Alabama Administrative Code › Title 335 - ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT › WATER DIVISION - WATER QUALITY PROGRAM › Chapter 335-6-10 - WATER QUALITY CRITERIA › Section 335-6-10-.09 - Specific Water Quality Criteria

Current through Register Vol. 42, No. 9, June 28, 2024
(1) Outstanding Alabama Water
(a) Best usage of waters: Activities
				consistent with the natural characteristics of the waters.
(b) Conditions related to best usage:
1. High quality waters that constitute an
				outstanding Alabama resource, such as waters of state parks and wildlife
				refuges and waters of exceptional recreational or ecological significance, may
				be considered for classification as an Outstanding Alabama Water
				(OAW).
(c) Specific
				criteria:
1. Sewage, industrial wastes, or
				other wastes:
(i) Existing point source
				discharges to an Outstanding Alabama Water shall be allowed; however, within
				three years of assignment of the OAW classification or at permit renewal,
				whichever is later, existing point sources shall be required to meet the
				effluent limitations specified for new point source discharges in subparagraph
				(ii) hereof.
(ii) New point source
				discharges or expansions of existing point source discharges shall not be
				allowed unless a thorough evaluation of all practicable treatment and disposal
				alternatives by the permit applicant has demonstrated to the satisfaction of
				the Department that there is no feasible alternative to discharge to the waters
				classified OAW. At a minimum, domestic wastewater discharges shall be required
				to meet monthly average effluent limitations of 15 mg/1 biochemical oxygen
				demand (5-day), 3 mg/1 ammonia nitrogen, and 6 mg/1 dissolved oxygen, and shall
				be required to provide disinfection of the effluent. Non-domestic wastewater
				discharges shall be required to provide a comparably stringent level of
				treatment as determined by the Department.
(iii) Effluent limitations for new point
				source discharges or expansions of existing point source discharges to waters
				upstream of, or tributary to, waters classified OAW shall be established by the
				Department such that the impact of the discharge within the waters classified
				OAW is no greater than if the discharge occurred at the OAW boundary at the
				treatment levels specified in subparagraph (ii) hereof.
(iv) All NPDES permits shall contain toxics
				limits that will ensure compliance with all applicable water quality standards.
				Such limits shall be acute and chronic toxicity limits for individual toxic
				substances, whole effluent toxicity limits, or both. For permittees subject to
				whole effluent toxicity limitations, both acute and chronic testing will be
				required. Whole effluent acute toxicity will be demonstrated if the effluent
				causes more than 10 percent mortality of test organisms when tested at an
				effluent concentration of 100 percent. For permittees whose discharge will
				result in an in-stream waste concentration of 10 percent or more, whole
				effluent chronic toxicity limits will be based on an in-stream concentration of
				100 percent; for permittees whose discharge will result in an in-stream waste
				concentration of less than 10 percent, whole effluent chronic toxicity limits
				will be based on the in-stream waste concentration.
(v) Nonpoint source discharges shall use best
				management practices adequate to protect water quality consistent with the
				Department's nonpoint source control program.
(vi) All NPDES permits and nonpoint sources
				shall incorporate or employ water pollution prevention or waste reduction
				measures as established by the Department.
2. pH: Sewage, industrial wastes or other
				wastes shall not cause the pH to deviate more than one unit from the normal or
				natural pH, nor be less than 6.0, nor greater than 8.5. For salt waters and
				estuarine waters to which this classification is assigned, wastes as herein
				described shall not cause the pH to deviate more than one unit from the normal
				or natural pH, nor be less than 6.5, nor greater than 8.5.
3. Temperature:
(i) The maximum temperature in streams,
				lakes, and reservoirs, other than those in river basins listed in subparagraph
				(ii) hereof, shall not exceed 90° F.
(ii) The maximum temperature in streams,
				lakes, and reservoirs in the Tennessee and Cahaba River Basins, and for that
				portion of the Tallapoosa River Basin from the tailrace of Thurlow Dam at
				Tallassee downstream to the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers which
				has been classified by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural
				Resources as supporting smallmouth bass, sauger, or walleye, shall not exceed
				86° F.
(iii) The maximum
				in-stream temperature rise above ambient water temperature due to the addition
				of artificial heat by a discharger shall not exceed 5° F in streams, lakes,
				and reservoirs in non-coastal and non-estuarine areas.
(iv) The maximum in-stream temperature rise
				above ambient water temperature due to the addition of artificial heat by a
				discharger shall not exceed 4° F in coastal or estuarine waters during the
				period October through May, nor shall the rise exceed 1.5° F during the
				period June through September.
