Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania (2005) / Chapter Skim
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From page 147... ...
147 5 Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions INTRODUCTION This chapter explores various wastewater management techniques and recommends actions to address water quality problems -- especially wet weather-related problems -- in southwestern Pennsylvania. As discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, the aquatic environment of southwestern Pennsylvania is impaired for a variety of designated beneficial uses including recreational use due to the likelihood of waterborne pathogens in surface waters and aquatic life use due to acid mine drainage (AMD)
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From page 148... ...
148 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania SSOs is well documented, the data presented to the committee and those uncovered by its own research as summarized in Chapter 3 are inadequate to arrive at a definitive conclusion as to (1) the impact of these discharges on water quality in receiving streams and (2)
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From page 149... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 149 the sewer system. Because a large portion of them are located on private property, and measuring flows in laterals is not common practice, identifying sources and fixing them requires special detective work and authority to order corrective measures.
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From page 150... ...
150 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania TABLE 5-1 Act 537 Plans by County by Age of Plan Age of Plan (years) County <5 5-9 10-19 >20 All Allegheny 75 9 5 41 130 Armstrong 5 3 0 36 44 Beaver 7 3 4 40 54 Butler 8 7 4 28 47 Fayette 13 2 4 24 43 Greene 6 1 0 19 26 Indiana 15 8 4 11 38 Lawrence 7 2 2 16 27 Somerset 5 1 6 38 50 Washington 14 7 8 38 67 Westmoreland 9 7 6 43 65 Total 164 50 43 334 591 SOURCE: Data from www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/ watermgt/ Wqp/WQP_WM/537Map/.
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From page 151... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 151 available on-line,1 but once a system is permitted, there is no program for regular inspection and maintenance. Pennsylvania's stormwater program operates under authority of the Storm Water Management Act of 1978 (Act 167)
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From page 152... ...
152 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania sewer systems outside urban areas may be waived by a permitting agency on a case-by-case basis. In December 2002, PADEP updated its stormwater policy to include protection of water quality as mandated by the Phase I and Phase II rules (PADEP, 2002)
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From page 153... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 153 TABLE 5-2 Best Management Practices Deemed Acceptable to PADEP for Stated Purposes Groundwater Infiltration Water Quality Rate and Volume Control Permeable paving Permeable paving Permeable paving Grass swale Bioretention Stormwater infiltration Bioretention Grass swale Filter strip Wet pond (extended detention pond) Rooftop runoff management Dry ponds Stormwater wetlands Wet ponds (extended detention pond)
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From page 154... ...
154 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania x Combined Sewer Overflows Guidance for Financial Capability Assessment and Schedule Development (EPA, 1997) x Combined Sewer Overflows Guidance for Monitoring and Modeling (EPA, 1999)
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From page 155... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 155 satisfy a presumption that water quality standards would be met." The criteria include the following: x a limit on the number of overflow events per year; x elimination or the capture for treatment of no less than 85 percent by volume of the CSO discharge; or x elimination or removal of no less than the mass of the pollutants identified as causing water quality impairment through the sewer system. In later guidance, EPA (1999)
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From page 156... ...
156 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania planners to estimate the extent to which reductions in discharges will be necessary to meet water quality standards. Because effects of CSOs and discharges from separate storm sewers are intermingled in the region's primary receiving streams, monitoring and modeling of CSOs and their impacts on streams during wet weather events should occur simultaneously with monitoring and modeling of separate stormwater sewer systems during wet weather events.
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From page 157... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 157 the existing ALCOSAN wastewater treatment plant over a 20-year period from the current 225 million gallons per day (mgd) to a total wet weather capacity of 875 mgd and also bringing about infrastructure changes to the sewerage system in the form of interceptors to significantly increase the proportion of wet weather flows arriving at the treatment plant instead of discharging untreated into streams.
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158 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania TABLE 5-3 Estimated Capital and Operations and Maintenance Costs for Interceptor and Nonplant Treatment Modifications Planned Modifications Capital Costs ($ million) Operation and Maintenance Costs ($ million/year)
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Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 159 to address several questions raised by affected member communities concerning ALCOSAN's draft LTCP (see also Appendix B)
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160 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania country (TPRC, 2002)
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Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 161 TABLE 5-4 EPA Data on CSO Program Costsa for Representative U.S. Municipalities Community Cost to Date Total Cost Expected Grants Population Total Cost per Person Local Cost per Person (cost to date minus grants)
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From page 162... ...
