Excerpt
In a 1998 court decree, the state of Kansas agreed to develop and implement a plan to restore the health of water resources that do not meet water quality standards for designated uses and protect water resources that currently meet water quality standards, as required by the US Clean Water Act. The process for water quality restoration and protection included the establishment and implementation of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), the quantitative objectives, and strategies needed to achieve water quality standards. The TMDL process included identifying the following:
The pollutants causing water quality impairments
The degree of deviation away from applicable water quality standards
The levels of pollution reduction or pollutant loading needed to achieve water quality standards
Corrective actions, including load allocations, to be implemented among point and nonpoint sources in the watershed
The monitoring and evaluation strategies needed to assess the impact of corrective actions in achieving TMDLs and water quality standards
Provisions for future revision of TMDLs based on those evaluations
By 2004, the state of Kansas classified and prioritized their streams, published a list of streams and water bodies that do not meet water quality standards, and established TMDLs for the high-priority…
Footnotes
William L. Hargrove is director at the Center for Environmental Research and Management, the University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas; formerly director at the Kansas Center for Agricultural Resources and the Environment, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. Dan Devlin is professor and extension water quality coordinator at the Agronomy Department, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas.
- © 2010 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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