 Background: Every two years the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is required under federal law to produce a list of waterbodies that do not meet water quality standards, also known as the Clean Water Act Section 303(d) List of Impaired Waters. This is a list of waters that do not meet minimum requirements for protecting fish, wildlife, and various recreational uses. For example, a water body that has excessive green algal growth would be placed on the DNR’s list of impaired waters.
The purpose of the 303(d) list is to help the DNR determine which waters need additional protection and clean-up to bring them within the "fishable/swimmable" goals of the Clean Water Act.
The First Step to Improving Waters is Listing Waters
The Clean Water Act requires that lakes, rivers, and streams have water quality standards protective of their integrity and the health of humans and fish. When data shows that a waterbody does not meet a standard because of pollution, it is impaired and it should be placed on the 303(d) list. This placement is important because the 303(d) list serves as a trigger for CWA provisions designed to address the complex environmental problems causing these impairments. One of these tools is a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), which forms a basis for restricting pollution from discharge pipes and non-point sources and makes the cleanup of Wisconsin’s most polluted waters possible.
A TMDL is simply a calculation of the total amount of pollution a waterbody can withstand without violation water quality standards. These clean up plans can be thought of as pies, where each source of pollution is permitted a slice of the pie (pollution), with a margin of safety to account for any errors the DNR might make. Because of the significance of these TMDL cleanup plans, it is critically important to properly list waters that are impaired and therefore need cleanup
Wisconsin’s Impaired Waters List is Inadequate
A failure to include impaired waters on the 303(d) list undermines the CWA’s purpose –to protect our waters. Although DNR has improved its listing process, significant problems remain:
- Data: DNR fails to properly consider high quality data from third parties showing pollution problems in Wisconsin waters. Because of this, many polluted waters are ignored because DNR does not have the resources to collect this data itself.
- Phosphorus: Pollution from phosphorus is a significant problem statewide, causing blue-green algae blooms that harm humans and aquatic life. Yet, only a small fraction of phosphorus-impaired waters are on the 303(d) list.
- Mercury: DNR only lists the most severe instances of mercury-polluted fish tissue – when the fish is labeled “do not eat.” This listing policy does not conform to the CWA’s standard that all waters be fishable. Listing more tissue-contaminated waters would provide a path to improving mercury contamination on a wide scale.
Status: MEA has submitted official comments to DNR explaining these and other violations and requesting that the 2010 303(d) list be amended accordingly. Read the comments here.
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