TMDL and the CLEAN WATER ACT

Seminar Unit #4

Prof. Christopher L. Howard

Clean Water Act• The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States

governing water pollution.[1] Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that surface waters would meet standards necessary for human sports and recreation by 1983.

• The principal body of law currently in effect is based on the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments of 1972, which significantly expanded and strengthened earlier legislation.[2] Major amendments were enacted in the Clean Water Act of 1977[3] and the Water Quality Act of 1987.[4]

• The Clean Water Act does not directly address groundwater contamination. Groundwater protection provisions are included in the Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Superfund act.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Act

Water Resources• Water resources are sources of water that are useful or potentially useful

to humans. Uses of water include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmental activities. Virtually all of these human uses require fresh water.

• 97% of water on the Earth is salt water, and only 3% is fresh water of which slightly over two thirds is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps.[1] The remaining unfrozen freshwater is mainly found as groundwater, with only a small fraction present above ground or in the air.[2]

• Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of clean, fresh water is steadily decreasing. Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts of the world and as the world population continues to rise, so too does the water demand. Awareness of the global importance of preserving water for ecosystem services has only recently emerged as, during the 20th century, more than half the world’s wetlands have been lost along with their valuable environmental services. Biodiversity-rich freshwater ecosystems are currently declining faster than marine or land ecosystems.[3] The framework for allocating water resources to water users (where such a framework exists) is known as water rights.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources

Section 303 Impaired Rivers and Streams

• Under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, states, territories, and authorized tribes are required to develop lists of impaired waters. These are waters that are too polluted or otherwise degraded to meet the water quality standards set by states, territories, or authorized tribes. The law requires that these jurisdictions establish priority rankings for waters on the lists and develop TMDLs for these waters. A Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a waterbody can receive and still safely meet water quality standards.

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gbv=2&q=section+303+clean+water+act&aq=0&aqi=g1&aql=f&oq=section+303+clea&gs_rfai=

Impaired Rivers and Streams

• When you work in a technical field like water resource management, you soon find yourself flinging around jargon and acronyms with careless abandon. Need to take action to meet your MS4 SWPPP or your NPDES TMDL? Then talk to the MPCA to get a list of local impaired waters and a few ideas for how to meet MCM’s 1-6. Unfortunately, when water resource professionals talk to the general public, a lot of important information and concepts are lost in translation.

• Take the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s recently updated list of impaired waters as an example. The list is critical for cities, watershed management entities and others working to keep local lakes and rivers clean. Most people who live and work in the east metro area, however, are probably reading this right now and thinking, “List, huh? Impaired what?”

• A quick trip to Dictionary.com provides us with these definitions for the word impaired: 1) weakened, diminished, or damaged; 2) functioning poorly or inadequately. For a definition of the seemingly innocent word waters, we can refer to Minnesota State Statute 115.01 subd. 22: "Waters of the state" means all streams, lakes, ponds, marshes, watercourses, waterways, wells, springs, reservoirs, aquifers, irrigation systems, drainage systems and all other bodies or accumulations of water, surface or underground, natural or artificial, public or private, which are contained within, flow through, or border upon the state or any portion thereof.

• http://www.mnwcd.org/documents/12-27-07Definingimpairedwaters-EM.doc•

Impaired Continued• Essentially, the list of impaired waters is a list of all of the lakes,

rivers, streams, etc. in Minnesota that are not up to snuff. As part of the Clean Water Act, the state must identify all impaired waters and then take action to bring them back to their natural unimpaired condition. Many local lakes are listed as impaired due to excess phosphorus, a naturally occurring element found in organic materials such as grass, leaves and dirt. In small amounts, phosphorus feeds aquatic plants, which in turn provide food and shelter for fish, turtles, birds and other animals. When stormwater runoff leads to too much phosphorus, however, weedy plants begin to run wild and algae grows into thick green and brown mats that float on top of the water. The result is less oxygen for fish, boats tangled in weeds and icky water that no one wants to swim in.

• http://www.mnwcd.org/documents/12-27-07Definingimpairedwaters-EM.doc

NPDES PERMIT• Water pollution degrades surface waters making them unsafe for

drinking, fishing, swimming, and other activities. As authorized by the Clean Water Act, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program controls water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the United States. Point sources are discrete conveyances such as pipes or man-made ditches. Individual homes that are connected to a municipal system, use a septic system, or do not have a surface discharge do not need an NPDES permit; however, industrial, municipal, and other facilities must obtain permits if their discharges go directly to surface waters. In most cases, the NPDES permit program is administered by authorized states. Since its introduction in 1972, the NPDES permit program is responsible for significant improvements to our Nation's water quality.

