Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2003DE28B

Nanticoke Watershed Total Maximum Daily Load Project

Institute: Delaware
Year Established: 2003 Start Date: 2003-06-01 End Date: 2004-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $1,500 Total Non-Federal Funds: $3,000

Principal Investigators: Alan Andres

Project Summary: The Nanticoke River watershed has been ranked one of the top priority watersheds in Delaware in the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program. A TMDL is the amount of pollutant that a water body can assimilate before significant environmental damage occurs and is a key component in the regulation of wastewater discharges and nutrient management practices, and in the allocation of funds for pollution prevention measures. In an ongoing project being conducted by the University of Delaware College of Marine Studies, Delaware Geological Survey, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, and U. S. Geological Survey, flow and water quality data are being collected to compute current pollutant loads. In this project, the student intern will have responsibility for assisting with collection of ground and surface water samples, performing QA/QC tasks on analytical data, acquiring and processing stream flow records, and evaluating methods for computing pollutant loadings for five sampling stations in the Nanticoke River watershed.