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<br />. <br /> <br />:. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />SUMMARY <br /> <br />Section 303 of the Clean Water Act requires that water quality standards be reviewed from <br />time to time, but at least once during each three-year period. Accordingly, the seven-state Colorado <br />River Basin Salinity Control Forum (Forum) has reviewed the existing state-adopted and <br />Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved water quality standards for salinity consisting <br />of numeric criteria and a plan of implementation for salinity control for the Colorado River System. <br />Since the issuance of the 1996 Review, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) has initiated' <br />development of a new model to analyze the Colorado River System, including salinity. The model <br />development is not yet completed, and new salinity projections are not available for this Review. <br />Projections developed for the 1996 Review are used in this Review. This 1999 Review updates <br />funding and salinity control component implementation requirements following 1999. Also, since <br />the 1996 Review, federal legislation has been implemented which allows the Basin states to cost <br />share up-front in both Reclamation's Basinwide Program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's <br />EQIP program. This has brought a new and important source of funding to the program and has <br />accelerated the rate of implementation of salinity control measures. Federal authorization given by <br />Congress in 1996 has already allowed for the addition of $6,476,000 to the effort. The Forum's <br />recommendations are to be submitted to each of the Basin states for consideration at a public hearing <br />prior to adoption. <br /> <br />The Forum recommends no change in the numeric salinity criteria at the three stations <br />located on the lower mainstem of the Colorado River. The numeric criteria at these stations will <br />remaIn: <br /> <br />Station <br /> <br />Salinity in mg/V <br /> <br />Below Hoover Dam 723 <br />Below Parker Dam 747 <br />At Imperial Dam 879 <br /> <br />The plan of implementation as set forth in this Review is designed to meet the objective of <br />maintaining the salinity concentrations at or below the numeric criteria while the Basin states <br />continue to develop their compact-apportioned waters. The plan is based on maintaining the numeric <br />criteria under a long-term mean water supply of 15 million acre-feet annually at Lee Ferry, the <br />Compact Point. The Forum recommends that the plan of implementation described in this report <br />be carried out. The plan of implementation includes: <br /> <br />1. Completion of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and U.S. <br />Department of Agriculture (USDA) salinity control measures to the extent that each <br />unit remains viable and appropriately cost-effective. <br /> <br />IFlow-weighted average annual salinity. <br /> <br />v <br />