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Aquatic Life
National water quality criteria for the protection of aquatic organisms and their uses:
- Guidelines for deriving numerical criteria
- EPA Science Advisory Board Activies Related to Guidelines Revisions
- Finalized criteria
- Criteria under development
- Soliciting Scientific Information
- Other resources
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Guidelines for deriving numerical criteria
- Guidelines for Deriving Numerical National Water Quality Criteria for the Protection of Aquatic Organisms and Their Uses (1985 Guidelines) (PDF) (104 pp., 3.3 MB) | Please email us for a Section 508 accessible copy.
EPA Science Advisory Board Activies Related to Guidelines Revisions
- Draft Strategy: Proposed Revisions (PDF) (5 pp., 74 K) (February 6, 2003)
We established a guidelines revision workgroup to identify, evaluate, and revise the existing guidelines. - Contaminants of Emerging Concern, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products
Finalized criteria
- Current Criteria Table containing aquatic life criteria for pollutants.
- Ammonia (Update, December 1999)
- Cadmium
- Copper
- Diazinon
- Dissolved Oxygen
- Methyl Tertiary-Butyl Ether (MTBE)
- Nonylphenol
- Tributyltin
- Chemical specific criteria documents from the 1980's
Criteria under development
EPA is revising the current aquatic life criteria for lead, silver, and selenium, re-evaluating the current aquatic life criteria for ammonia, and developing new aquatic life criteria for atrazine.
Soliciting Scientific Information
Fact Sheet: Ocean Acidification and Marine pH Water Quality Criteria (April 2009) | Federal Register Notice: Notice of Data Availability on Ocean Acidification and Marine pH Water Quality Criteria (April 15, 2009)
Other resources
- Order other criteria documents through of Office of Water Resource Center's on-line publication shopping cart
- Quality Criteria for Water 1986 [The Gold Book, May 1986] (PDF) (477 pages, 5.1 MB)
- Quality Criteria for Water 1976 [The Red Book, July 1976] (PDF) (534 pages, 13.7 MB)