By: Mona Dominguez and Sydney Zinner
Alabama Water Watch volunteers spend hours collecting, entering, and analyzing data each month with the intention of improving water quality in Alabama. It is important that our volunteers and supporters have a better understanding of how this valuable data is used and who exactly is using it.
In many cases, the same volunteers who collect the data are also the ones who use the data to address problems locally. In other cases, partner organizations, municipalities, and state agencies use AWW data to address water quality. This article is the first in a series intended to highlight exactly how these entities put AWW data to action.
Since AWW began in 1992, the program has worked with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) to ensure that volunteer collected data contributes to the goals ADEM has for protecting and restoring water quality in Alabama. In particular, AWW has been very involved with efforts to address nonpoint source pollution. Nonpoint source pollution (NPS) is pollution that makes its way into our waterways through land runoff, precipitation, atmospheric deposition, drainage, seepage, or hydrologic modification. In general, NPS is addressed with education and outreach efforts and incentive programs that lead to voluntary actions by the landowners and residents to improve the watershed.
In a recent interview with AWW Staff, Jennifer Haslbauer, Chief of the Standards and Planning Section within the Water Quality Branch of ADEM, highlighted several specific ways in which ADEM utilizes AWW data to improve water quality in Alabama.
To begin, AWW water data can serve as a “first alert” for ADEM. This means that the data collected by AWW monitors can call ADEM’s attention to a certain watershed or problem that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. For instance, if AWW data reveals multiple or high E. coli concentrations in a waterbody, it warrants a closer look by ADEM.
Ms. Haslbauer explained that AWW data assists the Department in determining if a waterbody is meeting the specific water quality standards set for its use classification. Furthermore, they use AWW water data to focus their water quality monitoring priorities from year to year.
Alabama Water Use Classification and Standards Review:
To better understand the role of AWW Data in ADEM’s efforts, it is important to recall that Alabama waters can be assigned one or more of seven designated uses:
1) Outstanding Alabama Water (OAW)
2) Public Water Supply (PWS)
3) Shellfish Harvesting (SH)
4) Swimming and Other Whole Body Water-Contact Sports (S)
5) Fish and Wildlife (F&W)
6) Limited Warmwater Fishery (LWF)
7) Agricultural and Industrial Water Supply (A&I)
Water Use Classification Maps are available on ADEM’s website. These maps can show you the classification of each waterbody in a watershed. The example below is from the Black Warrior Watershed.
Specific water quality standards exist to protect the designated use for each classification. Water quality standards protect beneficial uses of water such as whole body contact (e.g. Swimming), maintaining fish and other aquatic life (Fish and Wildlife), and providing drinking water for people (Public Water Supply). Waters that do not meet their designated water quality standards set by the state are referred to as impaired waters.
The Federal Clean Water Act requires states to report on the quality of its surface water at least every two years. In Alabama, this report is called the Integrated Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report and includes a description of how the state assesses the quality of its waters. Alabama’s Water Quality Assessment and Listing Methodology is used to determine the use support status of each waterbody for which water quality data and information are available and categorizes waters into one of five major categories:
- Category 1 waters are those which fully support all of their designated uses.
- Category 2 waters may support some of their designated uses but there is insufficient data to determine if all uses are supported.
- Category 3 are waters for which no applicable water quality data and information are available to determine if uses are supported.
- Category 4 are waters whose designated uses are impaired and are awaiting implementation of appropriate corrective actions but a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is not required.
- Category 5 are waters whose designated uses are impaired and for which a TMDL is required. This group of waterbodies comprises the 303(d) list of impaired waterbodies. The list provides a framework for Alabama to manage its water resources and for making decisions related to restoring and protecting water quality.
The EPA requires that TMDLs be developed by state regulatory agencies for impaired waterbodies (303(d) listed). A TMDL is a document that establishes the maximum amount of a particular pollutant (from point and nonpoint sources) that can enter a waterbody without adversely affecting its designated use. ADEM is continually developing TMDLs for impaired waterbodies.
Each summer, ADEM requests the past 5 years or so of AWW Data including water chemistry and bacteriological water data (i.e. E. coli, temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, hardness, etc.). ADEM uses the AWW water data to identify priority areas of concern to consider in the process of categorizing waters and developing TMDLs as described above. Just a few months ago, Sergio submitted over 21,000 data records that ADEM will utilize as they develop the 2020 water quality monitoring priorities and to support assessment decisions for Alabama’s 2020 Draft 303d list.
Ms. Haslbauer highlighted the case of Ryan Creek (in the Black Warrior Watershed) as one of many instances in which ADEM used AWW data to address a water quality issue. ADEM used AWW water data to help develop the TMDL for Ryan Creek as the data provided valuable insight into how Ryan Creek behaves under different hydrological conditions. In other words, it was possible to compare the volunteer-collected AWW water data and ADEM collected data under different flow, rainfall conditions, etc. In this way, ADEM had a more complete picture of the watershed to consider in the TMDL process. AWW Data is included in the appendix of the TMDL document: http://adem.alabama.gov/programs/water/wquality/tmdls/FinalRyanCreekPathogensTMDL.pdf.
With more than 132,000 miles of streams and rivers, multiple reservoirs, and coastal waters to protect, AWW’s data helps ADEM to be strategic with their efforts. In 2018, a total of 25,776 water quality data records collected by AWW volunteers in the past five years were submitted by AWW to ADEM. This data was valued at more than $4.3 million in savings for water data collection (based on a cost analysis conducted during the USDA/CSREES-funded study, A Transferable Model of Stakeholder Partnerships for Addressing Nutrient Dynamics in Southeastern Watersheds (Deutsch et al 2007), modified with cost adjustments to 2018 values which took into account what it would take to collect and analyze the same number of water quality samples in a standard lab-similar to that used by ADEM).
In closing our discussion with Ms. Haslbauer, we asked if she could offer tips to AWW monitors who want to do more to provide ADEM with helpful water quality data.
One suggestion was for monitors to monitor more Category 4a waters as ADEM needs additional data to determine if there are improvements in those watersheds.
Waterbodies in Category 4a are impaired but have approved TMDLs in place and are waiting implementation of appropriate corrective actions. A listing of the current Category 4a waters can be found on ADEM’s website at http://adem.alabama.gov/programs/water/waterforms/2008Category4.pdf. [HJ1]
She also stated the importance of having volunteers identify priority areas within a watershed when selecting sites to monitor. Priority areas might include certain land-uses, a known impairment, or areas with high water quality.
THANK YOU to all of our dedicated volunteer monitors, you are making a difference in Alabama’s waters!
Contact AWW for more information on strategically selecting monitoring sites!
If you would like to share ways you have used AWW volunteer data, please contact the Alabama Water Watch Office at 334-844-4785 or awwprog@auburn.edu.