Policy innovations - project examples
Wet Weather Consent Decree: LimnoTech is assisting Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky in implementing the nation’s first Consent Decree for sewer overflows based on the principles of watershed management and adaptive management (see Watershed Assessment Tool to help District meet consent decree). This approach grew out of LimnoTech proposals to develop watershed-based approaches for water quality restoration and permitting, the ideas of which were adapted to construct a consent decree and a strategy for developing long-term control plans and other wet weather water quality improvement strategies. The District is facing a billion dollar program to control overflows, yet data suggest marginal benefits unless other improvements are achieved. This approach will ensure that public dollars are spent on controls that are cost-effective and provide maximum improvement in water quality, while still meeting legal requirements.
Daily Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs): In a U.S. Supreme Court case, EPA was directed to modify its TMDL for the Anacostia River from seasonal loads to daily loads, a ruling with national implications. LimnoTech assisted EPA Region 3, the State of Maryland, and the District of Columbia in developing innovative methods to include “daily loads” in the Anacostia TMDL, meeting the letter of the Supreme Court ruling without significantly affecting the regulatory implications. This helped EPA meet the requirements of an environmental lawsuit and ensured that the District of Columbia can implement the TMDL and comply with combined sewer overflow and stormwater discharge permits. LimnoTech also developed alternative approaches that could be adopted to comply with this new daily load requirement.
Contaminated Sediments: Contaminated sediment policy has evolved over the past decade to allow greater remedial cost-effectiveness while maintaining an emphasis on protectiveness. LimnoTech sediment specialists have contributed in important ways to this evolution in policy. In 1999, LimnoTech engineers Greg Peterson, John Wolfe, and Joe DePinto proposed a Decision Tree for Sediment Management, in collaboration with the Sediment Management Work Group. The adaptive, risk-based approach proposed in their white paper was an important precursor to USEPA’s 2005 Contaminated Sediment Remediation Guidance. More recently, the National Research Council was asked by the U.S. Congress to convene a panel of sediment experts to evaluate the effectiveness of dredging in reducing risk at Superfund sites. The panel, which included LimnoTech’s John Wolfe, reviewed an exhaustive set of case studies and concluded that dredging reduces exposure to contaminants only under favorable conditions, and that extensive monitoring is needed to determine whether dredging accomplishes long-term risk reduction.
Revisions to Water Quality Standards: A significant issue in water quality protection programs is that existing water quality standards may be inappropriate or not achievable. In these situations, development of pollution controls and watershed plans are typically ineffective, overly stringent and costly, and in some cases irrelevant. LimnoTech, under a research grant from the Water Environment Research Federation, led a team that critically examined hundreds of documents used to modify water quality standards. The report, Factors for Success in Developing Use Attainability Analyses, identified how EPA, states and other parties can promote wider use and acceptance of revisions to water quality standards.
Adaptive Implementation: The development of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) can be fraught with problems of uncertainty in the tools used to develop the TMDL and implementation plans, and the ultimate effectiveness of the proposed controls. As a result, many TMDLs are overly stringent, ineffective, or just stalled in unproductive debate. LimnoTech President, Paul Freedman, served on an expert panel that developed recommendations for the use of adaptive implementation in TMDLs. This approach allows water quality to be improved over time as restoration strategies are implemented and revised. This allows for a more cost-effective and realistic plan to restore the water body and avoids requirements for overly stringent or unattainable pollution controls. This proposal is being embraced by the regulated community, state regulators, and EPA.