Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

REPORT
Pages 5-18

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 5...
... Environmental Protection Agency. The charge to the committee was to advise EPA and other parties on strategic priorities and alternatives for specific actions regarding Clean Water Act implementation across the Mississippi River basin (see Box 1-1 for the committee's full statement of task)
From page 6...
... . The Mississippi River basin extends over 31 U.S.
From page 7...
... , and other relevant parties, on strategic priorities and alternatives for specific actions regarding Clean Water Act implementation across the Mississippi River basin. These other parties will include other federal agencies, state governments, U.S.
From page 8...
... Key findings and recommendations included: At the scale of the entire Mississippi River, nutrients and sediment are the two primary water quality problems. The lack of a centralized Mississippi River water quality information system and data gathering program hinders effective implementation of the Clean Water Act and acts as a barrier to maintaining and improving water quality along the Mississippi River and into the northern Gulf of Mexico The EPA has failed to use its mandatory and discretionary authorities under the Clean Water Act to provide adequate interstate coordination and oversight of state water quality activities along the Mississippi River that could help promote and ensure progress toward the act's fishable and swimmable and related goals.
From page 9...
... USDA's Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative, (2) numeric water quality criteria for the northern Gulf of Mexico, (3)
From page 10...
... This provides the rationale for purposeful monitoring at multiple scales, over a long period of time, to then be integrated into an adaptive management approach. To be effective, any long-term strategy for Mississippi River basin water quality will reflect collaboration among MRB states and federal agencies with major water management responsibilities in the basin and the northern Gulf.
From page 11...
... Ways in which EPA might assist include: identifying measures of progress; gauging the cost effectiveness of various nutrient control actions; assisting with MRBI project evaluation, and; establishing water quality monitoring projects and indicators of progress. NUMERIC WATER QUALITY CRITERIA FOR THE NORTHERN GULF OF MEXICO The 2008 NRC report recommended that "the EPA should develop water quality criteria for nutrients in the Mississippi River and the northern Gulf of Mexico" (NRC, 2008)
From page 12...
... Any apparent ambiguities regarding the application of the TMDL process to the NGOM are superseded by the authority clearly vested with EPA elsewhere in the Clean Water Act to protect water quality in the federal zones of the ocean. Along with comprehensive authority given to EPA over oceans and interstate pollution, the Clean Water Act allows for the crafting of a flexible and long-term implementation plan for achieving MRB water quality improvements throughout the Mississippi River basin, with a goal 1 An alternative to establishing criteria for nutrients as a water quality goal would be to establish a dissolved oxygen goal.
From page 13...
... The following section describes some previous efforts toward Mississippi River basinwide water quality improvements, efforts in the Chesapeake Bay toward comprehensive water quality management and assessment, and a 2007 report from the EPA Science Advisory Board that is relevant to these topics. It concludes with a recommendation for a more actionoriented, basinwide strategy for Mississippi River and northern Gulf of Mexico water quality management.
From page 14...
... ; and the ten states along the Mississippi River corridor. A revised version of this "Action Plan" was published in 2008 and entitled Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan 2008 for Reducing, Mitigating, and Controlling Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico and Improving Water Quality in the Mississippi River Basin (USEPA, 2008)
From page 15...
... Nevertheless, the extensive experience in the Chesapeake with interstate collaboration, and efforts there to allocate nutrient load reductions and evaluate water quality, provide Mississippi River basin states and federal agencies many possible lessons that could be drawn upon in developing similar agreements and programs. As was noted in the NRC, 2008 report: The Mississippi River basin states and the federal government should look to the Chesapeake Bay Program as a useful model in guiding future Mississippi River federal-interstate collaboration on defining and addressing water quality problems, setting science-based water quality standards, and establishing a comprehensive water quality monitoring program (NRC, 2008)
From page 16...
... Basic elements of a more action-oriented strategy for the Mississippi River basin could include: establishment of a series of interim water quality goals to be achieved over specified time horizons, and that could ultimately lead to satisfying numeric nutrient criteria for the Gulf and tributary states; identification of programs and management measures to be implemented; allocation of loading goals to tributary watersheds; setting of milestones for programs and management measures to be achieved over relevant time horizons; development of measurable indicators of progress toward achievement of goals; and establishment of processes for data collection, analysis, distribution, and public reporting; agreement by state and federal officials on accountability, outcomes assessment, and penalties for not meeting milestones and deadlines; and, comprehensive assessment of overall goals for implementing necessary measures. Although efforts in the Mississippi River basin and northern Gulf of Mexico are less mature than those for the Chesapeake Bay, many pieces necessary to formulate a stronger basinwide strategy are in place.
From page 17...
... States along the Mississippi River and across the basin support many important and valuable water quality monitoring programs, many of which have a strong focus on nutrients. Even though some of these states may have programs designed to better understand and address the nutrient problem, from a basin wide perspective, there is currently no coordinated effort among states for managing nutrient loadings to the Mississippi River.
From page 18...
... Lasting solutions to Mississippi River basin and northern Gulf of Mexico water quality problems will require stronger interagency collaboration and sustained support from the Administration and the U.S. Congress than have been exhibited to date.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.