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A TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) is ascientific determination of the maximum amount of a given pollutant that a surface water can absorb and still meet the water quality standards that protect human health and aquatic life. Water bodies that do not meet water quality standards are identified as "impaired" for the particular pollutants of concern--nutrients, bacteria, mercury, etc. TMDLs must be developed, adopted and implemented for the identified pollutants to reducethepollutants and restore the water body so that designated uses are attained.This dataset containsonly those TMDLs which have been established by the EPA. This layer was created using data from the EPA TMDL website here: http://iaspub.epa.gov/apex/waters/f?p=131:12. All features shown as having a mercury impairment were removed from the dataset. |