Bioassessment and Biocriteria Program Status for Delaware: Streams and Wadeable Rivers
State Program Contact
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control
Water Quality Standards
WQS Information
The link to Delaware's WQS that are in effect for Clean Water Act purposes is provided. These are the WQS approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The state of Delaware provided information and links to sections of their administrative code on designated aquatic life use, biological criteria, antidegradation as well as technical support documents and information on its bioassessment and biocriteria programs. These are included for your convenience and may or may not reflect the most recently EPA-approved WQS.
Designated Aquatic Life Uses
All waters have a single aquatic life use. A (very) small subset also has “Cold Water Fish (put and take)” use to support annual stocked fish program.
Biological Criteria
_____ Narrative
_____ Numeric
__X__ No criteria
Antidegradation Policy
Section 5.0 of our WQS has narrative regarding Antidegradation. No specific biological criteria are in our WQS.
Biological Assessment
What biological assemblages are used in the bioassessment program?
Benthic macroinvertebrates only
Are bioassessments used to support 303(d) listings?
Yes and No. Listing methodology: In the past, the Department made listing decisions to list for “Biology”, “Habitat” or “Biology and Habitat” based on comparisons of stream conditions to reference streams. We are working our way through the resultant 303(d) listings at this time.
How are assemblages used to make impairment decisions?
Not actively making impairment decisions at this time as we work through the past listing decisions.
Other uses of biocriteria or bioassessment within the water quality program:
TMDL development and assessment
Technical Support Information and Documents
Reference condition
DE has no ‘reference’ sites. IBIs are based on the 5th/95th percentile of all sites sampled at time of creation. We use ‘control’ sites that represent the best known sites in the state, based on previous sampling, to evaluate changes over the years.
Biocriteria
Not applicable.
Stressor identification/causal analysis approach
Under development.