plan of action for dealing with NY and Mass's comments.

It seems to me that the comments fall into the following categories that we should discuss as to how and if we want to address these in the workgroup. If so, we then need to talk about a timeline and how to staff this.

New Data - from NY. We had an artificial deadline of last December for new data - strictly from a managerial point of view. It is hard to exclude new data - especially given it shows significant differences. Maine has new data as well, are any other states impacted?

Benefits - This will clearly continue to be an issue, and probably should be addressed in some form.

Health Effects Chapter/ Risk Based approach: Concern about the body burden approach. Would adding a risk based approach be valuable?

Size dependence - it seems to me less important for striped bass given the 28" harvest limit. More important for Bluefish - in particular, if some states are thinking about a graded advisory based on size.

Anyone feel that I missed anything major - there are plenty of other minor issues that can be addressed relatively easily.

Comments from Larry Skinner and the NY Dept. of Conservation

Comments from NY Department of Health

Comments from Massachusetts Deptartment of Public Health

Next Meeting: Friday December 8th at 1 PM-

Agenda

Notes

Current executive summary posted HERE

Current draft conclusions posted HERE

Current draft of full document is broken into three parts:

Part 1

and Part 2

and Part 3

Next Meeting: Thursday November 16th at 2 PM-

Notes

Agenda

Current executive summary posted HERE

Current draft conclusions posted HERE

Next Meeting: Thursday October 19th at 2 PM-

Meeting Notes HERE

Current draft conclusions posted HERE

Current draft of full document is broken into two parts: Part 1 and Part 2

Next Meeting: Thursday September 14th at 2 PM- AGENDA

Current draft conclusions posted HERE

Current draft of full document is broken into two parts: Part 1 and Part 2

Next Meeting: Tuesday August 15th at 2 PM- to discuss the Conclusions chapter.

Current draft conclusions posted HERE

Tuesday July 18th Meeting Minutes: HERE.

Wednesday June 21st Meeting Notes posted HERE. Here is an Agenda

Draft Conclusions posted HERE as a PDF This will serve as a starting point for discussion. Also here is the draft conclusions of the Advisory Chapter - for review and comment. I'll incorporate it into the full document for the next iteration.

Working (Redlined) Copy of Current Draft Word (3 Mb) - HERE

Adobe Acrobat version of above (1.1 Mb) - HERE

Next Meeting: Tuesday May 30th at 2 PM- to discuss the Toxicology chapter. The notes are posted here.

Draft Toxicology chapter posted HERE as a PDF and HERE as a word doc

Outline for next Organizational Meeting - HERE

Working (Redlined) Copy of Current Draft (without the tox chapter) Word (3.2 Mb) - HERE

Adobe Acrobat version of above (1.7 Mb) - HERE

Tuesday May 2nd at 1:30 PM- to discuss the Advisory chapter. NOTES POSTED - HERE

Since the report is getting so cumbersome in size, I split it up. For this next conference call, we'll discuss the Advisory Chapter and any revisions to the intro, data and biology chapters. The current Advisory chapter can be found - HERE as a redlined file, and - HERE as a pdf file. I will post the modified first part (intro, data, bio) as soon as I make the changes from the last conference call.

Next Meeting: RESCHEDULED MONDAY April 10th at 10 AM- to discuss the biology chapter.

Notes for the 4/10 meeting are posted - HERE

Since the report is getting so cumbersome in size, I split it up. For this next conference call, we'll discuss the intro, the data chapter (both briefly) and the biology chapter. That can all be found - HERE as a redlined file, and - HERE as a pdf file.

I have NOT posted the toxicology and advisory chapters in this version as they are undergoing significant revision. I will post that as soon as I can.

3/21 1:30 to 2:30 PM Notes are HERE

2/28 at 1 PM - NOTES are HERE

Working (Redlined) Copy of Current Draft Word (3.8 Mb) - HERE

Adobe Acrobat version of above (1.2 Mb) - HERE

Outline for next Organizational Meeting - HERE

Version 2/3 DRAFT - HERE

Version 1 DRAFT - HERE

Upcoming Meetings

Sunday September 18th at 7 PM at Baltimore Fish Forum

Agenda and notes, click here

Program INFORMATION

Organizational Workgroup:

Organizational Workgroup Members

Upcoming Meetings