162 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania Programs; interceptor system improvements; planned (Phase II) wet weather plant expansion; distributed control system upgrade; the Satellite Treatment Facilities Demonstration Program; and the Flow Monitoring/Modeling/Water Quality Sampling Program.
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From page 163... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 163 irrigation, transportation, recreation, fisheries, and waste disposal and assimilation. Until recently, decision makers have tended to take for granted (i.e., place no value on)
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164 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania BOX 5-1 Economic Benefits of Water Quality Improvements: Basic Concepts Concepts and methods for estimating the benefits and costs of environmental improvements are well-developed (see for example, EPA, 2000a; Freeman, 2003; NRC, 2004b)
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From page 165... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 165 problems. Nevertheless, potentially large benefits from addressing remaining water quality problems in the region can reasonably be anticipated.
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From page 166... ...
166 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania Recreational Benefits In addition to the potential economic benefits resulting from drinking water protection, economic benefits may also be derived from improvements in water quality for other uses. As discussed in Chapter 3, approximately 26 miles of streams and rivers have been listed as impaired for contact recreational use in southwestern Pennsylvania.
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From page 167... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 167 TABLE 5-6 Selected Average Consumer Surplus Values per Activity-Day per Person from Recreation Demand Studies (1967-1998) a Activity Mean of Estimates Range of Estimates Swimming $21.08 $1.83-49.08 Motorized boating $34.75 $4.40-169.68 Nonmotorized boating $61.57 $15.04-263.68 Waterfowl hunting $31.61 $2.06-142.82 Fishing $35.89 $1.73-210.94 a All amounts are in 1996 dollars.
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From page 168... ...
168 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania Planning and Implementation Framework The framework recommended for planning and implementation of CWARP consists of five basic steps as follows: I Problem identification II.
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From page 169... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 169 River Basin Planning and Management Southwestern Pennsylvania lies primarily within the Allegheny, Monogahela, and Ohio River basins that transport contaminants into the region and export remnants of its waste and stormwater to downstream reaches of the Ohio. Several water quality problems in the area appear to transcend regional boundaries and are logically the jurisdiction of state and interstate agencies.
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From page 170... ...
170 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania 2001, sampling in some areas now includes testing for fecal coliforms, Escherichia coli, enterococci bacteria, and turbidity (see Chapter 3 for further information)
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Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 171 BOX 5-2 Overview of Biological Water Quality Monitoring The use of biological indices as surrogates for in-stream environmental quality has become increasingly common across the United States. The modern water quality monitoring criteria were developed in order to provide a system for measuring the "biological integrity" sought by the Clean Water Act (Karr et al., 1986)
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From page 172... ...
172 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania effects on selected species in the ecosystem, including fish, invertebrates, and aquatic plants.9 Outputs are the concentration or masses of species distributed over time and space. This approach has its limits.
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From page 173... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 173 regional transportation systems. In addition, water demands, wastewater generation, stormwater, nonpoint source pollution, and conversion of land uses should be estimated for each scenario.
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From page 174... ...
174 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania models that track flows of stormwater and sanitary sewage from contributing watersheds into and through the array of collection systems to points of discharge are also included under Step II. The models and data should be available for public review, and data from these technical studies should be reduced and translated into needed corrective actions in a manner that is understandable to decision makers and the public in general.
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Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 175 FIGURE 5-2 Watersheds and contiguous urban areas in and adjacent to Allegheny County.
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176 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania FIGURE 5-3 Preliminary representative sites for CWARP monitoring activities in the region's urban core areas. models were developed by the U.S.
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Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 177 Although receiving water quality modeling appears to be extremely limited in the region's three main stem rivers, the committee recommends that it be used to estimate impacts of pollution loadings on the receiving streams and to help prioritize alternatives for pollution control. Programs that have used similar models include ORSANCO's work in the Ohio River basin (see, for example, ORSANCO, 2002)
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From page 178... ...
178 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania wide collection system behavior under CWARP. Hydraulic and pollutant load data developed from ALCOSAN's partner communities should be evaluated for inclusion in such an expanded model, if necessary.
