[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 245 (Wednesday, December 21, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 93681-93682]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-30760]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[EPA-HQ-OW-2015-0335; FRL-9956-93-OW]
Final EPA-USGS Technical Report: Protecting Aquatic Life from
Effects of Hydrologic Alteration
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and United States
Geological Survey (USGS).
ACTION: Notice of availability.
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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United
States Geological Survey are releasing a technical report: Final EPA-
USGS Technical Report: Protecting Aquatic Life from Effects of
Hydrologic Alteration. Healthy aquatic ecosystems provide an array of
services to individuals and society, including clean drinking water,
irrigation supplies, and recreational opportunities. Sound and
sustainable management of aquatic ecosystems is an integral part of
managing water resources to meet the needs of society. Hydrologic
alteration can be a contributor to the impairment of water bodies that
are designated to support aquatic life. Stresses on aquatic life
associated with hydrologic alteration may be further exacerbated by
climate change.
This report provides States, Tribes and territories with scientific
and technical information on the natural flow regime and potential
effects of flow alteration on aquatic life, and a flexible,
nonprescriptive framework that state water managers might consider if
they are interested in developing narrative or numeric targets for flow
regime components that are protective of aquatic life. The report also
provides information about States and Tribes that have adopted
narrative water quality standards to protect their waterbodies' flow
regimes and on the potential impact of climate change on flow regimes.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Diana Eignor, Health and Ecological
Criteria Division, Office of Water (Mail Code 4304T), Environmental
Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20460;
telephone number: (202) 566-1143; email address: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. General Information
A. How can I get copies of this document and other related information?
1. Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the
www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some
information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such
as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy.
Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically
in www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the Water Docket, EPA/DC, EPA
West, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave. NW., Washington, DC. The Public
Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through
Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Public
Reading Room is (202) 566-1744, and the telephone number for the Water
Docket is (202) 566-2426. For additional
[[Page 93682]]
information about EPA's public docket, visit EPA Docket Center homepage
at http://www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm.
II. What is this document?
This document serves as a technical and informational resource for
States, Tribes, territories, and other stakeholders that want to
protect aquatic life from the adverse effects of flow alteration. To
that end, this report provides technical information about the effect
of altered flow regimes on aquatic life and a nonprescriptive framework
that may be used to help quantify targets for flow regime components
that are protective of aquatic life and their habitats. The report also
provides examples of state and tribal water quality standards designed
to protect such flow regimes and discusses the potential impact of
climate change on flow regimes. This technical report is not a rule and
it, therefore, does not impose any mandatory requirements. State and
Tribal decision makers retain the discretion to adopt approaches or
information presented in this report on a case-by-case basis that
differ from the approaches described in this report.
III. Additional Information:
EPA and USGS each conducted internal peer reviews of the report,
and EPA managed a contractor-led independent external peer review of
the Draft EPA-USGS Technical Report: Protecting Aquatic Life from
Effects of Hydrologic Alteration. EPA will make the external peer
review comments and Agency responses to these comments available in the
docket at http://www.regulations.gov.
Dated: December 14, 2016.
Joel Beauvais,
Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Water.
[FR Doc. 2016-30760 Filed 12-20-16; 8:45 am]
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