In summary, the 2000 report concludes that 41 percent of monitored rivers and 21 percent of monitored estuaries have significantly impaired water quality. These percentages are substantially higher than previous reports. In the last four years, Virginia has decreased the number of miles monitored streams from 27,000 to 9,100. The state has approximately 49,500 miles of rivers. While decreasing the number of monitored miles in the last four years, DEQ has greatly intensified the detail of review for each river segment.
Closer scrutiny is responsible for revealing a higher percentage of impaired waterways.
For future years, DEQ hopes to respond to EPA criticism and increase the miles of monitored rivers. Save Our Stream Program, may be used to increase monitoring under a tighter DEQ budget. In the meantime, Virginia is implementing plans to improve water quality in at least 600 of the impaired river segments. Plans will address pollution reduction methods for a single pollutant in each segment. Plans are expected to be complete by 2011.