20070926-IR-318070556ONA Office of Water Quality Notice of Public Comment Period and Public Meetings Updated List of Impaired Waters under Section 303(d) of the CWA  

INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Office of Water Quality

Notice of Public Comment Period and Public Meetings

Updated List of Impaired Waters under Section 303(d) of the CWA

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management's (IDEM) Office of Water Quality is preparing to update its List of Impaired Waters, as required by Section 303(d) of the Federal Clean Water Act (CWA). Under the Act, each state is required to assess its waters for compliance with the state's water quality standards (WQS), which are developed to protect beneficial uses for which the waters may be designated (fishing, swimming, drinking, etc.). The state is then required to periodically prepare and make public a list of those waters not meeting WQS. The list of impaired waters will include the portion of the waterbody that is impaired, the pollutant(s) not meeting WQS thus causing the impairment, and a schedule for development of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). The list must be submitted to United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) by April 1, 2008.

A TMDL evaluation is a process that quantifies the amount of a specific pollutant that a waterbody can assimilate and still meet WQS. What constitutes a pollutant is described in Section 502(6) of the CWA and includes materials such as sewage, chemical wastes, biological materials, and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste. The definition also encompasses drinking water contaminants that are regulated under Section 1412 of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The TMDL will identify how much of the pollutant is coming from point sources and nonpoint sources. It will also specify the amount of pollutant reduction necessary from each source in order to meet the water quality standard set for that pollutant. The TMDL will lay the groundwork for developing and implementing a plan to reduce the amount of the pollutant coming from each source. The public will be invited to participate in the plan to develop and implement the TMDL.

Pursuant to IC 13-18-2-3, the 2008 list will have a 90-day public comment period. The public is invited to review the list and offer comments and suggestions as to the specific waterbodies included. Any person having water quality data to support or refute the listing of a specific waterbody or to add a waterbody to the list will be able to provide that information to IDEM during the public comment period. The list will also be available October 1, 2007, on IDEM's website at:

http://www.in.gov/idem/programs/water/303d/index.html

Mailed comments should be addressed to:

Lawrence Wu, Rules Development Section Chief

Watershed Planning Branch

Office of Water Quality – MC 65-40

Indiana Department of Environmental Management

100 North Senate Avenue

IGCN, Room N1255

Indianapolis, IN 46204-2251

Comments by facsimile may be sent to (317) 232-8406, Monday through Friday, between 8:15 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. Please confirm timely receipt of faxed comments by calling Lawrence Wu at (317) 234-1805, or toll free at (800) 451-6027.

This public comment period will begin on September 26, 2007, and end on December 26, 2007. Comments must be postmarked, hand delivered, or faxed not later than December 26, 2007.

IDEM will present the Draft 2008 303(d) List to the Water Pollution Control Board meeting, which will be open to the public and will provide the public an opportunity to discuss the list. This meeting will be held on the following date:

Wednesday, November 14, 2007, 1:30 p.m. EST

Indiana Government Center-South

402 West Washington Street, Conference Center Room A

Indianapolis, Indiana 46206

For the development of the 2008 303(d) list, IDEM has followed, to the degree possible, the 305(b) and 303(d) reporting methods outlined in the U.S. EPA's Guidance for 2006 Assessment, Listing and Reporting Requirements Pursuant to Sections 303(d), 305(b), and 314 of the Clean Water Act (U.S. EPA, 2005) and the additional guidance provided in the U.S. EPA memorandum Information Concerning 2008 Clean Water Act Sections 303(d), 305(b), and 314 Integrated Reporting and Listing Decisions (U.S. EPA, 2006). The 303(d) list was developed using the 305(b) Assessment Database. Interpretation of the data and listing decisions take into account IDEM's assessment methodologies, U.S. EPA's guidance, and IDEM's 303(d) Listing Methodology. A copy of IDEM's current 303(d) Listing Methodology is included at the end of this document.

One aspect of U.S. EPA's guidance calls for a comprehensive listing of all monitored or assessed waterbodies in the state, based on the state's assessment and listing methodology. Each waterbody assessment unit (AU), which may consist of an entire waterbody or a segment of a larger waterbody, is to be placed in one or more of five categories depending on the degree to which it supports designated uses. Prior to 2006, U.S. EPA required that states place each waterbody AU into only one category. The guidance issued by U.S. EPA in 2005 encourages states to place waterbody AU in additional categories as appropriate in order to more clearly illustrate where progress has been made in TMDL development and other restoration efforts. A detailed explanation of the five categories is provided in Indiana's Water Quality Assessment and 303(d) Listing Methodology for Waterbody Impairments and Total Maximum Daily Load Development for the 2008 cycle located at the end of this document. The following is a summary of the five categories:

INDIANA'S WATER QUALITY ASSESSMENT AND 303(D) LISTING METHODOLOGY FOR WATERBODY

IMPAIRMENTS AND TOTAL MAXIMUM DAILY LOADING CYCLE 2008

The actual 303(d) list of impaired waters will consist of all impairments listed in Category 5. This category includes waters where the water quality standard is not attained because the waterbody AU is impaired or threatened by a pollutant(s) for which one or more TMDL(s) is needed. It should be noted that the U.S. EPA's 2008 guidance does not change existing rules for listing and delisting waterbodies from Category 5. The existing regulations still require states, at the request of the U. S. EPA's Regional Administrator, to demonstrate good cause for not including waterbody impairments on the 303(d) list that were included on previous 303(d) lists (pursuant to 40 CFR 130.7(b)(6)(iv)).

In 2007, IDEM transferred its water quality assessment information to an updated version of the Assessment Database (ADB), to better facilitate tracking of impaired waterbodies. Each impairment is listed individually on Indiana's 303(d) list to achieve consistency in how U.S. EPA tracks TMDL development and to facilitate more effective planning by IDEM.

