TOOLS TO ASSIST IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF INDICATOR BACTERIAL SOURCES

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA, 2005) reports that almost 30,000 water bodies are impaired nationwide. Fecal pathogens are responsible for more of the impairments than any other pollutant. Given the large number of TMDLs required, tools to assist in TMDL development for fecal pathogens are needed. Parsons has worked closely with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and USEPA Region 6 to develop a set of innovative tools to assist in identifying and estimating the sources and loads of indicator bacteria from point and nonpoint sources within a watershed. The toolbox facilitates rapid development of pathogen TMDLs and supports watershed-based assessment and permitting activities on a statewide basis. The tools consist of a web-based application to automatically generate load duration curves, a GIS-based pathogen source characterization application, and TMDL report templates. The application has been applied to develop TMDLs in the State of Oklahoma