The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) administers 604(b) planning funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act. As the Governor-designated agency for water quality management planning in this region, H-GAC has had a long-standing contractual agreement with TCEQ to conduct efforts under this program. The activities of this annual project cover the entire 13 county H-GAC region, and are summarized each year in a Water Quality Management Plan Update document. 

The work conducted as part of this project includes maintaining several wastewater infrastructure databases, facilitating watershed planning efforts and the Natural Resources Advisory Committee, and providing planning assistance to local governments.

Highlights of the work conducted in FY18 to support local governments include:

• Working with Authorized Agents throughout the 13-county H-GAC region to update location information on over 90,000 septic tanks and other on-site sewage facilities;
• Conducted on-site sewage facility inspection training for homeowners;
• Maintaining and expanding databases of wastewater infrastructure and monitoring data for over 1,500 facilities. Databases support various planning efforts like the Bacteria Implementation Group’s bacteria data analysis;
• Providing support for community-led efforts to identify voluntary alternatives to address water quality issues, such as San Bernard River Watershed Protection Plan;
• Performed analysis of wastewater permit limit exceedances and sanitary sewer overflow rates for the 13 county region.

The Natural Resources Advisory Committee met on August 2, 2018, and voted to recommend this Water Quality Management Plan Update to the Board for review and acceptance. The 2018 update can be found on the H-GAC website - http://www.h-gac.com/community/water/quality/.

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Request acceptance of the FY18 H-GAC 604(b) Water Quality Management Plan Update. (Staff Contact: Jeff Taebel)