TMDL Prioritization

Prioritization

Create and utilize a planning and prioritization structure that balances social impact and partnership needs with TMDL development efficiency based on cost, time, and number of impairments.

Note: For the 2016-2022 cycles, a different prioritization structure was used.

With the increased role of partnerships in planning and prioritization, a new prioritization structure is needed to accommodate the priorities of TMDL Program partners. Partner communication is a continuous process with updates to priorities occurring at no greater intervals than the 2-year cycle of the IR. Priorities from the previous TMDL Vision, which included water bodies with high social impact (drinking water impairments and lakes with bacteria or nutrient related impairments) and low cost and complexity of modeling, are still a portion of the priority structure. To increase the efficiency of TMDL creation and target severe and pervasive causes of impairments, priority is also given to TMDLs where multiple impairments can be addressed in a single project and addendums to existing TMDLs where the new impairment has the same cause. Additionally, de-prioritization of potential TMDLs where the pollutant and water body combination already has a TMDL and an addendum would take significant modeling updates will be limited to water bodies with recent TMDLs (within the last 15 years) to synergize with the restoration goal described in this vision. Wetland eutrophication is also deprioritized, as achieving the current dissolved oxygen standards for wetlands would negatively impact the ecological function that they provide. A points system was created to accommodate the priorities described (Table 1).

Table 1: Points system used for prioritization of TMDLs

*LRP and 319 each have an available pool of 10 points which may be assigned during the prioritization process; other partners each have available pools of 5 points.

A tier system is then used to group priorities into a simpler framework and fit existing infrastructure while ensuring that the highest priority could be achieved only with some amount of partner priority (Table 2).

Table 2: Tier system for TMDL priority based on the number of points allocated