• http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/

TMDL• Including daily load expressions as a routine component in all TMDLs will require no fundamental

changes in the way TMDLs are presently developed. In practice, TMDLs are developed for a variety of pollutants, environmental settings, pollutant source types, and waterbody types. They may be calculated using an assortment of analytical approaches and commonly use time steps ranging from daily to annual to express the loading capacity and associated allocations. In an effort to fully understand the physical and chemical dynamics of a waterbody, many TMDLs are developed using methodologies that result in identified allocations of monthly or greater time periods. EPA encourages TMDL developers to continue to apply accepted and reasonable methodologies when calculating TMDLs for impaired waterbodies and to use the most appropriate averaging period for developing allocations based on factors such as available data, watershed and waterbody characteristics, pollutant loading considerations, applicable standards, and the TMDL development methodology, among other things. For a variety of reasons, EPA recognizes that it might continue to be appropriate and necessary to identify non-daily allocations in TMDL development despite the need to also identify daily loads. For parameters such as sediment, for which narrative water quality criteria often apply, attainment of WQS cannot always be judged on a daily basis. Assessment of cumulative loading impacts is necessary to understand how to achieve WQS and to estimate the allowable loading capacity; therefore identifying long-term allocations for such situations is appropriate and informative from a management perspective. For TMDLs in which it is determined that a non-daily allocation is more meaningful in understanding the pollutant/waterbody dynamics, EPA recommends that practitioners identify and include such an allocation, as well as a daily load expression with the final TMDL submission.

• http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/lawsguidance/cwa/tmdl/upload/2007_06_26_tmdl_draft_daily_loads_tech-2.pdf

Point Source Pollution

• A point source of pollution is a single identifiable localized source of air, water, thermal, noise or light pollution. A point source has negligible extent, distinguishing it from other pollution source geometries. The sources are called point sources because in mathematical modeling, they can be approximated as a mathematical point to simplify analysis. Pollution point sources are identical to other physics, engineering, optics and chemistry point sources except that their emissions have been labeled

• Types of air pollution sources which have finite extent are line sources, area sources and volume sources. Air pollution sources are also often categorized as either stationary or mobile.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_source_pollution

Non Point SourcePollution

• Non-point source (NPS) pollution is water pollution affecting a water body from diffuse sources, such as polluted runoff from agricultural areas draining into a river, or wind-borne debris blowing out to sea. Nonpoint source pollution can be contrasted with point source pollution, where discharges occur to a body of water at a single location, such as discharges from a chemical factory, urban runoff from a roadway storm drain, or from ships at sea.

• NPS may derive from many different sources with no specific solution to rectify the problem, making it difficult to regulate. It is the leading cause of water pollution in the United States today, with polluted runoff from agriculture the primary cause.[1] [2]

• Other significant sources of runoff include hydrological and habitat modification, and silviculture (forestry).[3] [4]

• Contaminated stormwater washed off of parking lots, roads and highways, and lawns (often containing fertilizers and pesticides) is called urban runoff. This runoff is often classified as a type of NPS pollution. Some people may also consider it a point source because many times it is channeled into municipal storm drain systems and discharged through pipes to nearby surface waters. However, not all urban runoff flows through storm drain systems before entering waterbodies. Some may flow directly into waterbodies, especially in developing and suburban areas. Also, unlike other types of point sources, such as industrial discharge, wastewater plants and other operations, pollution in urban runoff cannot be attributed to one activity or even group of activities. Therefore, because it is not caused by an easily identified and regulated activity, urban runoff pollution sources are also often treated as true nonpoint sources as municipalities work to abate them.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpoint_source_pollution

Agriculture• It is well known that agriculture is the single largest user of freshwater

resources, using a global average of 70% of all surface water supplies. Except for water lost through evapotranspiration, agricultural water is recycled back to surface water and/or groundwater. However, agriculture is both cause and victim of water pollution. It is a cause through its discharge of pollutants and sediment to surface and/or groundwater, through net loss of soil by poor agricultural practices, and through salinization and waterlogging of irrigated land. It is a victim through use of wastewater and polluted surface and groundwater which contaminate crops and transmit disease to consumers and farm workers. Agriculture exists within a symbiosis of land and water and, as FAO (1990a) makes quite clear, "... appropriate steps must be taken to ensure that agricultural activities do not adversely affect water quality so that subsequent uses of water for different purposes are not impaired."

