Mustinka River Turbidity TMDL Implementation Plan

The Federal Clean Water Act requires states to adopt water quality standards to protect the nation's waters. These standards define how much of a pollutant can be in a surface or ground water while still allowing it to meet its designated uses, such as for drinking water, fishing, swimming, irrigation, or industrial purposes. Many of Minnesota's water resources do not currently meet their designated uses because of pollution problems from a combination of point and non-point sources. For each pollutant that causes a water body to fail to meet the state water quality standards, the Federal Clean Water Act requires that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) conduct a total maximum daily load (TMDL) study. A TMDL study identifies both point and non-point sources of each pollutant that is causing a water quality impairment. Water quality sampling and computer modeling determine the pollutant reductions needed, for each pollutant source, to enable the water quality standard to be met. Individual water bodies may have several TMDLs, each one determining the limit for a different pollutant. This implementation plan addresses two reaches of the Mustinka River with an aquatic life impairment due to high turbidity, and it includes implementation measures to decrease the turbidity in these reaches so that the turbidity water quality standard is met. Beginning in 2010, the MPCA and project partners are initiating a watershed assessment and TMDL project for the entire Mustinka River watershed. This project will include an assessment of the watershed, identification of stressors impacting the biota, TMDL allocations for all impaired reaches, and an implementation plan that focuses on restoration of the impaired reaches in addition to protection of the water bodies that are not impaired.