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Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 179 2. Supervisory control.
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180 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania Step IV -- Formulation and Evaluation of Alternatives Steps II and III of the Three Rivers CWARP for high-density urban areas in the Pittsburgh region are preparatory to the formulation, analysis, and evaluation of alternative management strategies for addressing the problems of degraded water quality in receiving streams associated with wet weather discharges. Hydraulic, organic, and biological stresses imposed on receiving waters during wet weather events originate from CSOs, separate stormwater sewer system discharges, and SSOs transported by stormwater runoff.
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From page 181... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 181 the impact of SSOs; provide notification to parties with a potential exposure to pollutants; and develop a written summary of the CMOM program. x Management program.
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From page 182... ...
182 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania TABLE 5-7 Comparison of Consent Order Versus CMOM Requirements for 83 Communities Serviced by ALCOSAN Basic CMOM Requirements Consent Order Requirements 1. More prescriptive characterization of collection system requiring detailed maps and extensive record keeping 1.
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From page 183... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 183 flow monitors. Those monitors should be integrated into a system-wide, real-time monitoring and control system.
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From page 184... ...
184 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania strategy. Without effective periodic inspections and enforcement, the regulations can be easily ignored.
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From page 185... ...
FI G U R E 5 -4 A da pt iv e im pl em en ta tio n (S te p V )
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From page 186... ...
186 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania The following sections describe how the CWARP process can be used to improve water quality in the predominantly rural areas of southwestern Pennsylvania. Step II -- Assessment of Existing Conditions It is advantageous to use the approaches practiced in wellhead and source water protection, identifying the nature and spatial locations of microbial contaminant sources.
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From page 187... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 187 Step III -- Projection of Future Loadings Data gathered from Step III of CWARP for rural areas should be used to identify areas of high concentrations of OSTDS failures and their potential impacts on public health and the water quality (especially microbiological) of nearby receiving streams.
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From page 188... ...
188 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania BOX 5-3 Left Fork of Mud River In Lincoln County, West Virginia, the Mud River's Left Fork -- a small headwaters watershed in the Guyandotte River watershed -- illustrates the critical information gaps that may exist when bacterial water quality sampling is confined to locations on a main stem river. In such cases, the nature, distribution, and sources of microbial contamination throughout the watershed may be poorly understood, leading programs for water quality improvement to target the wrong areas or sources or to achieve only partial reduction of contamination.
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From page 189... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 189 water in the lake near the youth camp on the Left Fork suddenly acquired a reddish color for a short period of time. As a result of these concerns, a water quality investigation was undertaken with funding from the Service Learning Program at West Virginia University (WVU)
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From page 190... ...
190 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania BOX 5-4 Microbial Source Tracking Techniques Water quality monitoring in the Page Brook watershed in Clarke County, Virginia, exhibited use impairment due to excessive concentrations of fecal coliforms. Land uses in the watershed suggested two likely nonpoint sources of fecal contamination: (1)
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From page 191... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 191 BOX 5-5 Guest River Watershed Restoration Program Water quality improvements in southwestern Virginia's Guest River watershed provide an excellent example of a successful rural watershed partnership between grassroots community groups and government agencies. Draining approximately 100 square miles of Appalachian Plateau in Wise County, Virginia, the Guest River watershed is a tributary of the Clinch River, which is in turn part of the larger Tennessee River basin.
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From page 192... ...
192 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania BOX 5-7 Management Models Management Model 1 "Homeowner Awareness" x Treatment systems are owned and operated by individual property owners in areas of low environmental sensitivity. x Treatment technologies are limited to conventional systems that require little owner attention.
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From page 193... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 193 purposes of drinking water protection, consideration of the relative cost-effectiveness of different strategies merits attention. For example, to what extent should limited financial resources be allocated between water system upgrades and source water protection in the region?
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From page 194... ...
194 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania x encompass all stressors that determine the water quality conditions of the waterbodies; x develop appropriate use designations for waterbodies prior to TMDL development; x apply adaptive implementation consisting of monitoring, modeling, design, and construction of facilities followed by further monitoring to assess whether expected improvements were attained; x utilize biological criteria, in conjunction with physical and chemical criteria, to determine whether a waterbody is meeting its designated use, and define all chemical and some biological criteria in terms of magnitude, frequency, and duration of exceedences of criteria; and x utilize reasonably obtainable monitoring data to assess attainment of water quality standards. As shown in Figure 5-5, "adaptive implementation" is a cyclical process in which TMDL plans are assessed periodically for their achievement of water quality standards, including designated uses.
