west virginia department of environmental protection cheat river watershed tmdls draft tmdl public...
TRANSCRIPT
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
Cheat River Watershed TMDLs
Draft TMDL Public Meetings
August 3,2010 Kingwood, WV
August 4, 2010 Blackwater Falls
State Park
Agenda
TMDL/ water quality standards recap
Overview of this TMDL effort
Explanation/demonstration of electronic documents, spreadsheets, tools
Questions and Answers
What’s a TMDL?
“Total Maximum Daily Load”
TMDL is a pollution budget – the amount of pollutants that can be put into a stream before water quality standards are violated
TMDL development is required by the Clean Water Act for all streams impaired by a pollutant
What’s an Impaired Stream?
Stream that doesn’t meet water quality standards
WV Water Quality Standards
are codified in
47CSR2
Standards include
“Designated Uses” for
WV waters and the criteria
to protect those uses
Water Quality Criteria can
be numeric or narrative
Cheat River Watershed TMDLs Criteria of Concern
Total IronAquatic Life Protection; Public Water Supply4-consecutive day average not to exceed 1.5 mg/l more than once in three years (warmwater); 0.5 mg/l (troutwater)
Dissolved AluminumAquatic Life Protection
One-hour average concentration not to exceed 0.75 mg/l more than once in three years
4-consecutive day average not to exceed 0.75 mg/l (warmwater fisheries) more than once in three years; 0.087 mg/l (troutwaters)
pH
All Uses
6.0 – 9.0 Standard Units at all times
Cheat River Watershed TMDLsCriteria of Concern
Fecal ColiformWater Contact Recreation; Public Water Supply200 counts/100ml as a monthly geometric meanno more than 10% of samples in a month exceed 400 counts/100ml
Total Manganese1.0 mg/l or less with a five mile zone upstream of a public water intake
Cheat River Watershed TMDLsCriteria of Concern
Biological ImpairmentConditions Not Allowable in State Waters
(47 CSR 2-3.2i) “.....no significant adverse impact to the chemical, physical, hydrologic or biological components of aquatic ecosystems shall be allowed.”
Benthic macroinvertebrate assessment
West Virginia Stream Condition Index (WVSCI)
TMDL = WLA + LA + MOS
= “sum of”
WLA = “wasteload allocations”
LA = “load allocations”
MOS = “margin of safety”
WLAs - pollutant loads for “point sources”
Discharge from pointNeed NPDES permit
LAs - pollutant loads for “nonpoint sources” and background
Precipitation and runoffNo permit required
Cheat Watershed TMDL History
• EPA developed Blackwater River Dissolved Oxygen TMDL - 1998
• EPA developed metals/pH TMDLs for Cheat River and 50 tributaries – 2001
• This effort reevaluates EPA metals/pH TMDLs plus addresses fecal coliform and biological impairements
Cheat Watershed TMDL History
• This WVDEP project:– Proposed streams advertised for public
comment (Spring 2006)– Initial Public Meetings (TMDL 101) - May
2006– Watershed Monitoring and Source Tracking -
July 2006 - June 2007– Allocation Philosophy Meeting – April 2010– Draft TMDL Public Meeting - Today
Impaired Waters
99 named streams – See Table 3-3 starting on page 11 of Main Report
Modeling
MDAS (Mining Data Analysis System)Iron, Manganese, Dissolved Aluminum, pH and Fecal Coliform impairmentsCan handle point and nonpoint sources (representation and allocation)Metals speciation component allows evaluation of dissolved aluminum and pHRecognizes exposure duration and exceedence frequency components of criteria
22 TMDL watersheds
Modeling
566 subwatersheds
Baseline ConditionDesign precipitation period
Hourly precipitation data for a six-year period
Design period includes wet and dry years
Applied to present day land uses
Permitted discharges equal to permit limits
Margin of Safety
Required component of TMDLs
Explicit 5% used in most TMDLs
TMDL endpoints for numeric criteria are 95% of value (ex. 1.425 mg/l for 1.5 mg/l Fe criterion)
TMDL Condition
Existing pollutant sources reduced such that TMDL endpoints are achieved at each modeled subwatershed
Criteria value, duration, exceedence frequency
Margin of safety
Example – 4-day average concentration of iron in warmwater fishery not greater than 1.425 mg/l more than once every three years
Baseline/TMDL Example
0.5
0.75
1
1.25
1.5
1.75
2
2.25
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Simulation Period(Days)
Iro
n, T
ota
l (m
g/L
)
Water Quality Criteria TMDL Target (WQ Criteria & 5%MOS)
Baseline Condition TMDL Condition
