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Watershed-Based Planning

Watershed-Based Planning. A Blueprint for Action!. Statutory and regulatory context. Clean Water Act Water quality standards KPDES discharge permits Stream & wetland “filling” Safe Drinking Water Act Source water protection Public health codes Residential wastewater Local Codes

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Watershed-Based Planning

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  1. Watershed-Based Planning A Blueprint for Action!

  2. Statutory and regulatory context • Clean Water Act • Water quality standards • KPDES discharge permits • Stream & wetland “filling” • Safe Drinking Water Act • Source water protection • Public health codes • Residential wastewater • Local Codes • Planning/zoning, subdivision, etc.

  3. Source Water Protection Map for Slate Creek (Montgomery County)

  4. Clean Water Act

  5. Clean Water Act Part I:Technology Based • Focus on point source (PS) discharges to surface waters, through NPDES permitting • Limits apply regardless of condition of receiving water, or relative contribution from the source • Pollutant levels in discharges determined by technical/economic feasibility • Same limits placed on all PS within each industrial grouping (50 categories/plus subcategories) • Generally, municipal sewage plants must achieve discharge equal to “secondary treatment”

  6. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis COST ($) Technology-Based Treatment Level 100% POLLUTANT REMOVAL (%)

  7. KPDES Permitting under Sec. 402 • Illegal for point source (pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, vessel, rolling stock, or other manmade conveyance) to discharge pollutants to surface waters without a permit • Permit is a license granting permission to discharge • Not a right: permit is revocable “for cause” (eg, non-compliance) • No guarantee against more stringent future requirements

  8. Covers WWTPs and other point sources

  9. KPDES Program: Coverage • Industrial and municipal wastewater • Industrial, urban, and construction-related storm water runoff • Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) • Active, inactive, and some abandoned mines • Discharges from RCRA remedial action activity meeting point source definition

  10. KPDES stormwater covers: • Construction sites with a disturbed area of one acre or more • General permit, BMP plan, inspections required • Some cities with municipally-owned separate storm sewer systems • 10,000 population or more • Must develop program with public education & involvement, construction site controls, post-construction stormwater management, pollution prevention, illicit discharge detection and elimination.

  11. Direct and Indirect Discharges Direct Indirect Industry POTW Industry

  12. KPDES Permits • Individual permits • All point sources not covered by general permits must obtain (no de minimis exemption) • Required to submit detailed permit application form, including data on actual/expected levels of pollutants in discharge • General permits (many sources) • Usually similar sources • Usually same requirements for all • Minimal reporting • Notice of intent vs. passive coverage

  13. KPDES Permits: Elements • Effluent limits • Limits must ensure meeting WQS • Maximum daily and monthly average limits required for most • POTWs have weekly average instead of daily maximum • Expressed as mass–directly/indirectly • Best management practices • Production process modifications • Operational changes • Materials substitution • Materials and/or water conservation • Compliance schedule (shouldn’t extend beyond 5-year permit term

  14. KPDES Permits: Elements (cont.) • Monitoring requirements • Self-monitoring by permittee • Traditionally effluents only, increasingly ambient, too • Specifies parameters and tests • Specifies frequency • Reporting requirements • Discharge Monitoring Reports (DMRs) sent to the permitting agency • Often monthly but sometimes less frequently • Reopener provisions • For POTWs only: Pretreatment program and sludge management requirements

  15. Technology-Based Requirements for Municipal Discharges: Secondary Treatment

  16. Clean Water Act Part II:Water Quality Standards • What are you using it for? • What criteria support that use? • How will you keep it from degrading?

  17. Water Quality Standards • State’s yardstick to measure health of waters • Three key elements of WQSs: • Designated uses • Water quality criteria • Antidegradation provisions

  18. Kentucky Use Designations • Aquatic life support – warmwater & coldwater aquatic habitat • Primary contact recreation – swimming • Secondary contact recreation – boating and fishing • Fish consumption – eating fish • Drinking water – domestic water supply

  19. WQS: Water Quality Criteria (WQC) • Consistent scientifically with protecting all designated uses (DUs) • Basic types of criteria • Narrative/numeric • Water column/sediment/ fish tissue • Categories of criteria • Aquatic life • Pollutant-specific/aquatic community indices • Human health (drinking/fish consumption) • Wildlife (semiaquatic/food chain effects)

