Amending the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay Basin to Establish a Total Maximum Daily Load and Implementation Plan for Selenium in North SF

Amending the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay Basin to Establish a Total Maximum Daily Load and Implementation Plan for Selenium in North SF

On Nov. 18, 2015, the CA RWQCB, San Francisco Bay Region adopted Resolution No. R2-2015-0048, amending the Water Quality Control Plan for The SF Bay Region (Basin Plan). The Basin Plan amendment was approved by the SWRCB under Resolution No. 2016-0017 on March 15, 2016, and by the Office of Administrative Law on June 2, 2016. Resolution No. R2-2015-0048 establishes a total maximum daily load (TMDL) expressed as total annual selenium load to North SF Bay equal to the sum of current loads from external sources and an implementation plan. The amendment establishes two numeric targets: 1) a numeric target for selenium in fish tissue (8.0 ug/g dry weight whole body and 11.3 ug/g in muscle tissue) protective of aquatic life, including listed species (e.g., green sturgeon), and 2) a numeric target for the water column of 0.5 ug/L total dissolved selenium, derived form the fish tissue target, which is more stringent than the current Basin Plan water quality objective of 5.0 ug/L. The main goal of the implementation plan is to maintain existing water quality and prevent increases in selenium loading from petroleum refineries, the largest controllable source of selenium, and from the Central Valley watershed. Therefore the implementation plan establishes load-based effluent limits for petroleum refineries that will be incorporated into NPDES permits, and includes monitoring of ambient waters, and monitoring to ensure attainment of the Central Valley load allocation.

Sacramento, San Francisco, San Joaquin