MassDEP Seeks Public Comment on Cleanup Plan
To Restore Health of the Upper/Middle Charles River Watershed

Meeting Set for Thursday, Oct. 29, from 4-7 p.m.
at Mass. Horticultural Society Reservation in Wellesley

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) will hold a public meeting on Thursday, October 29, 2009, seeking comments on a draft document identifying the need to limit and reduce the nutrient phosphorus in the Upper/Middle Charles River watershed.

The public is invited to the meeting, which will be held from 4-7 p.m. at Hunnewell Building, Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Elm Bank Reservation, Wellesley.

MassDEP has prepared the draft Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report, which sets the maximum amount of phosphorus that can enter the river and still meet water quality standards.

Phosphorus is the primary cause of algal blooms and other associated impairments in the Upper/Middle Charles River Watershed. These conditions impair the water for their designated uses, including swimming, fishing, and aesthetic quality. Under extreme conditions algal blooms can lead to the release of toxic compounds and can also lead to periodic and extreme fluctuations in dissolved oxygen concentrations that threaten aquatic life. The primary human sources of phosphorus in the Upper/Middle watershed include stormwater runoff from developed land uses and discharges from wastewater treatment facilities.

This TMDL has been prepared as part of the Massachusetts TMDL Program, a collaborative effort of the MassDEP, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Charles River Watershed Association and Numeric Environmental Services, to identify and address water bodies with impaired water quality.

The Upper/Middle Charles nutrient TMDL will address nutrient-related issues in nine mainstem segments of the river above the Watertown Dam, nine tributaries, and 12 connected ponds, which were identified in the EPA-approved 2008 Massachusetts Integrated List of Waters. This effort will match the nutrient-loading requirements established in the Lower Charles River TMDL. 

The TMDL serves as the regulatory and technical basis for developing integrated water resource management plans designed to restore the health of an impaired water body. The "impaired" nutrient categorization was based on available water quality monitoring.

At the public meeting, MassDEP staff will present a draft TMDL for limiting phosphorus to the amounts that the water bodies can absorb without violating water quality standards and impairing uses such as fishing and recreational activities. The plan calls for reductions in point sources and non-point sources.

For point sources, the TMDL establishes phosphorus wastewater discharge limits for major wastewater treatment plants at 0.1 ppm during the summer months and 0.3 ppm during the winter months, and for minor treatment plants at 0.1 ppm (summer) and 1.0 ppm (winter). For nonpoint sources, the TMDL sets phosphorus discharge limits for stormwater by land use category.

The TMDL serves as the technical basis for developing more detailed local implementation plans designed to find, prioritize, and address specific sources of phosphorus throughout the watershed and restore the water quality in the Charles River. The TMDL becomes the basis for the development of permits, grants and management plans which will be developed to meet the goals of the TMDL. The specific methods and timelines for these will be developed with public input.

The major components of this effort included extensive water quality monitoring within the Charles River system, and the use of a dynamic water quality model that linked the watershed and river to determine the present sources of phosphorus and the loading rates, the phosphorus concentrations that will result in the restoration and protection of the river, and the target phosphorus loading rates that will achieve those protective concentrations. This watershed modeling and TMDL analysis will serve as a planning tool for communities to implement management strategies in order to improve watershed wide water quality.    

A copy of this draft TMDL Report for Total Phosphorus and a further explanation of the TMDL Program are available at: http://www.mass.gov/dep/water/resources/tmdls.htm

The public comment period ends at 5 p.m., Monday, November 30, 2009. Written comments can be submitted to: Dr. Kimberly Groff, Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Watershed Management, 627 Main Street, second floor, Worcester, MA 01608. Electronic format comments should be sent to: kimberly.groff@state.ma.us

Directions to the meeting can be found on the Massachusetts Horticultural Society website: http://www.masshort.org/directions.

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