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Allocating Loads and Wasteloads
Demonstrations and Tools
States, territories, and authorized tribes are responsible for allocating loads among point and nonpoint sources identified under each Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). During the allocation process, EPA encourages authorities to consider a range of allocation options that are technically feasible and demonstrate programmatic consistency.
Allocations for a particular watershed or TMDL are likely to be based on competing measures of desirability such as cost effectiveness, and equity. Final allocation determinations are policy decisions and should reflect public perceptions about acceptable tradeoffs between these measures. As an example, allocation strategies that minimize costs may be deemed unfair if particular sources are burdened with most of the cost, while allocations based on equal load reductions may be more costly.
Watershed modeling frameworks are tools that can be used to help evaluate the tradeoffs associated with different allocations. These framworks are capable of identifying cost minimizing allocations and comparing cost distributions across stakeholders under different allocation scenarios. This website demonstrates such a cost-minimization framework and provides examples of load allocations and cost distributions for a case study watershed.
Please select an option for details about the case study and modeling framework.