Publication Summary

The federal Clean Water Act requires states to conduct statewide water quality assessments to identify and list surface waters that do not meet water quality standards. For listed waters, states must establish maximum limits on the amounts of pollutants that can be discharged to a water body and still allow that water body to meet water quality standards. These limits are called Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL). The Department of Ecology (Ecology) is preparing a water cleanup plan on the Lower Skagit River to address TMDL bacteria issues. The goal of a water cleanup plan is to protect water quality by allocating the pollutant loading among all sources in a fair and cost effective manner. If the plan identifies all the potential pollution sources and is fully implemented, then the potential of unfairly burdening one particular individual, business, or city will be minimized. To develop this plan, Ecology is asking for local comments on the document.