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Final 2006 305(b)/303(d) Water Quality
Assessment Integrated Report

Approved by EPA on October 16, 2006

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released the Final 2006 305(b)/303(d) Water Quality Assessment Integrated Report (Integrated Report) on October 30, 2006.

The 2006 Water Quality Assessment Integrated Report is a summary of the water quality conditions in Virginia from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2004. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality develops and submits this report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency every even-numbered year.

The report satisfies the requirements of the U.S. Clean Water Act sections 305(b) and 303(d) and the Virginia Water Quality Monitoring, Information and Restoration Act. The goals of Virginia's water quality assessment program are to determine whether waters meet water quality standards, and to design and implement a plan to restore waters with impaired water quality.

Water quality standards designate uses for waters. There are six designated uses for surface waters:

  • aquatic life
  • fish consumption
  • shellfish consumption
  • swimming
  • public water supplies (where applicable)
  • wildlife

Additionally, several new subcategories of aquatic life use have been adopted for estuarine waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries. The standards define the water quality needed to support each of these uses. If a water body contains more contamination than allowed by water quality standards, it will not support one or more of its designated uses. Such waters have "impaired" water quality. In most cases, a cleanup plan (called a "total maximum daily load") must be developed and implemented to restore impaired waters.

This report was made available for public comment from July 10, 2006 through August 11, 2006. Comments were received from the public and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In response to comments, the report was revised and resubmitted to EPA in September 2006 and approved on October 16, 2006. The Public Comments and Responses (PDF) document contains responses to comments received on the draft report.

Summary Presentation of the Final 2006 Water Quality Assessment (PDF) - Statistics found in this presentation were revised since it was given at the public information meetings.

Copies of the final report, associated maps, public comments and responses, and revised summary presentation are all on a CD which can be ordered at no charge by sending an email request.

Entire Final 2006 305(b)/303(d) Water Quality Assessment Integrated Report. This is a 55.4 MB PDF file. You may wish to right-click on the link and click "Save Target As..." to save the document to your computer. Or, you may scroll down to view and download the much smaller individual components.

All components of the report and many of the supplemental files are PDF documents. Please visit the website help page if you are unable to view these documents.

Document Cover

Inside Cover

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

i. Acknowledgements
ii-iii. List of Figures
iv-vi. List of Tables
vii-viii. Introduction

Part I Executive Summary

Part II Surface Water Monitoring and Assessment

Part III Results of 2006 Water Quality Assessment

Part IV Non-Point Source Assessment

Part V Ground Water Assessment

Part VI State Background Information and Water Quality Program Descriptions

Part VII Appendices

Appendix A

Appendix B Clean Water Act References
Appendix C List of Significant Lakes
Appendix D Data Sets Considered for 2006 Assessment
Appendix E Current Status of TMDL Development in Virginia
Appendix F Trend Analysis Monitoring Station List
Appendix G 2006 Monitoring Station List (all Stations and Key) - this information is not included in the Integrated Report

BASIN MAPS - Electronic versions of the 303(d) Basin Maps are available for download/viewing. Each basin map is a PDF file between 2 and 5.1 MB. You may wish to right-click and select "Save Target As..." to save the maps to your computer. Also included are several statewide maps. For more detailed information on impaired waters identified on these maps, please use the Virginia DEQ Geographic Mapping System.

Hard copies of these maps are available for a small fee. They can be ordered by downloading and printing the order form, filling it out and mailing it to DEQ at the address indicated on the form with a check payable to "Treasurer of Virginia". Please memo your check with "2006 IR maps". 

Attention GIS users:
The GIS data used in the production of the Integrated Report is available for download (12.3 MB ZIP archive). Please note that you must have special GIS software to view this data. For more information, please contact Cleo Stevens.

Interactive Mapping

Virginia DEQ Geographic Mapping System - The impaired waters identified in this report can be viewed using DEQ's online GIS system

The final 2006 305(b)/303(d) Water Quality Assessment Guidance Manual is also available for download:
Final 2006 305(b)/303(d) Water Quality Assessment Guidance Manual. This is a 1.8 MB PDF document.

Additional Information: