Searching for flow restoration in Total Maximum Daily Load land…

The Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program is a Clean Water Act program for identifying and restoring waters that do not meet water quality standards (impaired waters). According to U.S. EPA's online ATTAINS database, states report 56,391 river miles are impaired by flow alterations. Yet the same database lists exactly 0 TMDLs completed for flow alterations.

Of course, this is not a big surprise to Clean Water Act geeks.

Policy debates have raged about if or how the TMDL approach can be applied to impairment issues related to loss of or changes in flows (diversions, etc.). Despite the policy debates, I've seen a few on the ground examples where TMDLs have pushed into the flow arena, and I'm interested in knowing if there are more examples out there. If there are, we're also interested in knowing how successful restoration efforts have been.

Of course, the policy debates will continue (for example: what EPA does with these TMDLs, etc.). But as a practical matter, we'd like to understand what – if anything – is happening with this issue and TMDLs and hence what watershed and river groups might want to understand about the issue.

So, please share any examples you have of:

• TMDLs that were specifically for a 303(d) listing of impairment due to flow alteration.
• TMDLs that may have been targeted to a different 303(d) listed cause of impairment – such as perhaps temperature, habitat alterations or dissolved oxygen – that explicitly used flow restoration or management as an implementation activity.

You can use the comment function below or email me at mfrey@rivernetwork.org. Findings will be shared on this blog in the near future.