MassDEP issued new regulations at 314 CMR 21.00, titled Watershed Permit Regulations, effective July 7, 2023 in order to reduce nitrogen loads in the Commonwealth’s coastal estuaries and embayments.
The purpose of these regulations is to establish a watershed permitting strategy and process to restore and protect water quality in nutrient impacted watersheds. The development and implementation of a Watershed Management Plan that will eliminate these water quality impacts are essential to this purpose.
A Watershed Permit establishes performance standards, authorized activities, and the timeframes that will be utilized under an adaptive management framework to achieve nutrient load reductions that are necessary to meet the specific water quality and habitat quality restoration goals that have been identified in a watershed analysis as being necessary to meet the designated uses of the waterbody established by the Department under 314 CMR 4.00: Massachusetts Surface Water Quality Standards, for the nutrients identified in the watershed analysis.