Clean Water Act: Federal legislation that requires states to conduct programs to protect water quality. Although it primarily deals with issues related to municipal and industrial waste discharges, the Clean Water Act also has components dealing with nonpoint source (NPS) pollution. Congress enacted Section 319 of the Clean Water Act in 1987, establishing for the first time a national program specifically to control nonpoint sources of water pollution. Under Section 319, States address NPS pollution through the development of Nonpoint Source Assessment reports.
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES): Under the federal Clean Water Act, any point source pollution of a navigable waterway must have a NPDES permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). There are three types of permits issued out of the program: surface water discharge permit (for pollutants discharged from a point source possibly including a pipe or ditch), pretreatment industrial user's permit, and storm water permit.
NPS Assessment: Section 319 of the Clean Water Act required all states to assess and document the water quality of streams affected by NPS pollution. The purpose of Ohio's Nonpoint Source Assessment is to provide a comprehensive water quality evaluation of the state's water resources in order to identify the nature and extent of NPS water pollution problems as well as the sources and causes of the problems.
NPS Pollution: NPS Pollution is a form of water pollution that does not originate from a discrete point, such as a sewage treatment plant outlet. NPS pollution is a by-product of land use practices such as farming, timber harvesting, construction, mining and urbanization. Pollutants such as sediment, fertilizers and pesticides are delivered from land to surface water and ground water via mechanisms such as precipitation, runoff, and leaching.
Water Quality: Water quality is a neutral term that relates to the composition of water as affected by natural processes and human activities. It depends not only on water's chemical condition, but also its biological, physical and radiological condition. The quality of water is also related to specific use, and is usually measured in terms of constituent concentrations. The level of water quality is based upon the evaluation of measured quantities and parameters, which then are compared to water quality standards, objectives or criteria.
Water Quality Monitoring: Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) has been monitoring water quality in Ohio streams for more than 20 years. Monitoring is used to determine if a stream's water quality is sufficient to support its designated uses. Of the 30,000 or more stream miles in Ohio about 7,000 stream miles have been extensively monitored at least once. Much of the past monitoring has been in the vicinity of municipal wastewater treatment plants and industries that discharge wastewater. Many streams in rural areas have never been monitored. Because NPS issues continue to be a great concern, more water quality monitoring will take place in rural areas.
The following terms are frequently used to describe the results of water quality monitoring and/or the water quality status of streams:
Ambient: The background conditions of the surrounding environment.
Antidegradation Policy: The antidegradation policy describes the conditions under which water quality may be lowered in surface waters. Existing beneficial uses must be maintained and protected. Further, water quality better than that needed to protect existing beneficial uses must be maintained unless lower quality is deemed necessary to allow important economic or social development (existing beneficial uses must still be protected).
Aquatic Life Use: This use designation relates to the level of water quality a stream is expected to meet in providing habitat for the fish and insects living there. The designated aquatic life habitat uses are based on stream and ecoregional characteristics that affect the level of diversity expected in the local fish and insect communities. There are seven aquatic life use designations: warmwater habitat (WWH); limited warmwater habitat (LWH); exceptional warmwater habitat (EWH); modified warmwater habitat (MWH); seasonal salmonid habitat (SSH); coldwater habitat (CW); and limited resource water (LRW).
Biological Criteria: Biological criteria are based on aquatic community characteristics that are measured both structurally and functionally. These criteria are used to evaluate the attainment of aquatic life uses. The principal biological evaluation tools used by Ohio EPA are indices of biological integrity that apply to fish and macroin-vertebrates. These indices are based on metrics of species richness, trophic composition, diversity, presence of pollution-tolerant individuals or species, abundance of biomass, and the presence of diseased or abnormal organisms. Ohio EPA uses the results of sampling reference sites to set mini mum criteria index scores for use designations in water quality standards.
Biological Indices: Indicators of biological integrity that directly measure the aquatic community. The indices used in Ohio are multimetric, in that they combine a variety of conditions (metrics) to give an overall assessment. The indices result in a numeric score that is evaluated against biological criteria to determine whether the designated use has been protected. The three indices used in Ohio are:
1] Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI): An ecologically based index that uses fish community data and summarizes them as 12 ecological metrics that can be classified into three categories: species richness, species composition, trophic composition, and fish density and condition;
2] Index of Well-Being (Iwb): A composite index of diversity and abundance measures (density and biomass) based on fish community data; and
3] Invertebrate Community Index (ICI): An index of biological condition based on ten metrics that measure various structural and tolerance components of macroinvertebrate communities in Ohio streams.
Chemical Criteria: Water quality criteria for individual chemicals are derived from laboratory studies of biological organisms' sensitivity to specific chemicals or combinations of chemicals. Based on tests, guidelines or national criteria are established by USEPA. Ohio EPA uses these recommendations in combination with the latest scientific information in setting the appropriate chemical water quality criteria for Ohio's surface water. A subset of chemical criteria are associated with the Agricultural Water Supply use designation. Use of these criteria help protect against long term adverse effects on crops and livestock as a result of crop irrigation and livestock watering.
Ecoregion: Geographic areas of relative homogeneity in ecological systems or in relationships between organisms and their environment.
Hydrologic Group: A hydrologic group is a watershed-area designation that identifies the hydrologic and geographic boundaries of a stream or river basin. A watershed is simply all land in a specific area that drains to one water outlet.
Narrative Criteria: Narrative criteria are general water quality criteria that apply to all surface waters. These criteria state that all waters shall be free from sludge, floating debris, oil and scum, color and odor producing materials, substances that are harmful to human, animal or aquatic life, and nutrients in concentrations that may cause nuisance algal blooms.