Boundary Conditions
Shavers Fork, Dry Fork, Blackwater River above Beaver Creek
Gross allocations – no reductions prescribed
Miscellaneous Pennsylvania tributaries in Big Sandy Creek watershed
Gross allocations - reductions as necessary to meet TMDL endpoints at the state border
Pennsylvania Allocations
Biological Impairment TMDLsStressor identification
Define potential stressors/pathwaysEvaluate chemistry, habitat, field notes, bugsDetermine stressors
Stressor/TMDL LinkageMetals /pH Toxicity ................ Al, Fe, pH
Organic Enrichment ......FC surrogateSedimentation ...............Fe Surrogate
LinkageTable 4-1, Page 20
Sedimentation StressorOld Approach– Select unimpaired reference watershed with similar landuse, ecoregion,
geomorphological characteristics– Normalized sediment loading in reference watershed is TMDL target for
biologically-impaired stream– Present Sediment TMDL
Cheat TMDL Approach - Correlate TSS and Iron - Model Iron - Present Iron TMDL - Calculate TSS for Fe - Compare to TSS for reference approach
Iron /TSS CorrelationFrom Pre-TMDL Monitoring, used stations with >5 quantifiable observations of both Fe and TSS, a positive correlation and R2 >0.5;
Fe/TSS correlation = Three “flavors” ranging from 0.020 to 0.066
Ex. 0.020 = 2.0 mg/l Fe per 100 mgl TSS
Applied to sediment producing land uses and bank erosion sediment loads
Sedimentation StressorAll biologically-impaired streams for which sedimentation is a significant stressor are also impaired for iron
Sediment reduction needed to meet iron water quality criteria is larger than that needed under reference watershed approach
Iron TMDLs are appropriate surrogate
Ionic Stress• Crab Orchard Run
• Insufficient info on causative pollutants and thresholds (SO4, other ions)
• Biological TMDL development deferred until December 2011
• Work plan developed– DEP monitoring– EPA – model enhancements
Reduced Pollutant Sources
IronAbandoned Mine Lands
Upland Sediment sources
Residental/Urban Runoff
Streambank erosion
Active mining permits
Reduced Pollutant Sources
Fecal ColiformFailing/nonexistent on-site sewage systems
Urban/residential land use stormwater runoff
Agricultural land use loading
Manganese
Criteria applicable only in five mile stream segments upstream of water supply intakes
Impairments only in Heather Run, Lick Run, and Pringle Run watersheds
Reductions prescribed only for Abandoned Mine Land sources
pH / Dissolved Aluminum
• Impairments linked; decreased pH causes increased aluminum in dissolved form
• Atmospheric deposition - Impact of varies by buffering capacity
• Iron and aluminum reductions to meet criteria decreases acidity
• Alkalinity additions captured in baseline
pH / Dissolved AluminumAllocation Strategy – Pg. 56
Metals/pH spreadsheet, pH LAS tab
Implementation Activities WV/NPDES Permit issuance/reissuance
WLAs for mining permitsConstruction Stormwater General Permits
DEP Division of Land ReclamationOffice of Abandoned Mine Lands and ReclamationOffice of Special Reclamation
Public Sewer Projects http://www.wvinfrastructure.com/projects/index.html
NPS Regional CoordinatorNorthern Basin Coordinator, Lou Schmidt ([email protected])
Future GrowthOK......
New point source discharges with limits based on achieving water quality criteria “end-of-pipe”
“Remining” without specific allocation
New sewage discharges w/ 200/400 fecal coliform effluent limits
New mining with TSS effluent limits = 35 mg/l avg. mon., 70 mg/l max. daily applicable at all times
New Construction Stormwater in accordance with area allowances
Future Growth – Construction Stormwater
• 1.5% of area in immediate subwatershed
• Cumulative area provision
• See “CSW Future Growth” tab on Metals Allocation spreadsheet
Public CommentPublic Comment period ends August 23, 2010
Documents may be reviewed/downloaded from DEP webpage http://www.wvdep.org/
CD available upon request – CD includes GIS Shapefiles and Technical Report
Comments should be submitted to Steve Young at [email protected]
Questions - contact Dave Montali, Jim Laine, Ben Lowman, Mike McDaniel
(304) 926-0499 (Ext 1063, 1061, 1055, 1101)
TMDL Products
Main Report – Overall description of the Cheat River TMDL development process
Technical Report with detailed appendices
Allocation spreadsheets:Fecal Coliform, Metals, pHTMDL for each stream,WLAs and LAs by SWSFilterable
GIS shapefiles + web-based project coming soon
TMDL Products
CD /Spreadsheets/ GIS Demo