Laserfiche WebLink
<br />Western States Water Council <br />Water Quality Committee <br /> <br />Sheridan, Wyoming <br />October 5,2006 <br /> <br />Montana: <br /> <br />Bob Bukantis - our 303(d) list has been quite contentious. In 2000, we did a major revision <br />after getting direction from our legislature that we needed to get passed language to support a TMDL <br />program, in terms of supporting listing. We applied that and then quickly got into trouble in court. <br />Environmental groups reached a consent decree and we got people annoyed with us because we had <br />taken a lot of waters off the list for lack of sufficient credible data. We had to go back and reassess <br />those waters with a higher level of information and then decide whether they deserved a TMDL. The <br />environmental groups saw that as a dodge. We saw it as trying to have consistently good science. <br /> <br />We just presented a draft 303(d) list in 2006, which is now part of the integrated report. <br />We're hoping that puts this whole thing to rest, because we had specifically addressed all of the 496 <br />waters that were contentious. <br /> <br />Another area in which we are moving ahead is developing specific numeric water quality <br />standards. We've developed a scientific basis for those standards on waiveable streams. We're <br />working on an approach to develop the standards. EP A's recommended nutrient standards was to <br />look at the distribution of the data available on nutrients and pick a point and say "okay, above a <br />certain percentile your streams are fine." Perhaps these streams are impaired. We've looked at <br />studies that have types of records of distribution through to actual measures of impairment and <br />beneficial use - - basically, recreational beneficial use. We recently sent out a survey to voters to get <br />a representative sampling. We did this in two ways. First, by collecting data on what we considered <br />reference conditions in the state, and then looked at similar studies where people had tried to come <br />up with what they thought was too green by looking at particle concentrations. For confirmation of <br />that, we did the survey with pictures. We worked real hard to get something that was defensible, but <br />we basically had a series of pictures where we knew it represented for example, 70 milligrams per <br />square meter, etc., and showed th~ pictures and then said, "do you find this picture acceptable or <br />unacceptable?" We sent them out to Montana voters, and we also had an intern who polled people <br />along the streams and rivers to get their thoughts. We are trying to tie that back into how you set <br />criteria so you're showing harm or no harm to beneficial use. We're getting results back that show <br />people's general perspective of how green it is. We are putting moving forward with the <br />development of specific numeric nutrients criteria. We did some work some years ago and we have <br />total phosphorous and total nitrogen standards, numeric standards that apply. That's basically the <br />mainstem river in the western part of the state. It's actually our largest, highest flowing river in the <br />state. <br /> <br />GOOD SAMARITAN LEGISLATION <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Roger Gorke: We decided to put our own EPA house in order and work through some <br />administrative tools, regardless of legislation. We held a meeting that was somewhat productive. <br />Regions 8, 9, 10, and headquarters staff went to Denver to see what an abandoned mine looks like. . <br />This was followed by a video/teleconference to discuss what they had seen. We are developing a <br /> <br />10 <br />