KANSAS
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & ENVIRONMENT
BILL GRAVES, GOVERNOR
Clyde D. Graeber, Secretary
For Immediate Release
Contact: Don Brown, 785-296-1529
TMDL Meetings for Kansas-Lower Republican Basin on April 27 & 29
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Kansas Water Office are conducting two public meetings to discuss establishment of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) on streams and lakes in the Kansas-Lower Republican Basin. The state is under a consent order to establish TMDLs in the basin and submit them to EPA by June 30 of this year. The meetings are scheduled for April 27 at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, Building 21-S in Lawrence and April 29 at the Manhattan City Hall, 1101 Poyntz. Both meetings begin at 7:00 p.m.
The agencies will provide examples of draft TMDLs concerning impairments by bacteria, ammonia, dissolved oxygen and lake conditions. The implications of setting priorities for implementing these TMDLs will be discussed. The interaction of these TMDLs with the Kansas Water Plan through a proposed working draft of a Kansas-Lower Republican Basin Plan will also be presented. The public is welcome.
These meetings mark the opening of a review and comment period culminating in a formal public hearing to be held in Topeka on June 3. Testimony taken from the hearing will be incorporated in the final TMDLs submitted to EPA as well as considered by the Kansas Water Authority in deliberating the inclusion of the Basin Plan into the Kansas Water Plan.
Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) are viewed as the quantitative objectives and strategies needed to achieve water quality standards. The water quality standards themselves constitute the goals of water quality adequate to fully support designated uses of streams, lakes and wetlands. The process of developing TMDLs determines:
1) the pollutants causing water quality impairments;
2) the degree of deviation away from applicable water quality standards;
3) the levels of pollution reduction or pollutant loading needed to attain achievement of water quality standards;
4) corrective actions, including load allocations, to be implemented among point and non- point sources in the watershed affecting the water quality limited water body and;
5) the monitoring and evaluation strategies needed to assess the impact of corrective actions in achieving TMDLs and water quality standards, including provisions for future revision of TMDLs based on those evaluations.
In Kansas, TMDL development will follow the process described in the EPA's "Guidance for Water Quality-Based Decisions: The TMDL Process" as well as the seven TMDL components suggested in the recommendations of the Federal Advisory Committee on the TMDL Program in its final report, issued July 1998.
For additional information about TMDLs and these public meetings, contact Tom Stiles (785-296-6170) or email tstiles@kdhe.state.ks.us. The public is also invited to visit the TMDL page of the agency at http://www.kdheks.gov/tmdl/.
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