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EPA approves plan to restore Muddy Creek watershed

Release Date: 5/10/2000
Contact Information: Roy Seneca (215) 814-5567

Roy Seneca, 215-814-5567

HINTON, Va. - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved a plan by Virginia to restore healthy water quality in the Muddy Creek watershed in Rockingham County, Virginia. The state’s plan calls for reductions in nitrogen pollution to meet water quality standards and better protect public drinking water.

"Virginia’s Muddy Creek plan will ensure that healthy water quality is attained and maintained well into the future. Every community should be able to enjoy streams and rivers that are safe for swimming and fishing and reliable as drinking water sources," said Bradley M. Campbell, EPA’s mid-Atlantic regional administrator.

Virginia’s plan, known as a total maximum daily load (or TMDL) report for nitrates, requires Wampler Foods Inc. to reduce the concentration of nitrates by 35 percent in treated wastewater it discharges into Muddy Creek from its poultry processing facility in Hinton, Va..

A TMDL is a "pollution budget" for an impaired water body that sets a limit on the amount of a pollutant the water body can absorb and still meet clean water standards. TMDLs must consider all sources of a specific pollutant in a segment of a water body. Each type of pollutant has its own TMDL.

When fully implemented, the improved waste water treatment at Wampler Foods will reduce by 30,000 pounds the nitrates discharged into the Muddy Creek watershed each year.

At similar food processing plants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, improved nitrogen removal technology has been successful, and plants are saving $2,000 to $7,000 per month in operation and maintenance costs.

The state plan also calls for farms within the watershed to use widely accepted farmland management practices focusing on use of manure as fertilizer and controlling water runoff. Rockingham County has the highest poultry and dairy production levels in the state.

In 1998, Virginia identified Muddy Creek as an impaired water body due to nitrogen and bacteria pollution and their possible impacts on public drinking water supplies. The federal Clean Water Act requires states to develop plans for all impaired waters.

In developing the Muddy Creek nitrates TMDL, Virginia’s Departments of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and Conservation and Recreation (DCR) studied the contribution of nitrates from Wampler Foods and from land runoff.

The study determined that improving farmland application of manure and fertilizers, and better managing confined and grazing farm animals can help reduce the amount of nitrates that run off agricultural lands into Muddy Creek.

Both state departments plan to work with local land owners over the next year to determine actions needed to implement the Muddy Creek nitrates TMDL.

Meanwhile, Virginia will be looking to see how the plan for addressing bacteria that was developed last year will also help in reducing nitrates. If reductions in nitrates are also achieved, the state will consider those reductions in determining whether the pollution budget for the nitrates TMDL should be modified.

A five-mile segment of Muddy Creek upstream from Harrisonburg is the first stream segment in the state to have a complete plan to reduce all pollution impairments.



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