The Clean Water Act Water Quality Processes Pollutants & Effects

1. The Clean Water ActWater Quality ProcessesPollutants & Effects

2. Why we’re here today • CONSERVATION DISTRICT LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY: W.S. 11-16-103(b): • It’s our jobs to: • Provide for the conservation of the soil, and soil and water resources of this state, • Provide for the control and prevention of soil erosion and for flood prevention • Provide for the conservation, development, utilization, and disposal of water, and thereby to stabilize ranching and farming operations, • To preserve natural resources, protect the tax base, control floods, prevent impairment of dams and reservoirs, preserve wildlife, protect public lands, and • Protect and promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the people of this state.

3. Why we’re here today • Gain an understanding of: • chemical, physical and biological processes & how they influence the water quality which influences implementation. • the different types of Best Management Practices that can be used. • what Best Management Practices work best for the conservation of soil and water within our areas. • how Best Management Practices are important on the national, state and local levels.

4. Clean Water Act - 1972 • Basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States • Gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs (NPDES) • Requirements to set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters • Unlawful for any person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained

5. Goals: reduce direct pollutant discharges into waterways, finance municipal wastewater treatment facilities, and manage polluted runoff restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters so that they can support "the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and recreation in and on the water."

6. Delegated Authority • The US Environmental Protection Agency can delegate authority • Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality exercises Authority in Wyoming • If DEQ fails to enact necessary actions, EPA can assume control

7. Water Quality Standards • Water quality standards are the foundation of the water quality-based pollution control program mandated by the Clean Water Act. • Water Quality Standards define the goals for a water body by designating its uses, setting criteria to protect those uses, and establishing antidegradation policies to protect water bodies from pollutants. • Water quality standards serve as the basis for water quality-based limits in NPDES permits, as the measure to assess and list impaired waters, and as the target in a TMDL.

8. Water Quality Standards • Water quality standards for Wyoming are listed in the States “Chapter 1 Water Quality Rules & Regulations” document • The CWA requires that waters of the state are “assessed” and reported on every two years (known as the 305(b) report) • Requires a report on the elimination of pollutants that would be necessary to provide for designated use support. • States identify waters not meeting designated uses, recommend strategies to achieve these objectives and to estimate the environmental impacts, economic and social costs and benefits, and the predicted timeline for project completion. • Lastly, Section 305(b) requires that the sources and extent of non-point source pollution in each state be estimated

9. Designated (beneficial) Uses • 1. Agriculture – irrigation and livestock watering • 2. Fisheries – includes water quality, habitat, etc. • 3. Industry – maintaining water quality useful for industrial purposes • 4. Drinking water – quality that is suitable for potable water or suitable after receiving conventional water treatment. • 5. Recreation –water quality for human contact. • 6. Scenic Value – no objectionable odor, color, taste, settleable solids, floating solids, suspended solids, or solid waste • 7. Aquatic life other than fish –. • 8. Wildlife –safe consumption and contact by avian and terrestrial wildlife species. • 9. Fish consumption –prevent any unpalatable flavor and/or accumulation of harmful substances in fish tissues.

10. Water Quality Standards, cont. • Waters that do not meet criteria in the 305(b) report • 303(d) list • “Impaired” • List of waters requiring the Development of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)

11. What is a TMDL? • “A TMDL or Total Maximum Daily Load is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a waterbody can receive and still meet water quality standards, and an allocation of that amount to the pollutant's sources.”

12. TMDL • A TMDL is the sum of allocated loads of pollutants set at a level necessary to implement the applicable water quality standards, including: • Wasteload allocations from point sources • Load allocations from nonpoint sources • Natural background conditions • Margin of safety and consideration of seasonal variations Point Sources + Non Point Sources + Margin of Safety = TMDL Example: Waste Water Plant + Septics & Agriculture + 10% = TMDL

13. Q: What role does the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts, and local District play in assisting with water quality issues? • Planning • Sampling and Analysis • Implementation Activities

14. Watershed Planning in Wyoming • Locally led public process in Wyoming developed with the purpose of identifying: • issues and concerns, (including water quality issues) • developing goals and objectives to address those concerns • and creating voluntary and incentive based means for addressing those issues.

