WSP08256

• File Number: 8272.100.60
• Description: Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 10/1/2002
• Author: CRBSCF
• Title: 2002 Review - Water Quality Standards for Salinity - Colorado River System
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

recognizt( the importance of working cooperatively with the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control
Forum.

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The NMWQMP and the NPSMP cover the entire state except for that portion of the Navajo
Reservation lying therein. Planning within the reservation is the responsibility of the Navajo Tribe.
Much of the Colorado River Basin in New Mexico is within the reservation.

Both plans encourage the voluntary use of BMPs to control or reduce nonpoint source
pollution. The NMWQMP currently designates the San Juan River Basin in New Mexico as one of
the four priority basins for implementation of sediment control. Water quality segments 2405 and
2401 of the San Juan River are both listed on the State's 1998-2000 Section 303(d) list of impaired
waters for stream bottom deposits, and for turbidity and fecal coliform respectively. Segments 2403
and 2404 of theAnimas River are currently listed on the Section 303(d) list for stream bottom
deposits. The San Juan River Basin is scheduled for an intensive water quality survey and possible
Total Maximum Daily Load development by December 31,2004 under a federal court order Consent
decree stemming from the case of Forest Guardians and Southwest Environmental Center v. Carol
Browner, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Civil ActionNo. 96-0826 LH/LHF.
The San Juan Basin and its tributaries are also a Category 1 watershed under the Clean Water Action
Plan, Unified Watershed Assessment (UW A). The UW A prioritizes the use of certain 319(h) monies
and State Revolving Load Fund monies (SRF) toward the implementation of Nonpoint Source
Management Projects in the various priority watersheds.

The NMWQMP includes designated management agencies responsible for implementation
of the nonpoint source control programs set forth therein. The agencies designated for portions of
New Mexico lying within the Colorado River Basin are:

. New Mexico Forestry Division for silviculture;
. New Mexico State Highway Department, New Mexico State Park and Recreation
Division, and Jicarilla Apache Tribe for rural road construction and maintenance;
. New Mexico State Land Office and U.S. Bureau of Land Management for sediment
control;
. U.S. Forest Service for sediment control, rural road construction and maintenance,
and silviculture, and;
. U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs for sediment control, rural road construction and
maintenance, silviculture, and irrigated agriculture.

Additional management strategies used to control nonpoint source pollution were developed
by the State under Section 319 of the 1987 Amendmentto the federal Clean Water Act. Section 319
required each state to develop an assessment of its nonpoint source impacted waters and a
management plan for controlling pollution from these sources (NPSMP). Both the assessment and
the management program have been approved by EP A. The goal of the NPSMP is to develop and
implement a program which will reduce human-induced pollutants from nonpoint sources entering
surface and ground waters. The New Mexico Nonpoint Source Pollution Management Program has

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