Water Quality Management Plan (WQMP)

The Water Office maintains a Water Quality Management Plan (WQMP), also known as the “208 Plan,” in accordance with Section 208 of the federal Clean Water Act. The WQMP is an inventory of all permitted municipal and industrial point source dischargers in Arkansas that contain water quality-based permit limits such as 5-day Carbonaceous Biochemical Oxygen Demand (CBOD5), 5-day Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Ammonia-Nitrogen (NH3-N), and Dissolved Oxygen (DO). The WQMP also contains additional information associated with each facility, such as permit number, location, design flow, and receiving stream name and critical stream flow (7Q10). The plan is updated as needed to reflect the most recent effluent limitations imposed in newly issued, modified, or renewed National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits. The WQMP is also updated to include Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and associated individual wasteload allocations from the TMDL.

The plan is updated as necessary, with the procedure generally consisting of the following steps:

  • Sending the proposed WQMP update to EPA for technical acceptance.
  • Receiving EPA technical acceptance of the proposed WQMP update.
  • Sending the proposed WQMP update to public notice. This public notice can be included in the public notice of the draft permit or as a separate public notice.
  • Sending Governor certification of the WQMP updates to EPA.
  • Receiving formal EPA approval of certified WQMP updates.

Links to status of proposed and final revisions to the Water Quality Management Plan

Updates to the Water Quality Management Plan (208 Plan) are required when changes occur in NPDES permit discharge limits for new, modified, or terminated permits.

The Water Quality Management Plan Excel spreadsheet includes brief descriptions of NPDES individual permits with water quality-based permit limits.

Use this link to find correspondence by date regarding the status of proposed or finalized updates: