Texas Administrative Code › Title 31 - NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION › Part 17 - TEXAS STATE SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION BOARD › Chapter 523 - AGRICULTURAL AND SILVICULTURAL WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT › Section 523.3 - Water Quality Management Plan Certification Program

Current through Reg. 49, No. 28; July 12, 2024
(a) Purpose. The purpose of this program is
				to carry out the mandate in Agriculture Code §
									201.026(g)
				relating to the abatement of agricultural and silvicultural nonpoint source
				pollution through a water quality management plan certification
				program.
(b) Definitions. For the
				purposes of this section the following definitions shall apply.
(1) Animal feeding operation--A lot or
				facility (other than an aquatic animal production facility) where animals have
				been, are, or will be stabled or confined and fed or maintained for a total of
				45 days or more in any 12-month period, and the animal confinement areas do not
				sustain crops, vegetation, forage growth, or postharvest residues in the normal
				growing season.
(2) Coastal Zone
				Act Reauthorization Amendments--The 1990 amendments to the federal Coastal Zone
				Act that created the Coastal Nonpoint Program under §6217, "Protecting
				Coastal Waters." Under §6217, all states with approved coastal zone
				management programs must develop a Coastal Nonpoint Program to control polluted
				runoff to coastal waters.
(3)
				Dry-litter poultry facility--A poultry animal feeding operation that does not
				use a liquid waste handling system.
(4) Clean Water Act--Federal Water Pollution
				Control Act,
				33 USC,
				§§1251 -
				1387
				(1977, as amended).
(5) Field
				Office Technical Guide (FOTG)--The official Natural Resources Conservation
				Service guidelines, criteria, and standards for planning and applying
				conservation practices.
(6) Natural
				Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)--An agency of the United States
				Department of Agriculture which includes the agency formerly known as the Soil
				Conservation Service (SCS).
(7)
				Operating unit--Land or lands, whether contiguous or non-contiguous, owned
				and/or operated in a manner that contributes or has the potential to contribute
				agricultural or silvicultural nonpoint source pollution to water in the state.
				An operating unit must be determined through mutual agreement by the holder of
				the water quality management plan, the soil and water conservation district,
				and the State Board. When determining the applicability of an operating unit,
				the following criteria must be considered:
(A)
				Contiguous lands under the same ownership and/or operational control must be
				considered one operating unit.
(B)
				Non-contiguous lands under the same ownership and/or operational control may be
				considered as more than one operating unit when there is mutual agreement by
				the soil and water conservation district and the potential holder of the water
				quality management plan unless the lands are associated with an animal feeding
				operation.
(C) An operating unit,
				when devised for an animal feeding operation, must at a minimum encompass all
				land or lands owned and/or operated by the holder of the water quality
				management plan that are used to produce feed that is consumed by the animals,
				as well as all land or lands owned and/or operated by the potential holder of
				the water quality management plan where manures or other agricultural
				by-products are beneficially used as a source of nutrients to produce food or
				fiber for any use.
(D) Land or
				lands within the scope of an existing operating unit for a certified water
				quality management plan may not be separated from the existing operating unit
				to establish another operating unit unless the ownership of the lands being
				separated into a new operating unit has changed.
(E) Where mutual agreement regarding an
				operating unit's consistency with these rules is not achieved by the potential
				holder of the water quality management plan, the soil and water conservation
				district, and the State Board, the State Board will make a final determination
				whether or not to certify the water quality management plan.
(8) Practice standard--A technical
				specification for a conservation practice within the NRCS FOTG that contains
				information on why and where the practice should be applied, and sets forth the
				minimum quality criteria that must be met during the application of that
				practice in order for it to achieve its intended purpose(s).
(9) Resource management system--A combination
				of conservation practices and resource management activities for the treatment
				of all identified resource concerns for soil, water, air, plants, animals, and
				humans that meets or exceeds the quality criteria in the NRCS FOTG for resource
				sustainability.
(10) Soil and water
				conservation district (SWCD)--A governmental subdivision of this state and a
				public body corporate and politic, organized pursuant to Chapter 201 of the
				Agriculture Code.
(11) State
				Board--The Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board organized pursuant to
				Chapter 201 of the Agriculture Code.
(12) Status Review--An assessment performed
				by the State Board on a water quality management plan for the purpose of
				determining adherence to the plan's implementation schedule and conservation
				plan of operations.
(13) Texas
				Nonpoint Source Management Program--The comprehensive management strategy to
				protect and restore water impacted by nonpoint sources of pollution jointly
				developed and administered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and
				the State Board and approved by the Governor of the State of Texas and the
				United States Environmental Protection Agency.
(14) Texas surface water quality
				standards--The designation of water bodies for desirable uses and the narrative
				and numerical criteria deemed necessary to protect those uses established by
				the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
(15) Water in the state--Groundwater,
				percolating or otherwise, lakes, bays, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs,
				rivers, streams, creeks, estuaries, wetlands, marshes, inlets, canals, the Gulf
				of Mexico, inside the territorial limits of the state, and all other bodies of
				surface water, natural or artificial, inland or coastal, fresh or salt,
				navigable or nonnavigable, and including the beds and banks of all watercourses
				and bodies of surface water, that are wholly or partially inside or bordering
				the state or inside the jurisdiction of the state.
(16) Water quality management plan--A site
				specific plan for agricultural or silvicultural lands which includes
				appropriate land treatment practices, production practices, management
				measures, technologies or combinations thereof which when implemented will
				achieve a level of pollution prevention or abatement determined by the State
				Board in consultation with the local SWCD and Texas Commission on Environmental
				Quality to be consistent with Texas surface water quality standards.