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From page 195... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 195 TMDL plan Immediate and long-term actions/ monitoring Meeting designated use? Model refinement Experiments Yes Back to list of all waters for continuing assessment No FIGURE 5-5 Adaptive implementation flow chart for TMDL plans in southwestern Pennsylvania under CWARP.
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From page 196... ...
196 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND APPROACHES As noted previously, there are at least five innovative technologies and approaches to water quality improvement in southwestern Pennsylvania, especially for addressing wet weather water quality problems in the region's urban core areas. Although not specifically recommended, the committee believes these should be explored, and each is discussed below.
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From page 197... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 197 An even closer look into the potential for acid mine storage of CSOs is warranted. As discussed in Chapter 2, the Pittsburgh Coal Seam has been extensively mined in southwestern Pennsylvania for decades and offers a potential set of appropriate "reservoirs." It is a vast, 1,600 square mile elliptical basin with the northern end of its long axis ending in Pittsburgh and the southern end in Charleston, West Virginia.
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From page 198... ...
198 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania FIGURE 5-6 Pittsburgh seam coal mines south of the City of Pittsburgh. NOTE: Montour #4 is in the center of the map; only Maple Creek and Mine #84 are still active.
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From page 199... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 199 BOX 5-8 Coal Seam Storage as a Remedial Option for CSOs A typical, large underground coal mine in the Pittsburgh Basin is between 10 and 30 square miles in area. On average, the Pittsburgh Coal Seam is 6 feet thick.
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From page 200... ...
200 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania (ALCOSAN, 1999)
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From page 201... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 201 Ballasted Flocculation Ballasted flocculation is a process in which small particles in water or wastewater are mixed with bridging agents and tiny, high-density sand particles to increase their original size and weight. These heavier, "bulked-up" particles settle much faster and, therefore, can be removed faster and with much smaller surface area of process vessels.
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From page 202... ...
202 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania day period. The ballasted flocculation facility was operated for 32 hours, with flows ranging from 5 to 28 mgd (Cindy Wallis-Lage, Black & Veatch Corporation, personal communication, 2003)
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From page 203... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 203 An FBM design to help control periodic CSOs in southwestern Pennsylvania -- and, more specifically, to help equalize flows to ALCOSAN's collection system and wastewater treatment plant -- would need to be different because of the differences between flow in a creek in New York City and the main stem rivers in the Pittsburgh region. A design more similar to that of the original Swedish design would likely be required, though a number of questions would have to be addressed.
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From page 204... ...
204 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania the possibility of revisions to wet weather water quality standards as evidenced by the following excerpt from its 1999 memorandum: Data developed during LTCP development can inform decisions about the attainability of designated uses and the appropriateness of any WQS [water quality standard] revisions.
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From page 205... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 205 planned and anticipated by ALCOSAN and many of its partner communities in response to a series of consent orders that will alter the relative contribution of different sources to the water quality problems in the region. The evaluation of water quality improvements related to such activities will be critical.
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From page 206... ...
206 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania sufficient to inform regional interests of the potential effects (including constraints if any) of water quality conditions on future transportation and land development, the consequences of development on water quality where it occurs, and how these effects and consequences can and should be modified.
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From page 207... ...
Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 207 committee strongly recommends that all wastewater collection systems located in the watershed, particularly in the urban core areas of southwestern Pennsylvania, be fully compliant with EPA's CMOM policy or an equivalent program. Thereafter, related information, approaches, and technologies recommended in this chapter and report would be available to help guide major long-term investments in improving the region's water quality.
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From page 208... ...
208 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania quality problems at a variety of scales, but the question remains: Which is the better option? Comprehensive evaluation of options under CWARP (especially Step IV for high-density urban areas)
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Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 209 Clean Water Action Plan Partners.
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210 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania Field, R., R
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Water Quality Improvement: Decision-Making Strategies and Technical Solutions 211 NRC.
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212 Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania WSIP (Southwestern Pennsylvania Water and Sewer Infrastructure Project Steering Committee)
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