Segment sizes in Indiana's Reach Index vary widely such that a single segment may or may not represent the entire river or stream to which it is associated. In order to more clearly convey the fact that an impairment identified on the 303(d) does not necessarily represent an entire river or stream, waterbody segment IDs are referred to as "Assessment Unit IDs" in the following tables.

As with the 2006 303(d) list, the 2008 list includes the 14-digit hydrologic unit codes (HUC) and county names to facilitate searching of the list for specific waterbodies of interest.

When Indiana created its Reach Index in 2002, most waterbodies in the state were assigned AU ID based on their 14-digit watershed in which they were located. In most cases, each 14-digit watershed was assigned a single AU ID regardless of how many individual streams there are in the watershed. Therefore, an assessment of any stream would be applied to all the streams in the watershed regardless of where the sample was located or its relative representativeness to each stream. This problem was not preventable at the time because, while the reach indexing tool used to create Indiana's Reach Index IDEM had the capability to split "watershed" segments into smaller AU, the software had no built-in means for tracking changes in segmentation.

For the 2006 303(d) listing cycle, IDEM developed an administrative process for splitting stream segments into smaller AU allowing for more accurate application of assessment data. This process has been refined somewhat for the 2008 303(d) listing cycle. However, the basic process for splitting AU is the same. Changes in segmentation are considered on a case-by-case basis and are generally made either to accommodate a more accurate assessment or to correct an earlier assessment in which the data were inappropriately applied.

Segmentation changes are based on a combination of factors including primarily hydrology, similarities in land use and potential sources of impairment. Splitting AU in this way allows IDEM to associate an identified impairment more accurately to the waterbody from which the sample was collected and to any others for which results are representative. When AU are split, IDEM reevaluates any assessments made on the original AU along with any recent data that is available. This reassessment process ensures that the original assessment information is properly applied to the resulting new AU. In most cases, the original assessment applies to only one or two of the resulting AU with the remaining units unassessed.

IDEM's methods for tracking changes in segmentation are still being refined. Per U.S. EPA's request, IDEM now retires the original AU ID for any AU that has been split to facilitate tracking. Table 1 identifies all AU IDs that have been retired due to changes in segmentation.

It is important to note that while changes in segmentation – usually from one large AU to several smaller AU – increase the number of impairments on the 303(d) list, they produce a more accurate representation of the number of stream miles impaired. IDEM recognizes the importance of accurate tracking in this regard, particularly when resegmentation results in changes to the total number of AU and stream miles listed as impaired. IDEM will include a table summarizing all such changes as an appendix to its finalized 303(d) list to be submitted to U.S. EPA in 2008.

As noted earlier in this document, the 303(d) list of impaired waters establishes the waterbodies in Indiana that require a TMDL. IDEM's TMDL development schedule corresponds with IDEM's basin-rotation monitoring schedule. IDEM has divided the state into five major water management basins. The monitoring strategy calls for rotating through each of these basins once every five years. Waters on the 303(d) list will be targeted for additional work as sampling crews are working in the respective basins. To take advantage of all available resources for TMDL development, waters on the 303(d) list will be scheduled for TMDL development according to the basin-rotation schedule unless there is a significant reason to deviate from this schedule. Waters have been scheduled to begin TMDL development over 15 years. Since the CWA does not clearly define the timeline for TMDL development, U.S. EPA, in response to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) Committee's recommendations, issued guidance for states to develop expeditious schedules of not more than eight to 15 years.

IDEM continues to make significant progress in TMDL development. In 2008, IDEM proposes to place a total of 394 impairments in Category 4A for one or more impairments. Tables 2 and 3 identify impairments proposed to be moved to Category 4A based upon the completion of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). For the 2008 list, the additions to Category 4A shown in Table 2 consist of impairments identified on the 2006 303(d) List of Impaired Waters (Category 5A in Indiana's Integrated Water Monitoring and Assessment Report). Table 3 includes impairments previously placed in Category 2 or 3 that were identified through the TMDL process. The impairments in both tables are keyed to the TMDL in which they are addressed and their locations are shown in Figure 1. The TMDL documents listed below along with information on TMDL development and scheduled public meetings can be found online at:

http://www.in.gov/idem/water/planbr/wqs/tmdl/index.html

The waterbody impairments proposed to be removed from the 2008 303(d) list are located in the Lower Wabash River Basin and the Ohio River Basin. The Lower Wabash River and Kankakee River basins were sampled by IDEM in the summer of 2004 and the Great Lakes and Ohio River basins were sampled in 2005. Through subsequent analysis of the data from these basins, IDEM identified three waterbody AU now meeting WQS for one or more previously listed impairments. The waterbody impairments shown in Table 4 are proposed to be removed from Category 5A as a result of new assessments.

Table 5 includes all waterbodies to be removed from Category 5A due to segmentation changes. IDEM proposes removing a total of 67 impairments from Category 5A as a result of resegmentation. It is important to note that the original assessments for all AU that were split were reevaluated, applied to the resulting new AU as appropriate and added back to the list in Table 9 associated with new AU IDs. Most of the impairments identified in Table 9 are the result of routine assessments. Some are the result of segmentation changes associated with these assessments, and others are newly identified impairments on existing AU. A key is provided with Table 9 to distinguish between these two types of additions.

IDEM routinely reviews its 303(d) for errors and omissions and consistency with Indiana's WQS. In 2005, Indiana revised its WQS. These changes required a review of previous assessments to determine whether the data indicates a violation of the new criteria in the revised WQS. Water quality assessments and associated 303(d) listings were reviewed for the following parameters whose water quality criteria were either revised or removed from Indiana's WQS: