Abstract |
The Federal Clean Water Act (CWA), Section 305(b), requires states to produce a periodic inventory comparing water quality conditions to established water quality standards for surface waters. Section 303(d) of the Federal CWA requires states to identify water bodies not meeting state water quality standards and to a develop total maximum daily loads (TMDL) for those water bodies. A TMDL is the amount of a pollutant a water body can assimilate without exceeding the established water quality standard for that pollutant. Numeric and narrative standards are contained in Arkansas Surface Water Quality Standards (ASWQS) (Regulation 2) as adopted by the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. Through a TMDL, pollutant loads can be distributed or allocated to point sources and non point sources discharging to the water body. This report describes the TMDL for dissolved copper in Whig Creek, Arkansas. Whig Creek basin is located in the Arkansas Planning Segment 3F within the Arkansas River Basin in hydrologic unit code 11110203-931. Whig Creek was listed on the Arkansas Department of Environmental Qualitys (ADEQ) 1998 Section 303(d) list as not supporting water quality standards for aquatic life use and drinking water use as a result of the existence of heavy metals and nutrients. The 1998 305(b) report identified copper in Whig Creek as the pollutant of concern and identified municipal point source dischargers as the source. |