Spatial And Quantitative Approach To Incorporating Stakeholder Values Into Total Maximum Daily Loads: Dominguez Channel Case Study

The federal Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 303(d)(1)(A) requires that states conduct a biennial assessment of its waters, identify those not achieving water quality standards, establish a priority ranking for waters on the 303(d) list of impaired waters and develop and implement Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for these waters. The Department of Energy requested LLNL develop appropriate tools to assist in improving the TMDL process. The model we developed is a stakeholder allocation model (SAM), that uses multi-attribute utility theory to quantitatively structure the preferences of the major stakeholders. We used GIS to model a significant quantity of unknown sources. The test site was the Dominquez Channel watershed in Los Angeles, California. Preliminary results show that stakeholders can have different preferences, especially in the areas of scheduling and cost of the implementation plan. The SAM model provides the ability to see how different TMDL plans rank from the perspective of each stakeholder as well as evaluate tradeoffs in selecting a plan.