The purpose of this document is to describe and standardize the process by which fish consumption advisories (FCAs) are developed and publicly disseminated in Colorado. This document identifies the roles and responsibilities of the state agencies involved in the process, and describes the steps involved in implementing this policy.
Our drinking water supplies, fishing and recreational waters are fouled by uncontrolled pollution when rainwater and snowmelt wash over city streets, parking lots, and suburban lawns and pick up toxic chemicals, disease-causing organisms (from pet waste), and dirt and trash. This problem is called urban stormwater pollution. Recent studies have found that urban stormwater rivals and in some cases exceeds sewage plants and large factories as a source of damaging pollutants. Two hundred years of unregulated, unmanaged urban stormwater have contributed to many severe public health problems and expensive natural resource losses in the United States.
The federal Clean Water Act requires that stormwater discharges from certain types of facilities be authorized under stormwater discharge permits. The goal of the stormwater permits program is to reduce the amount of pollutants entering streams, lakes and rivers as a result of runoff from residential, commercial and industrial areas. The original 1990 regulation covered municipal (i.e., publicly-owned) storm sewer systems for municipalities over 100,000 population. The regulation was expanded in 1999 to include smaller municipalities as well. This expansion of the program is referred to as Phase II.
The Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE) Water Quality Control Division is developing an approach to manage nutrients in Colorado waters. The primary driver for this effort has been an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) directive to reduce nutrients in waters under jurisdiction of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA). The Division's proposal to control the discharge of nutrients relies largely on a technology-based control regulation that would establish effluent limits for both total phosphorus (TP) and total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) for many domestic and some nondomestic wastewater treatment facilities that become subject to the control regulation will have to invest in capital improvements and ongoing operation and maintenance (O&M) costs.
