EPA Workshop to Air Consent Decree TMDL Scheduling for Areas that Include Malibu

• Schedule Goes to RWQCB in March

BY BILL KOENEKER

A workshop to provide an update on the limits established for pollutants allowed in the impaired or polluted waters in the Los Angeles region will be held on Jan. 25 from 10 a.m. to noon at the USEPA Southern California field office at 600 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1460.
The session will focus on the scheduled completion based on what is called the “Consent Decree on Total Maximum Daily Loads,” in the Los Angeles region in impaired waters.
The consent decree is the outgrowth of litigation in 1999, when Heal the Bay and the Santa Monica Baykeeper sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over violations of the federal Clean Water Act.
That consent decree requires addressing all impaired waters that were identified on the Los Angeles region’s 1998 303(d) list within a 13-year period, according to EPA documents.
The workshop will present the current schedule of TMDLs to be established by the EPA and those to be adopted by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board before March 24, 2012.
The federal Clean Water Act requires the states to develop TMDLs for surface waters that do not meet and maintain applicable water quality standards. A TDML sets the amount of a given pollutant that the water body can withstand without creating an impairment of that surface water’s designated use. The TMDL, by definition, is the sum of all waste load allocations (point source) and load allocations (non-point source) with the inclusion of a margin of safety and natural background conditions, according to the EPA.
Those attending the session must RSVP to Cindy Lin at 213-244-1803 for secure entry into the building.