Friends of Stafford CreeksNonprofit organization of volunteer citizen scientists monitoring water quality, advocating sustainable land use policies and watershed protection, and promoting education and stewardship of aquatic and wildlife resources in Stafford County Virginia's Potomac River tributaries. The Clean Water Act (CWA) and Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) 
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The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 with the goal of eliminating pollution from US streams, creeks, rivers, lakes, and all other water bodies.
§303(d) of the 1972 Clean Water Act requires the States to identify waters not in compliance with water quality standards, establish priorities for scheduling the development of TMDLs, develop a list of the impaired waters, and develop TMDLs for the waters on the §303(d) list.
TMDL means total maximum daily load is the maximum amount of a pollutant a water body can receive and still be clean.
One important tool of the act is the citizen enforcement provision of the Clean Water Act (CWA) that allows citizens who are adversely affected by water pollution to take legal action in order to enforce the CWA.
The American Canoe Association and the American Littoral Society filed a complaint against EPA for failure to comply with the provisions of §303(d) of the Clean Water Act in Virginia. In 1999, EPA signed a Consent Decree with the plaintiffs. The consent decree contained a 10-year TMDL development schedule through 2010 for the state of Virginia and also the Chesapeake Bay.
A consent decree is an agreement between involved parties submitted in writing to a court. Once approved by the judge, it becomes legally binding.
In order for American Canoe Association or another other group/person be able to take such action, the CWA requires that 1) the permit violations be ongoing, 2) neither the state nor EPA have diligently enforced the law, 3) the citizens taking the action have standing to do so (i.e. have members who have been or will likely be adversely affected by the discharge).
One of the “consent decree additions” was the Chesapeake Bay
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is the lead agency in the TMDL process in Virginia. Every two years DEQ publishes its list of impaired waters. These are waters that do not meet the TMDL standards. DEQ is considered a point-source agency. Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is the State’s non-point source agency. DEQ and DCR are working together to clean up our waters.
In the Potomac River tributaries of Stafford County, DEQ has identified 19 impaired streams or stream segments. Here is a list. Here is a map showing where TMDL streams are located.
Impairments identified in 2006 will not be cleaned up until 2018.