CWA Section 303(d)
This section of the Act requires States, territories, and authorized Tribes to develop lists of impaired waters for which applicable water quality standards are not being met, even after point sources of pollution have installed the minimum required levels of pollution control technology. The law requires that these jurisdictions establish priority rankings for waters on the lists and develop TMDLs for these waters. States, territories, and authorized Tribes are to submit their list of waters on April 1 in every even-numbered year.
Ecological integrity
The summation of chemical, physical, and biological integrity capable of supporting and maintaining a balanced, integrated adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to that of natural habitats in the region.
Reference Site
A site selected to represent an approximation of reference condition and by comparison to other sites being assessed. For the purpose of assessing the ecological condition of other sites, a reference site is a specific locality on a waterbody that is minimally or least disturbed and is representative of the expected ecological condition of other localities on the same waterbody or nearby waterbodies.
