Developing Numeric Nutrient Criteria: Impacts on the Pulp and Paper Industry, 2008 Engineering, Pulping and Environmental Conference

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In 1998, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) released the “National Strategy for Development of Regional Nutrient Criteria,” which called for states and authorized tribes to establish numeric criteria for nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) in their water quality standards. Currently, most states are in the process of developing numeric criteria. Until such criteria is established, a wastewater discharge permit writer or person developing a total maximum daily load (TMDL) is responsible for assembling site-specific data and developing appropriate permit limits for nutrients on a site-by-site basis. Pulp and paper mills have been strategic stakeholders in several recent nutrient and dissolved oxygen (DO) TMDLs, which have been used to set discharge permit limits on phosphorus and nitrogen. This presentation focuses on TMDL projects in three states: the Androscoggin River TMDL (Maine), the TMDL for nutrients in the Lower St. Johns River (Florida), and Draft TMDL and Managed Implementation Plan (MIP) for the Spokane River and Long Lake (Washington), as concrete examples of setting site-specific numeric nutrient criteria. Comparison of the methods used in each of these TMDLs and MIPs to determine nutrient criteria to existing and proposed state and federal methods is presented. In many cases, states will look to federal guidance, recent and existing TMDLs, and watershed management plans to guide the development of state-wide numeric nutrient criteria. Active participation by pulp and paper industry representatives in related TMDL developments and understanding and participating in work groups involved in setting state numeric criteria for nutrients is critical.