LOUISIANA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY | Secretary Aurelia S. Giacometto
A DEPARTMENT OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA
EPA protocol for developing nutrient TMDLs.
This website on Recovery Potential Screening provides a systematic approach for comparing waters or watersheds and identifying differences in how well they may respond to restoration. Originally, this approach was developed as a technical aid to states, territories and tribes (hereafter referred to as states for brevity) concerning their Clean Water Act obligation to "develop a prioritized schedule" for creating Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) to reduce pollution in impaired waters. Recovery Potential Screening can also be applied in a wide range of other watershed activities. Rather than a 'one-size-fits-all' procedure, this site offers a flexible framework of methods, tools, technical information and instructional examples that can be customized for any impaired waters restoration program in any geographic locality. When used with existing data, it provides a rapid assessment and comparison method at a general screening level. Key components for ecological indicator selection include: Candidate ecological indicators1.Watershed natural structure, 2.Corridor and shorelands stability, 3.Flow and channel dynamics, 4.Biotic community integrity, 5.Aquatic connectivity, 6.Ecological history. Key components for stressor indicator selection include: 1.Watershed-level disturbance, 2.Corridor or shorelands disturbance, 3.Hydrologic alteration, 4.Biotic or climatic risks, 5.Severity of pollutant loading 6.Legacy of past, trajectory of future land use. Key components for social context indicator selection include: 1.Leadership, organization and engagement, 2.Protective ownership or regulation, 3.Level of information, certainty and planning, 4.Restoration cost, difficulty, or complexity, 5.Socio-economic considerations, 6.Human health, beneficial uses, recognition and incentives
This original SAB study analyzes sources and fate of reactive nitrogen in the environment, and provides advice to the EPA on integrated nitrogen research and control strategies. Sources of Reactive Nitrogen: Nitrogen gas in the air is an abundant, inert form of nitrogen that is transformed by nitrogen-fixing microbes into reactive forms of nitrogen that are taken up by algae, plants and other producers at the base of the food web. Human activities (primarily production and use of nitrogen fertilizers, nitrogen-fixing legume crops, and burning of fossil fuels) introduce five times more reactive nitrogen into the U.S. environment than natural sources. Environmental Effects: The overload of reactive nitrogen causes a range of effects as it cycles in the atmosphere, on land, and in water bodies. This sequence of effects is called the “nitrogen cascade.” Reactive nitrogen provides essential benefits as a fertilizer for food production. However, most of this nitrogen is not taken up by crops and is lost to the environment where it can contribute to the impacts noted above. Nitrogen oxides from burning of fossil fuels for transportation and power generation contribute to formation of smog, particulate matter and acid rain, and then can go on to contribute to over-fertilization of unmanaged forests and grasslands, coastal eutrophication, greenhouse effect and stratospheric ozone depletion. Management Implications: The SAB recommends (1) the use of the nitrogen cycle as an essential framework to address the environmental loading of reactive nitrogen; (2) an integrated cross-media approach to more effectively manage reactive nitrogen; (3) and monitoring and research to support management of reactive nitrogen. The SAB suggests that a 25 percent reduction of excess reactive nitrogen can be achieved with existing technology in the near term. The SAB also emphasizes that this decrease alone will not solve the problems of excess reactive N in the environment.
The purpose of this guide is to provide the tools you need to develop and implement an effective outreach campaign as part of a state or local water quality improvement effort. Whether you’re charged with developing a watershed management plan to restore impaired waters or protecting your local water resources for the future, this guide will help you understand the importance of reaching out to people and motivating them to act. It will help you understand the audiences in your watershed, create messages that resonate with them, find appropriate ways to communicate your message, and prompt changes in behavior to reduce water pollution.
A guide to help effectively engage stakeholders to restore and maintain healthy environmental conditions through community support and cooperative action. Focus on getting started, outreach and communication tools, building stakeholder group, keeping process moving forward, and follow-up after engagement period. List of resources also given.
Online resource for information on source water/drinking water protection.
EPA Surf Your Watershed gathers environmental information available by geographic units which includes state, watershed (Surf's primary focus), county, metro area, and tribe. The information below describes the Locate Your Watershed page which contains many different routes to the same information. Each of the geographic pages are also discussed briefly
As of Jan 2008, EPA has created this web-based tool to provide stormwater professionals with easy access to approximately 220 studies assessing the performance of over 275 stormwater BMPs. The Tool provides access to studies covering a variety of traditional and low impact BMP types, including retention and detention ponds, biofilters, grassed filter strips, porous pavement, wetlands, and others. Users will also find a series of essays aimed at improving understanding of BMP performance and the importance of volume reduction/infiltration in these assessments. EPA plans to add more studies to this Tool over the coming year, focusing on expanding the collection of studies of low impact development or green infrastructure BMPs. However as of Nov 2012, could not access this tool through weblinks (deadlinks).
This guidance helps citizens and municipalities in urban areas protect bodies of water from polluted runoff that can result from everyday activities. These scientifically sound techniques are the best practices known today. The guidance will also help states to implement their nonpoint source control programs and municipalities to implement their Phase II Storm Water Permit Programs.
EPA Watershed Planning site provides information on developing a watershed plan. Organizations, local governments, tribes, and state and federal agencies are now working together to manage water quality at the watershed level using a step-by-step watershed management process. This process uses a series of cooperative actions to: characterize existing conditions, identify and prioritize problems, define management objectives, develop protection or remediation strategies, and implement and adapt selected actions as necessary.