Numeric Criteria: Numeric criteria are estimations of concentrations of chemicals and the degree of aquatic life toxicity allowable in a water body without adversely impacting its beneficial uses. Although numeric criteria are applied to all water bodies, they primarily are used to regulate dischargers through NPDES permits. Numeric criteria consist of chemical criteria, whole effluent toxicity criteria and biological criteria.
Salmonid: Any member of the Salmonidae (trout and salmon) family. Salmonids found in Ohio include: coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), steelhead (rainbow) trout (Salmo gairdneri), brown trout (Salmo trutta), and lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush).
Stream Segment: A section or entire length of a waterway as defined in the Gazetteer of Ohio Streams, a listing of every named stream in Ohio shown on USGS topographic maps. Ohio topographic maps are available through the ODNR Division of Geological Survey. Each stream segment or water body is assigned a Hydrologic Group number and a segment number.
Use Attainment: Use attainment is another way of describing whether or not a stream is meeting Ohio's water quality standards. Ohio EPA has assigned a use designation, or a specific set of water quality standards, to most major streams and rivers through out the state by dividing each stream into segments and assigning each segment a specific use designation. Ohio EPA assesses use attainment based on aquatic life habitat use designations because they provide the most accurate and comprehensive evaluation of water quality. Use attainment is expressed in degrees. Streams may meet all or part of the water quality standards associated with the designation. The degrees of use attainment include: full attainment; full attainment but threatened; partial attainment; and non-attainment.
Use Designation: Each of Ohio's streams has been assigned designated uses related to their present and future use: as a source for drinking water; for recreation activities involving contact with water; for agricultural uses (livestock, irrigation); for industrial uses; and as aquatic habitat for fish, insects and other aquatic organisms.
Water Quality Standards: Under the Clean Water Act, every state must adopt water quality standards to protect, maintain and improve the quality of the nation's surface waters. These standards represent a level of water quality that will support the goal of "swimmable/fishable" waters. Water quality standards are ambient standards as opposed to discharge-type standards. Ohio's water quality standards, set forth in Chapter 3745-1 of the Ohio Administrative Code, includes these major components: 1) beneficial use designations; 2) narrative criteria; 3) numeric criteria; and 4) antidegradation policy.
Whole Effluent Toxicity Criteria: Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) criteria measures the harmful effects of an effluent on living organisms. A bioassay or toxicity test, measures the degree of response of an exposed test organism to a specific chemical or effluent. WET measures the accumulative effects of chemicals present in an effluent that cannot be assessed using chemical-specific criteria.
Affected: This category is a summation of the previous three categories. Any stream that is impaired, impacted, or threatened by NPS is defined as being affected by NPS.
Attaining Use: The stream is attaining its designated aquatic life use based on the results from water quality monitoring. The fish and insects found in the stream are similar to fish and insects found in other relatively unpolluted streams of the same designated use and within the same ecoregion.
Impacted: Streams believed to be affected by NPS pollution, based on NPS modeling and/or incomplete water quality monitoring (some monitoring may have been done that suggests there is a problem, but the stream has not been monitored extensively enough to establish impairment of the designated use).
Impaired: The water quality in an impaired stream is not sufficient to support healthy communities of the types of fish and insects that should be present in a relatively unpolluted stream of the same designated use and in the same ecoregion.
NPS Impaired or Impacted: The identified or suspected sources of pollution for the specified stream segment are primarily nonpoint sources.
PS Impaired or Impacted: The identified sources of pollution for the specified stream segment are primarily point sources (municipal and/or industrial wastewater discharges).
PS and NPS Impaired or Impacted: The identified or suspected sources of pollution for the specified stream segment are both point sources and nonpoint sources.
Threatened: A stream that is very close to attaining or marginally attaining its designated aquatic life use.
Some Information: Streams where some indications of water quality problems exist but the level of information is inadequate to place it in an impaired or impacted category (usually based on professional observations).
Habitat alteration: In general terms, any change in the structure or function of aquatic habitat. Examples of human activities that result in habitat alteration are: stream channel modification; land drainage; channel straightening and widening; riparian vegetation removal; and stream sand or gravel mining. These activities result in degraded biological integrity via habitat loss and trophic disturbances.
Metals: Specific class of chemical elements that have unique characteristics (such as conductance); some of the metals commonly found in water or sediment as pollutants include lead, copper, cadmium, arsenic, silver, zinc, iron, mercury, and nickel.
Nutrients: Any substance assimilated by living things that promotes growth. The term is generally applied to nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewaters, runoff, and/or subsurface drainage, but is also applied to other essential and trace elements.
Organic Enrichment/Dissolved Oxygen: Organic enrichment occurs when dissolved or suspended organic materials (natural and synthetic) enter surface waters in rainfall, runoff, or ground water. Natural decomposition of these materials can deplete oxygen supplies in surface waters. Dissolved oxygen is vital to fish and other aquatic life and for the prevention of odors.
Pathogens: Microorganisms that can cause disease in other organisms (i.e., humans, animals, and plants). They may be bacteria, viruses, or parasites and are found in sewage, runoff from livestock farms or areas populated with domestic and/or wild animals.
pH: Acidity or alkalinity levels in a stream that are outside the range of what can be tolerated by many aquatic organisms.
Siltation: Soil particles and small rock fragments that can be picked up by the air or water and deposited as sediment.
Suspended Solid: Small particles of solid pollutants that float on the surface of, or are suspended in waters or wastewaters. These solids resist removal by settling and deposition.
Toxic: Any substance that can cause death, abnormalities, disease, mutations, cancer, deformities, or reproductive malfunctions in an organism.
Turbidity: A degree of cloudiness in water caused by suspended solids.