Surface Water Quality Program

The Water Quality Section conducts many activities supporting wastewater collection and treatment. This section assists with monitoring the city's wastewater and stormwater systems as related to federal wastewater and stormwater discharge permits to the Boise River. The Water Quality Section is also an active participant in watershed-based pollution control activities in the Boise and Snake River watersheds.

Primary activities include:

• Water quality sampling of the Boise River and wastewater collection system
• Wastewater and stormwater commercial and industrial source management program
• Commercial and industrial billing
• Stormwater complaint response
• Watershed-based TMDL efforts on the Lower Boise and Snake Rivers

Pretreatment & Sampling and Monitoring

The Water Quality section is comprised of two workgroups, the Sampling and Monitoring workgroup and the Pretreatment workgroup. Members of the Sampling and Monitoring workgroup regularly conduct water quality sampling at various locations of the Boise River throughout the year.

The Pretreatment group inspects commercial and industrial locations throughout the service area to ensure compliance with local ordinances governing discharges of commercial and industrial pollutants to the wastewater and stormwater systems.

TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Loads)
Watershed-based pollution control activities associated withTMDLs are occurring for over 1,000 waters statewide. TMDLs are required for waters that contain pollutants from point or non-point sources in excess of level required to meet water quality standards. TMDLs have been developed for bacteria and sediment on the Lower Boise River (Lower Boise River TMDL). In addition, TMDLs have been developed for nutrients, dissolved oxygen and temperature for the Snake River from the Oregon/Idaho Border to the Salmon River (Snake River-Hells Canyon TMDL).