Biological Assessment and Criteria Improve Total Maximum Daily Load Decision Making
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 130, Issue 6
Abstract
Mandated total maximum daily load (TMDL) analyses present an excellent opportunity to restore the nation’s degraded waters. The current norm for TMDL practice is, however, unlikely to achieve this goal without improved water quality standards plus systematic monitoring and assessment using biological criteria. Better than chemical and physical criteria alone, biological criteria link human actions, their impacts on water bodies, and societal goals, which are expressed as designated uses. To be adequate, monitoring should improve understanding of the connections among stressor, exposure, and response gradients. Water quality standards, monitoring, and assessment can improve water resources because they track water body condition, not the number of TMDLs completed. Federal and state leadership must set policy goals, as required by the Clean Water Act, and provide adequate fiscal and professional resources. States with high-quality programs should serve as models. Administrators should use the advances made in 2 decades of water resource science to improve their water management programs. Without such improvements, those involved in the TMDL process will continue to be frustrated, and the nation’s waters will continue to decline.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 130 • Issue 6 • June 2004
Pages: 594 - 604
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 27, 2003
Accepted: Jun 9, 2003
Published online: May 14, 2004
Published in print: Jun 2004
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