TMDL implementation plan to reduce mercury releases by 2025

With substantial stakeholder input, the MPCA prepared a plan to reduce mercury releases in Minnesota. This plan describes actions Minnesota will take to meet water-quality standards for mercury. This implementation plan consists of strategies to ensure that water discharges remain below 24 pounds per year and to reduce air emissions to below 789 pounds per year.

Implementation Plan for Minnesota’s Statewide Mercury Total Maximum Daily Load

The implementation plan includes:

• Introduction and Implementation Overview describing the basis for the plan, stakeholder involvement, implementation roles and responsibilities .and key Mercury Implementation Plan Milestones.
• Water Implementation Strategies describing strategies to ensure that total statewide mercury discharges remain below 24.2 lb/yr.  This includes a Permitting Strategy for Addressing Mercury in Municipal and Industrial Permits.
• Air Implementation Strategies describes strategies to achieve reductions from existing sources to below 789 lb by 2025 as well as guidelines for minimizing emissions from potential new and modified sources.
• A Monitoring and Evaluation Plan describes the MPCA’s plan for tracking the effectiveness of this Implementation Plan including air and water release monitoring as well as tracking key environmental response indicators.

Background

Approximately two-thirds of the water impairments on Minnesota’s 2006 Impaired Waters List were due to mercury. As required by the Clean Water Act, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) prepared a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study that evaluated the sources of mercury and quantified the reductions needed to meet water-quality standards.  The TMDL established a cap on water discharges of 24.2 lb/yr and an air emission reduction goal of 789 lb/yr.

Minnesota’s Statewide Mercury TMDL was approved by the MPCA Citizens’ Board in December 2006 and by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in March 2007.  The implantation plan described above details specific strategies that will be employed to achieve the goals of the TMDL.

Stakeholders were key in developing strategies

To develop strategies to meet these targets and to establish interim and final deadlines, the MPCA relied on significant stakeholder input.  Over the course of a year and with facilitation by the Minnesota Environmental Initiative, the Strategy Work Group, a group of 17 stakeholders representing a broad range of interests and views, developed recommendations on the main elements of the Mercury TMDL Implementation Plan. For details, see Report on the Mercury TMDL Implementation Plan and Stakeholder Process.

Publications

TMDL implementation plan

• Minnesota’s plan to reduce mercury releases (fact sheet)
• Implementation Plan for Minnesota’s Statewide Mercury Total Maximum Daily Load
• Stakeholder process report

Implementation updates

• Agenda for Mercury TMDL Implementation Stakeholder Oversight Group Annual Meeting (wq-iw4-01r)
• Mercury TMDL Implementation Stakeholder Oversight Group Meeting Summaries - 2009, 2010 (wq-iw4-01q)

More information

For more information about mercury pollution in Minnesota and how the MPCA is addressing the problem, contact MPCA Statewide Mercury Reduction coordinator, Rebecca Walter, 651-757-2807, rebecca.walter@state.mn.us.