Wetlands and CWA Programs Other Than §404

• Author: Margaret 'Peggy' Strand/Lowell Rothschild
• Pages: 153-158

Page 153

Chapter 8

Wetlands and CWA Programs Other Than §404

While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

(the Corps) administers much of §404,

EPA has sole federal authority to admin-

ister the remainder of the CWA.1 Congress directed

EPA to develop “comprehensive programs for pre-

venting, reducing, or eliminating the pollution of

the navigable waters and groundwaters and improv-

ing the sa nitary condition of surface and under-

ground waters.”2 Such comprehensive programs are

required to realize the Act’s lofty and oft-repeated

objective “to restore a nd maintain the chemical,

physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s

waters.”3 Accordingly, EPA administers a number

of CWA programs, other than §404, that involve

protection of wetlands as part of its comprehensive

approach to attaining CWA goals.

I. Wetlands and Water Quality

Standards

Section 303 of t he CWA establishes the water qual-

ity program.4 is is a technically and legally com-

plex program that is only briey summarized here.

Water qua lity standards consist of t hree parts: qual-

ity goals for a water body established based on its

uses, criteria to protect t hose uses, and provisions

to protect water quality from pollutants. Subject

to EPA oversight and review, states have the initial

and primary role in setting water quality standards.

Each state decides how to categorize its water

bodies, including how to separate appropriate

segments of strea ms and rivers, and determine

designated uses for those water body segments.

Designated uses include recreation, water supply,

aquatic habitat, or agriculture. e state then sets

1. 33 U.S.C. §1251(d).

2. 33 U.S.C. §1252(a).

3. 33 U.S.C. §1251(a).

4. 33 U.S.C. §1313.

water quality criteria to protect the designated use.

e water quality criteria may be numeric pollutant

concentrations, narrative requirements, or both.

States must also have an antidegradation policy to

maintain and protect ex isting uses and high qua l-

ity water bodies.5 Implementation of water quality

standards— converting the criteria into enforce-

able limits on pollution discharge—involves ma ny

technical matters, including low ows, variances,

mixing zones, and other matters.

Once established, water quality standards are

included as limitations or restrictions in discharge

permits. Numeric standards for particu lar pol-

lutants may be expressed as total maximum daily

loads (TMDLs), which reect the total amount of

a pollutant that a receiving water can accept while

still meeting its water quality standard. Once a

TMDL has been established, permits establish

discharge limitations based on an allocation of the

pollutant load among individual dischargers.

Water quality standards can be established for

wetlands. EPA issued a 1990 National Guidance,

Water Quality Standards for Wetlands, which

is Appendix B to Chapter 2—General Program

Guidance of the Water Quality Standards Hand-

book, December, 1983.6 is guidance provides

advice on how states may obtain EPA approval for

water quality standards for wetlands:

e basic requirements for applying state water

quality standa rds to wetlands include:

Including wetland s in the denition of “State

waters.”

• Designating use s for all wetlands.

5. See 40 C.F.R. §131.12 for federal antidegradation policy.

6. Available at http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/regs/quality.

html.