(SACRAMENTO, CA) The Budget Conference Committee of the State Legislature moved to provide funds for water quality improvements in the North Coast, after acting on a proposal inserted into the state budget by Assemblymember Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa).

“We need to accelerate the development of water quality standards,” says Evans.  “Delays have occurred because of staff shortages.  We need to help the regional board help us.  That’s what this funding is about.”

The Budget Conference Committee works to resolve differences between the budgets passed by each house of the legislature before the budget is subject to a vote.  It moved to provide the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board with 2 additional staff for three years to develop clean water standards for waterways protected under the federal Clean Water Act.  This was a compromise between the Senate and Assembly conferees on Evans’ initial proposal put into the Assembly’s budget for 5 additional staff.

Evans secured this funding with the help of the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, among other local groups, along with the help of Senators Pat Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) and Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco).

“The state needs to put more resources towards the development of water quality standards,” adds Evans.  “Public health, environmental protection, and municipal discharges all depend on the development of these standards.”

Within the Regional Board's jurisdiction, 47 waterways are protected under the federal Clean Water Act due to nutrient and pollutant concentrations.  The Regional Board is tasked with developing concentration standards for these waterways, called total maximum daily loads (TMDLs).  There are 85 individual TMDLs scheduled for completion but only 29 have been completed.

Due to the complexity of the TMDL process, understaffing, and legal requirements placed on the regional board to complete the Klamath, the board expects that the Russian River TMDL to be completed at the earliest in 2011 but it is not scheduled for completion until 2019.

Water quality standards are established on a watershed basis and cover an entire watershed for all listed pollutants.  The process to create them is lengthy from start to finish.  It involves extensive staff hours in monitoring, modeling, and work with the various watershed groups, landowners, and local governments to develop plans to reduce the pollutant concentrations.  The ultimate TMDL, usually enumerated as parts per million, is a baseline for watershed management.

Further information about TMDLs in the North Coast is available online at http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/programs/tmdl/Status.html.