(v)
				In lakes and reservoirs there shall be no withdrawal from, nor discharge of
				heated waters to, the hypolimnion unless it can be shown that such discharge or
				withdrawal will be beneficial to water quality.
(vi) In all waters the normal daily and
				seasonal temperature variations that were present before the addition of
				artificial heat shall be maintained, and there shall be no thermal block to the
				migration of aquatic organisms.
(vii) Thermal permit limitations in NPDES
				permits may be less stringent than those required by subparagraphs (i)-(iv)
				hereof when a showing by the discharger has been made pursuant to Section 316
				of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA),
				33 U.S.C. §
													1251 et seq. or pursuant to a study of an
				equal or more stringent nature required by the State of Alabama authorized by
				Title 22, Section
				22-22-9(c),
Code of Ala. 1975
, that such limitations will assure
				the protection and propagation of a balanced, indigenous population of
				shellfish, fish and wildlife, in and on the body of water to which the
				discharge is made. Any such demonstration shall take into account the
				interaction of the thermal discharge component with other pollutants
				discharged.
4. Dissolved
				oxygen:
(i) For a diversified warm water
				biota, including game fish, daily dissolved oxygen concentrations shall not be
				less than 5.5 mg/1 at all times; except under extreme conditions due to natural
				causes, it may range between 5.5 mg/1 and 4 mg/1, provided that the water
				quality is favorable in all other parameters. The normal seasonal and daily
				fluctuations shall be maintained above these levels. In no event shall the
				dissolved oxygen level be less than 4 mg/1 due to hydroelectric turbine
				discharges from existing hydroelectric generation impoundments. All new
				hydroelectric generation impoundments, including addition of new hydroelectric
				generation units to existing impoundments, shall be designed so that the
				discharge will contain at least 5.5 mg/1 dissolved oxygen where practicable and
				technologically possible. The Environmental Protection Agency, in cooperation
				with the State of Alabama and parties responsible for impoundments, shall
				develop a program to improve the design of existing facilities.
(ii) In coastal waters, surface dissolved
				oxygen concentrations shall not be less than 5.5 mg/1, except where natural
				phenomena cause the value to be depressed.
(iii) In estuaries and tidal tributaries,
				dissolved oxygen concentrations shall not be less than 5.5 mg/1, except in
				dystrophic waters or where natural conditions cause the value to be
				depressed.
(iv) In the application
				of dissolved oxygen criteria referred to above, dissolved oxygen shall be
				measured at a depth of 5 feet in waters 10 feet or greater in depth; and for
				those waters less than 10 feet in depth, dissolved oxygen criteria will be
				applied at mid-depth.
5.
				Toxic substances attributable to sewage, industrial wastes, or other wastes:
				Only such amounts, whether alone or in combination with other substances, as
				will not exhibit acute toxicity or chronic toxicity, as demonstrated by
				effluent toxicity testing or by application of numeric criteria given in Rule
				335-6-10-.07, to fish and aquatic
				life, including shrimp and crabs in estuarine or salt waters or the propagation
				thereof.
6. Taste, odor, and
				color-producing substances attributable to sewage, industrial wastes, or other
				wastes: Only such amounts, whether alone or in combination with other
				substances, as will not exhibit acute toxicity or chronic toxicity, as
				demonstrated by effluent toxicity testing or by application of numeric criteria
				given in Rule
				335-6-10-.07, to fish and aquatic
				life, including shrimp and crabs in estuarine and salt waters or adversely
				affect the propagation thereof; impair the palatability or marketability of
				fish and wildlife or shrimp and crabs in estuarine and salt waters; or
				unreasonably affect the aesthetic value of waters for any use under this
				classification.
7. Bacteria: in
				non-coastal waters, bacteria of the
E. coli
group shall not
				exceed a geometric mean of 126 colonies/100 ml nor exceed a maximum of 235
				colonies/100 ml in any sample. In coastal waters, bacteria of the enterococci
				group shall not exceed a geometric mean of 35 colonies/100 ml nor exceed a
				maximum of 104 colonies/100 ml in any sample. The geometric mean shall be
				calculated from no less than five samples collected at a given station over a
				30-day period at intervals not less than 24 hours.
8. Radioactivity: The concentrations of
				radioactive materials present shall not exceed the requirements of the State
				Department of Public Health.
9.
				Turbidity: There shall be no turbidity of other than natural origin that will
				cause substantial visible contrast with the natural appearance of waters or
				interfere with any beneficial uses which they serve. Furthermore, in no case
				shall turbidity exceed 50 Nephelometric units above background. Background will
				be interpreted as the natural condition of the receiving waters without the
				influence of man-made or man-induced causes. Turbidity levels caused by natural
				runoff will be included in establishing background levels.