South Branch Yellow Medicine River Fecal Coliform Total Maximum Daily Load Report Implementation Plan

The South Branch TMDL watershed represents a specific activity within a larger project addressing water quality improvements within the Yellow Medicine River Watershed. The larger project goals are to relate monitoring data to land use in a cause-effect manner. During the period of October 22, 1990 to May 17, 1999, 64 fecal coliform observations were conducted from a milestone site, YMS-10.1, South Branch of the Yellow Medicine River at CSAH-10 near the city of Minneota. Of these samples, 42 observations were greater than 200 organisms/100ml. The step 2 analysis shows there were 56 observations in this time period within the months that the fecal coliform standard was in effect. There were 5 months that had more than 5 observations per month (across all years), and for each of these 5 months, the geometric mean was greater that 200 organisms/100ml. This leads to a preliminary assessment of non-support, and a TMDL listing.