15. Watershed Planning • TMDLs identify “problems” • Letter of the law (CWA) • Identifies specific issues and targets • Watershed Planning fixes problems • Spirit of the law (CWA) • Covers multiple resource concerns, improving the entire resource while working with local individuals • Seeks to address and remove current impaired listings

16. What Can an Individual Do? “Implement Best Management Practices in good faith”

17. Best Management Practice In General: -Best Management Practices (BMPs) are effective, practical, conservation practices and methods which prevent or reduce erosion, and therefore the movement of sediment, nutrients, pesticides and other pollutants, or that manage their depositional environment in a favorable manner. -They also may include practices which improve a given resource or that move it in a desired management direction.

18. BMPs and the CWA Intent • Protect -restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters so that they can support "the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and recreation in and on the water." • Chemical • Solutes, N, P, K, NaCl, Pesticides • Physical • Sediment • Biological • Bacteria • Fish • Other Biota

19. Chemical Pollutants • Salts, Fertilizers, etc. • C, B, H, O, P, K, I, N, S, Cu, Zn, Mo, Mn, Na, Cl, Fe, Mg, • Some = good • a lot = bad • Complex Organics • C6H12O6 • Pesticides • Petroleum based products

20. Solubility • The ability of a substance to dissolve. • In the process of dissolving, the substance which is being dissolved is called solute and the substance in which the solute is dissolved is called a solvent. • A mixture of solute and solvent is called a solution.

21. H2O – The Universal Solvent

22. Time In Solution • Until solute is depleted • Until more soluble material replacement • Basically, until water no longer has the ability (or wants) to carry the chemical constituent (Dissolved Load) • The heavier the chemical (solute), the sooner is will be dropped.

23. Selenium • Selenium poisoning of water systems may result whenever new agricultural runoff courses through normally dry, undeveloped lands. • This process leaches natural soluble selenium compounds (such as selenates) into the water, which may then be concentrated in new "wetlands" as the water evaporates. • High selenium levels produced in this fashion have been found to have caused certain congenital disorders in wetland birds. • In fish and other wildlife, low levels of selenium cause deficiency while high levels cause toxicity.

24. Chemical weathering due to acid rain (C02 in rainwater)

25. Physical:Transport in Suspension (Suspended load) • Smaller particles such as clay, silt and fine sand are carried along without contact with the river bed.  • Materials carried in suspension usually forms the greatest part of the total river bed.

26. Physical:Transport in Saltation (Bed load) • Large particles such as gravel and coarse sand are lifted and dropped along the river, so they bounce along the river bed.

27. Physical:Transport in Traction (Bed load) • Larger particles like pebbles and boulders roll and slide along the river bed.

28. Transport Energy • The size of sediment being transported is dependent on the energy of the stream

31. Toklat River, East Fork, Polychrome overlook, Denali National Park, Alaska

32. Physical Pollutants: Often Related to Excess Sediment

33. Biological: • Biological organism can be indicators of water quality: • Fish (trout, sunfish, perch, salmon) • Benthic macroinvertebrates (insects, snails, crayfish, worms) • Periphyton (algae) • Amphibians (frogs, salamanders) • Macrophytes (aquatic plants) • Birds (residential or migratory) • Vegetation • The presence, absence, and makeup of biological components can often be related to chemical and physical properties of the waterbody

37. Managing Streams:Controlling What They Look Like, and What They Carry • Managing • Detachment • How constituents, chemicals, huge boulders, whatever, enter the stream • Transport • Who, what, when, where, how far, and with whom it will travel • Deposition • What is the desired depositional environment, how will we “encourage” the end of transport at that point

38. Best Management Practices For the purposes of this course, we will be looking at how the stream systems work, and what practices we can implement to manage that system towards a desired state.