EPA Files Report on TMDL Development in West Virginia

Back in 1995 several public interest attorneys, led by Perry McDaniel, filed a lawsuit against EPA for not doing its duty in West Virginia under the Clean Water Act. Each state is required, by Section 303(d) of the Act, to prepare a list of water bodies that are not meeting water quality standards, and to prepare a plan, called a total maximum daily load, or TMDL, for bringing each water body into compliance with standards. The TMDLs consist of load allocations, for nonpoint sources, and wasteload allocations, for point sources, which are limits on the discharge of any substance that is causing impairments. So, for example, if a stream is too high in iron, the nonpoint sources are expected to implement best management plans to reduce sediment getting into the stream, and point sources, like factories, will see their permit limits for iron reduced.

If states don't develop the list of impaired waters and TMDLs, because of lack of resources or otherwise, EPA is required to do so. The requirement of the Act is clear, so EPA entered into a settlement that required it to develop the 303(d) list and TMDLs over a period of years. For the last several years, the WV DEP has actually been developing the 303(d) list and most of the TMDLs. Each year the DEP gives notice of the streams for which it intends to develop TMDLs, to give people time to submit data to justify taking streams off the list, or to use in the development of the TMDLs.

One of the requirements of the settlement was that EPA had to issue a regular report of its progress. You can see a copy of EPA's report, without the attachments, here. It is a good summary of where the TMDL program has been, and where it is going.