  20. WQS: Narrative Criteria • Waters must be "free from" • Putrescent or otherwise objectionable bottom deposits • Oil, scum, and floating debris in amounts that are unsightly • Nuisance levels of odor, color, or other conditions • Undesirable or nuisance aquatic life • Substances in amounts toxic to humans or aquatic life Usually apply to all waters, regardless of use designation

  21. WQS: Numeric Criteria • Parameter-specific: DO, temp., turbidity, N, P, Cu, dioxin, etc. • Level/concentration: 1 mg/L, 5 mg/kg • Duration: • Acute: instantaneous, 1-hour, 1-day • Chronic: 4-day, 7-day, 30-day • Recurrence interval: 1 year, 3 years

  22. Kentucky warmwater aquatic habitat numeric criteria

  23. SECOND FISH FAMILY CHORDATA SALMONID PLANKTONIC CRUSTACEAN BENTHIC CRUSTACEAN OTHER INSECT OR MOLLUSCA ROTIFERA, ANNELIDA, MOLLUSCA INSECT MINIMUM DATASET FOR FRESHWATER WATER QUALITY CRITERIA DERIVATION

  24. Egg Larva Most Sensitive Adult DATA FROM THE MOST SENSITIVE LIFE STAGES SHOULD BE USED

  25. Acute Toxicity Data 96-hour LC50 Concentration: 0.0 μg/L 25 μg/L 50 μg/L 100 μg/L 200 μg/L 500 μg/L Control 1 2 3 4 5 96-hr LC50 = 100 μg/L

  26. Biological criteria Good Mid-Range Poor

  27. WQS: Biological Criteria • Applicable to aquatic life, not human health • Require field sampling and studies • Fish, macroinvertebrates, plants, etc. • Number of individuals, species, categories • Mass of species, feeding guilds, trophic levels • Specialists verses generalists • Tolerant verses intolerant • Compare conditions at “study site” with relatively unimpacted “reference site”

  28. WQS: antidegradation provisions • Purpose: Prevent deterioration of existing levels of good water quality • Generally applies parameter-by-parameter, not waterbody-by-waterbody • Three tiers of protection • Tiers 1 and 2 apply to all waters with some features at or better than WQS • Tier 3 applies only to specially classified waters

  29. Tier 1: the “absolute floor” • Cannot allow loss of any “existing” use • Cannot allow water quality to drop below levels needed to maintain existing use • Applies to all waters, regardless of use designation

  30. Tier 2: use of available assimilative capacity not a right • “Brakes” slide from really good WQ to barely at WQS by saying can’t degrade WQ unless: • Allowing lower WQ is “necessary to accommodate important economic or social development” • Point sources are meeting relevant technology-based limits • Have “achieved all cost-effective and reasonable best management practices for nonpoint sources” • Go through public review and comment process

  31. Tier 3: outstanding waters protected • Applies only to waters classified as Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRW) • This classification “overlays” designated uses • Candidates include, but are not limited to, “waters of National and State parks and wildlife refuges and waters of exceptional recreational or ecological significance” • Only minimal, or significant but short-term, decreases in WQ are allowed

  32. 303(d) process: establishing TMDLs A TMDL is. . . . • A strategy for achieving WQS • Based on the relationship between pollutant sources and the condition of a water body • The amount of a specific pollutant that a waterbody can receive and still meet WQS • Describes an allowable load and allocates it among point sources and nonpoint sources (plus a margin of error). TMDL = ΣWLAi + ΣLAi + MOS

  33. TMDL process requirements • Include public in the process! • Submit final TMDL, with loading allocations and supporting information, to USEPA • Review conducted by USEPA • If approved, begin implementation • If not approved, USEPA develops TMDL and finalizes within 30 days • Provide “reasonable assurance” load reductions can be achieved

  34. Leading causes & sources of impairment [2004 305(b) Report] • Causes • Siltation (sediment) • Pathogens (bacteria) • Other habitat alterations • PCBs • Organic enrichment / low DO • Sources • Unknown • Agriculture • Habitat modification • Resource extraction • Urban runoff / storm sewers

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