• Sagardoy (FAO, 1993a) summarized the action items for agriculture in the field of water quality as:

• http://www.fao.org/docrep/w2598e/w2598e04.htm• ·

Agriculture Cont.• establishment and operation of cost-effective water quality monitoring

systems for agricultural water uses. · prevention of adverse effects of agricultural activities on water quality for other social and economic activities and on wetlands, inter alia through optimal use of on-farm inputs and the minimization of the use of external inputs in agricultural activities.

• · establishment of biological, physical and chemical water quality criteria for agricultural water users and for marine and riverine ecosystems.

• · prevention of soil runoff and sedimentation. • · proper disposal of sewage from human settlements and of manure

produced by intensive livestock breeding. • · minimization of adverse effects from agricultural chemicals by use of

integrated pest management. • · education of communities about the pollution impacts of the use of

fertilizers and chemicals on water quality and food safety.• http://www.fao.org/docrep/w2598e/w2598e04.htm

Extractive Industries• The oil and mining industries also rely on high volumes of water,

making them particularly vulnerable to water scarcity. Oil and gas exploration use water for well drilling, completion and fracturing. For this industry, water risks are particularly prevalent in the extraction oil sands, petroleum deposits that have only recently become financially viable to mine, as the process requires four to five liters of water to separate out each liter of oil. 

• Large quantities of water are also used in the extraction, downstream processing and conveyance of metals. Metals mining requires anywhere between 100 and 8,000 liters of water per ton of ore extracted, and the fact that mining operations cannot be relocated makes the sector highly susceptible to risks such as changing local water availability and community concerns about water use. 

• Water pollution is also problematic, presenting reputational and regulatory risks that must be managed. In the Appalachian region of West Virginia, for example, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the drainage cleanup costs necessary after years of coal mining could reach up to $15 billion by the time work is finished. 

• http://www.rmmag.com/Magazine/PrintTemplate.cfm?AID=3920

C8 Pollution• Commonly referred to as C8, ammonium perfluorooctanoate and its

derivative salts are used by the EI du Pont de Nemours and Company chemical company to aid in the production of non-stick and protective fluoropolymers such as TEFLON™, Scotchguard™, and Gore-Tex™.  Manufactured by 3M® and sold exclusively to DuPont until 2000, 3M no longer manufactures C8, but DuPont now manufactures and uses it.

• Waste from C8 manufacturing has been deposited primarily in the Letart Landfill (Letart, Mason County), the Dry Run Landfill (Lubeck, Wood County) and Riverbank Landfill (Ohio River).  In addition, court records revealed that DuPont had been emitting quantities of C8 into the air, and that C8 had been leaking into ground water sources from an as yet undetermined land source.  Separate legal proceedings have been taken against both DuPont and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection with regard to the failure to report and destruction of documents relating to environmental contamination with C8.  The human drinking water supply in 2 water districts in West Virginia and 4 water districts in Ohio have been contaminated with C8.  

• http://www.hsc.wvu.edu/som/cmed/c8/settlementDetails.asp  

C8 Pollution Continued• The disclosure of environmental C8 contamination raised concern about

possible deleterious health effects of C8.  Though underlying physiologic and biologic mechanisms are not fully clarified, animal toxicologic and ecologic studies have linked C8 to rodent gastrointestinal cancer, altered rodent lipid metabolism, acute toxicity to honeybees, and bioaccumulations in tissues of  humans, birds, and fish.  In 2005, the EPA Science Advisory Board listed C8 as a likely carcinogen.  In February 2005, presiding Wood Circuit Judge George W. Hill Jr., approved a settlement in the class action suit Jack Leach et al v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.  Terms of the settlement include provisions that DuPont provide equipment to remove C8 from the human drinking water supply in the affected water districts, pay for legal fees, and provide economic support for an independent study of health effects of C8 as well as payments for health and education project for the benefit of the Class and, pertinent to this IRB application, funding of a community health study, known as the “C8 Health Project”, to document the health effects of C8 on residents in the affected water districts.

• http://www.hsc.wvu.edu/som/cmed/c8/settlementDetails.asp

Wrapping it Up

• Clean Water Act (Section 303)• Impaired rivers and streams• Water resources• NPDES permitting system• TMDL• Point and non-point pollution sources• Agriculture• Extractive Industries• C8