Louisiana Water Quality Regulations and Standards

• Louisiana Water Quality Regulations and Standards - Louisiana's Water Quality Regulations can be found at the link for Part IX: Water Quality, with Louisiana's Surface Water Quality Standards found in Chapter 11 of the document.
   

  Recent Rulemaking

•  WQ111 – Water Quality Standards Triennial Revision. This Rule corrected typographical errors throughout Chapter 11 in the water quality regulations, updated verbiage in §1109 and §1113 as a result of the Water Quality Management Plan, Volume 3 update in July 2022, removed the implication that numeric criteria may be adopted based on absence of data, corrected errors in Table 1 of §1113 and Table 3 of §1123, as well as revised subsegment boundaries.
  • Publication date – January 20, 2023
  • Promulgation date – September 20, 2023
  • EPA approval date – November 2, 2023
• WQ108 – Post-WQ097 Cleanup Rule. This Rule clarified items found late in the rulemaking process of WQ097, including a deleted “use”, and extraneous “are” and two inaccurate subsegment boundary descriptions.
  • Publication date – April 20, 2021
  • Promulgation date – July 20, 2021
  • EPA approval date – August 10, 2021
• WQ106 – Cross Lake and Cross Bayou Stream Descriptions. This Rule was necessary so that tributaries in the Louisiana portion of the Cross Lake watershed have the "drinking water supply" designation applied.
  • Publication date – May 20, 2020
  • Promulgation date – August 08, 2020
  • EPA approval date – October 14, 2020
• WQ103 – Wilson Slough and Bradley Slough Turbidity Criteria Revisions. This Rule revised the turbidity criteria for two subsegments in the Pearl River Basin (PRB) from 25 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) to a more appropriate turbidity criteria of 50 NTU.
  • Publication date – June 20, 2019
  • Promulgation date – September 20, 2019
  • EPA approval date – January 13, 2020
• WQ101 – Bayou Chene DO Criterion revision. This Rule classified subsegment 050603 (Bayou Chene-From headwaters to Lacassine Bayou; includes Bayou Grand Marais) as naturally dystrophic waters with a seasonal dissolved oxygen criteria of 5 mg/L December-February and 3 mg/L March-November.
  • Publication date – June 20, 2019
  • Promulgation date – September 20, 2019
  • EPA approval date – January 13, 2020
• WQ097 – Water Quality Standards Revision. This Rule corrected typographical errors, incorrect spelling and incorrect references throughout Chapter 11 in the water quality regulations, added ammonia criterion for freshwater, and revised subsegment descriptions and boundaries using up-to-date technology.
  • Publication date - December 20, 2019
  • Promulgation date – November 20, 2020
  • EPA approval date – January 28, 2021

• Triennial Review - Surface Water Quality Standards for Louisiana
• Louisiana Water Quality Standards Ecoregions: For Use in Ecologically-Driven Water Quality Standards - The ecoregions developed by LDEQ provide the framework and basis for determining regionally appropriate water quality criteria that will be regulated for the protection of designated uses within water bodies of Louisiana.This document provides the basis for development of ecoregions in Louisiana. 
• Dissolved Oxygen Criteria Use Attainability Analysis in the Barataria and Terrebonne Basins
• Dissolved Oxygen Criteria Use Attainability Analysis in the Eastern Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Plains Ecoregion and Proposed Updates to Volume 4 of the Water Quality Management Plan
• BEACH Act Recreational Criteria for Louisiana’s Coastal Marine Primary Contact Recreation Waters - On May 20, 2016, LDEQ adopted final BEACH Act Criteria for Louisiana’s coastal marine waters (Rule WQ092 in Louisiana Register). LDEQ submitted the final certified rule package to EPA Region 6 for approval on June 8, 2016 (EDMS Document ID 10221023); EPA approved the final rule on September 1, 2016 (EDMS Document ID 10341562). In summary, the revisions contained in rule WQ092 added a definition for enterococci to LAC 33:IX.107 and 1105. Additionally, revisions were made to LAC 33:IX.1113 and 1123 to adopt enterococci criteria for 133 coastal marine subsegments designated as primary contact recreation waters. Additional documentation relating to WQ092 rulemaking efforts can be found by searching EDMS using Agency Interest number 168750 and limiting the search to documents after October 2014 with WQ092 in the description field.