How Much is Too Much?
The role of TMDLs in the regulation of water quality
By JW Sharp
Take a walk outside sometime, perhaps after the rains stop and the warm sun returns. Head down the hill, through the woods and to the banks of your creek. The heavy flows of winter will have passed on, leaving inevitable changes in their wake: banks collapsed, trees fallen, and, looking closer, a great deal of fine, powdery sediment, perhaps coating a shallow gravel bed with just enough contamination to prevent sensitive salmonids from raising their young. Under federal and state regulations, this natural result of erosion is qualified as a pollutant and must be quantified within the confines of the Total Maximum Daily Load determined for that particular waterway.
More than half the waterways in the North Coast Region were declared impaired by sediment in 2002, including the Estero Americano and large sections of the Russian River. Besides sediment, the main sources of pollution are heat and oxygen. Although these are all naturally occurring substances, even beneficial ones, there is a point where they become too much, where they exceed the carrying capacity of the waterway and limit the usefulness of the habitat. That point is known as the Total Maximum Daily Load.
According to the Regional Water Board, a “TMDL is a framework for assessing the condition of a watershed, evaluating the factors that contribute to identified water quality problems in the waterbody, and for developing a plan to restore healthy water quality conditions.” Originally instituted under Section 303(d) of the 1972 Clean Water Act, TMDLs were designed to identify and regulate the amount and type of pollutants entering the watershed.
Pollutants were broken down into the two categories: point source, like wastewater treatment plants or factories, and non-point source, like agricultural runoff and storm water. A budget is developed for each type of pollutant and actions determined for maintaining that budget, such as containment or technological advances. Point sources, which require federal permits, can often be controlled by the use of appropriate technology. Nonpoint sources are much more difficult to contain.
Despite the passage of the act, enforcement was lax until environmentalists began suing the EPA in the late 1990s. A series of successful lawsuits, over 40 in 38 states, forced the EPA to uphold the TMDL rules it issued in 1985 and 1992. The number of TMDLs approved or established annually has steadily increased ever since, jumping from 500 in 1999 to nearly 3,000 in 2002. Even now, however, a TMDL only requires approval by the EPA; implementation is not necessary.
California law rectifies this oversight by making implementation a part of the Basin Plan being developed for each watershed in the state. First on the block in Northern California is the Klamath River, a waterway that has been troubled for some time and is listed as impaired. The Russian River, also impaired, won’t be far behind.
Riddled with dams and taxed heavily by agricultural interests, the Klamath is best known for the recent die-off of at least 60,000 salmonids in 2002, a die-off that effectively ended last year’s salmon season. The die-off was caused by low flows on the River as agricultural interests siphoned off irrigation water upstream, causing returning fish to literally parboil in the too-warm water.
Now the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is taking action to determine just how much damage has been done to the Klamath and what steps need to be taken to make the waters productive again, or fit for what they call “beneficial uses.” Basically, they’re talking about stream restoration on a scale unlike anything attempted before now, restoration that will have impacts reaching far beyond the banks of the river itself.
A study done in 2002 and 2003 by the Regional Board and the United States Geological Survey analyzed available data and pinpointed potential gaps that need to be addressed. They published their findings in 2004 and focus groups were convened to define the needs of the various stakeholders. This year, the draft TMDL was unveiled at a number of meetings held from Klamath Falls to San Francisco to solicit public comment on the plan. The consent decree calls for having a plan in place by December 2007. The Regional Board is already planning on asking for an extension.
Whenever it comes online, the plan will need to address the sources of the three major issues facing the Klamath: temperature, sediment and dissolved oxygen. The point sources are primarily hydroelectric facilities run by PacifiCorps, otherwise known as dams, and runoff from urban areas. Forestry operations, grazing and agricultural irrigation account for the nonpoint sources. Many of the opinions expressed at the recent meeting in Santa Rosa felt the dams were the number one problem, with irrigation coming second. Invariably, they were on the side of the fish and the fishermen, calling for larger flows as a viable solution to the problem. They have a point; rivers are made to flow.
In the end, the organizers of the TMDL have a thankless task. They must balance the needs of Mother Nature with the multitudinous human draws on the resource in not one but two different states. The sheer scope of the project has brought to the fore a new approach to resource management, treating resources as an interconnected system rather than distinct entities. So, instead of just looking at the river, one looks at the entire watershed and how it functions as a whole or an entire basin and its relations.
Useful links
Klamath Water Quality Report 2004
Section 303(d)
North Coast TMDLs
Klamath Basin Map
Sediment TMDL implementation policy
