Watershed Assessment Section
We all live in a watershed! Watersheds are the land areas that drain to water bodies like ponds, streams, estuaries, and oceans. What we do on the land affects the quality of those waters. To protect water from nonpoint source pollution, it is important to think about management actions to improve water quality on a watershed scale.
Delaware has four major watersheds, or drainage basins. In northern Delaware, water flows through the Piedmont Drainage, which is named after the local geology. Streams and ponds in western Delaware drain to the Chesapeake Bay, while in eastern Delaware they drain to the Delaware Bay. In southeastern Delaware, water flows to the Inland Bays and the Atlantic Ocean. These major basins can be broken down into smaller watersheds, which are named after the main water features within each. There are 45 of these watersheds in Delaware.
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The Watershed Assessment Section oversees the health of the State's water resources and takes actions to protect and improve water quality for aquatic life and human use. In order to protect the water for plants, animals, and people, Water Quality Standards are set to establish harmful levels of pollutants. Each year, this section develops a water quality Monitoring Plan, which lays out the locations and frequency of sampling and determines the parameters that will be measured in each sample. This data is compared to standards to assess if water quality is good or needs improvement. These evaluations are presented to the EPA every other year in a two-part document, called a Combined 305 (b) Report and 303 (d) List. The first part of the document is the Watershed Assessment Report, also called a 305(b) Report. The second part of the document contains a list of all the waters in the state that are considered impaired because they do not achieve water quality standards, and is called the 303(d) List.
When waters are classified as impaired, a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) must be established. TMDLs are regulations that place limits on the amount of a pollutant that can enter a water body from point and nonpoint sources. Since 1998, this section has been busy modeling our watersheds to established TMDLs for nitrogen, phosphorus, and bacteria for all of the waters in Delaware impaired by these parameters. To clean up the waters though, you have to do more than just place a limit on the pollution, you have to take action.
Tributary Action Teams, or groups of stakeholders, have been working together to recommend a list of actions to reduce nonpoint source pollution in several TMDL watersheds. These recommendations, which include both voluntary and regulatory actions, are called Pollution Control Strategies.
In addition, the Watershed Assessment section performs many other functions to help protect water resources and the plants, animals, and people who rely on them.
· Watershed Assessment performs soil surveys and wetland evaluations (wetlands are natural filters of ground and surface waters and if degraded, do not function as well, so it is important to identify stressed systems in order to provide added levels of protection);
· The section manages the Recreational Water Program, which monitors beaches to protect the health of swimmers from potential sources of pollution;
· Watershed Assessment works with members of the shellfish industry to protect shellfish consumers from potential contamination due to pollution.
· Finally, the Watershed Assessment Section provides technical support to other programs and agencies who deal with water quality issues.
Watershed Assessment Frequently Asked Questions
Section Manager: John W. Schneider
Phone: 302-739-9939
Email: John.Schneider@state.de.us
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