Bioassessment and Biocriteria Program Status for U.S. Virgin Islands: Estuarine and Coastal Waters
State Program Contact
Department of Planning and Natural Resources
Water Quality Standards
WQS Information
The link to U.S. Virgin Islands' 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 territory of U.S. Virgin Islands 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
Classes A, B, and C.
Biological Criteria
- __X__ Narrative, with quantitative implementation procedures or translators
- _____ Numeric
- _____ No criteria
186-5. A(3)Biocriteria:
These narrative biological criteria shall apply to Class A, B, and C waters, wetlands, estuarine, mangrove, seagrass, coral reef and other marine ecosystems based upon their respective reference conditions and metrics. The Territory shall preserve, protect, and restore water resources to their most natural condition. The condition of these waterbodies shall be determined from measures of physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of each waterbody class, according to its designated use. As a component of these measures, the Territory may consider the biological integrity of the benthic communities living within waters. These communities shall be assessed by comparison to reference conditions(s) with similar abiotic and biotic environmental settings that represent the optimal or least disturbed condition for that system. Such reference conditions shall be those observed to support the greatest community diversity, and abundance of aquatic life as is expected to be or has been historically found in natural settings essentially undisturbed or minimally disturbed by human impacts, development, or discharges. This condition shall be determined by consistent sampling and reliable measures of selected indicator communities of flora and/or fauna and may be used in conjunction with other measures of water quality.
Antidegradation Policy
Use of biocriteria or bioassessment not included in antidegradation policy (pdf).
Biological Assessment
What biological assemblages are used in the bioassessment program?
Benthic macroinvertebrates, fish, and coral reef
Are bioassessments used to support 303(d) listings?
No.
How are assemblages used to make impairment decisions?
Not applicable.
Other uses of biocriteria or bioassessment within the water quality program:
Not applicable.
Technical Support Information and Documents
Reference condition
Described in section 186-5 A (3) biocriteria in water quality standards (pdf).
Biocriteria
Development of biocriteria involves the collection and interpretation of biological data –e.g. benthic macroinvertebrates, fish, and periphyton. During this process entities typically use biological metrics (usually aggregated into a multimetric index) and/or multivariate analysis to assess whether a waterbody is meeting its designated aquatic life use(s). The reference materials include standard operation procedures used in data collection, compilation, technical approaches used to develop biocriteria as well as its implementation procedures.
Technical reference material
- Bradley P, Fore L, Fisher W, and Davis W. 2010. Coral Reef Biological Criteria: Using the Clean Water Act to Protect a National Treasure (pdf) . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Narragansett, RI.
Stressor identification/causal analysis approach
Not applicable.