Last week, U.S. EPA, Region 4 and Kentucky Division of Water announced the date and time of the next Floyds Fork public stakeholder meeting. The meeting will be held at Middletown Elementary School in Louisville on July 24th at 7:00 p.m. There are quite a few items on the agenda, including an update on the TMDL development process, monitoring, the formation of a technical sub-committee and an update on the stakeholder process.
Last August, Kentucky Division of Water (KDOW) announced that they had invited EPA to develop a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for nutrients in the Floyds Fork watershed. For more information on TMDLs on Floyds Fork please see http://water.ky.gov/watershed/Pages/FloydsFork.aspx. In short, a TMDL forms the basis of a plan is that seeks to reduce the amount of a pollutant in a waterbody in order to meet water quality standards. There have been three public meetings since the process began. Each meeting has been contentious because of the technical nature of the information and the public’s view that EPA is disregarding public comments and suggestions.
SMG is working with a key group of stakeholders in the watershed to improve their understanding of the TMDL process and to ensure appropriate science and data is used in developing the TMDL. SMG has also been instrumental in asking for a technical sub-committee in order to scientifically evaluate the model that EPA is using to form the TMDL. KDOW will host the technical sub-committee. If you have questions able the Floyds Fork TMDL process and Smith Management Group’s involvement, please contact Kori Andrews at koria@smithmanage.com or (502) 587-6482 extension 207.