Box 4: Community Participation in the South San Francisco Bay TMDL Process

      In 1989, California’s South San Francisco Bay was designated an impaired water body under the U.S. Clean Water Act due to the presence of seven metals (cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, mercury, and zinc). Since then, the South Bay has been continued to be listed as impaired for two of these metals, copper and nickel, even with the implementation of strict discharge limits and pretreatment programs.
      Stormwater runoff and discharges from municipal wastewater treatment plants were identified as sources of copper and nickel contamination. Initially, local pollutant reduction efforts focused on reducing pollutant discharges from industrial and commercial facilities. With decreased emissions from industrial and commercial sources, state regulators and local environmentalist agreed in 1998 to look beyond industry to solve the South Bay’s water quality problems.
      The Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, is a quantitative assessment that establishes the amount of pollutants (or "load") that a waterbody can accept without adverse effects to the beneficial uses of the waterbody. TMDLs are necessary when existing technology-based controls do not achieve the state’s water quality standards. The process for setting TMDLs should be participatory since it considers the effects of all activities or processes that can impair a particular waterbody.
      Reaching agreement on pollution sources and policies to protect South Bay waters required a new approach built mutual trust among scientist, regulators and the community. In 1998, members of the Santa Clara Basin Watershed Management Initiative -- a stakeholder initiative of local agencies, regulatory authorities, business and community representatives ( http://www.scbwmi.org -- recognized the key role TMDLs will play in the process of identifying and prioritizing pollutants of concern for the South Bay watershed, and formed a TMDL workgroup. The workgroup consisted of environmental groups, industry, regulatory agencies, wastewater and stormwater dischargers, citizens, and technical experts. The workgroup placed emphasis on collaboration and stakeholder participation.
      Because TMDL processes are technical in nature and time consuming, municipalities agreed to fund the participation of community organizations in the Copper / Nickel TMDL workgroup. The City of San Jose provided funds to CLEAN South Bay -- a coalition of environmental groups -- to hire their own technical consultant and coordinate community responses to issues raised during the 1999-2002 Copper / Nickel TMDL process. In 2001 the South Bay TMDL resulted in adoption of copper and nickel pollution prevention plans (known as Action Plans) which were later adopted by the Regional Water Board, the agency responsible for enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Successful implementation of these plans is expected to result in the delisting of the South Bay for impairment from copper and nickel.
      Following the success of the South Bay Copper / Nickel TMDL, the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies, and the Bay Area Stormwater Management Agencies Association have signed a Memorandum of Understanding reflecting their belief that a collaborative approach for developing Water Quality Attainment Strategies (http://www.cleanestuary.com). The Clean Estuary Partnership encourages community participation in future TMDLs, including ones scheduled to address PCB and mercury contamination in the San Francisco Bay. Community organizations active in the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water are preparing a list of regional impaired water body priorities from the perspective of low-income, communities of color. In future public participation in California’s Clean Water Act TMDL process shows promise of becoming more inclusive and representative of the state’s diverse communities.