SITE INFORMATION AND CORRESPONDENCE_2005-CURRENT

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for any point source'discharge of a pollutant to surface waters. In California, waste discharge requirements issued by a Regional Water Quality Control Board or the State Board for point source discharges to surface waters serve as the NPDES permits required by the Clean Water Act. (Wat. Code §§ 13370 and 13377.) Water quality standards governing allowable discharges are contained in statewide and regional water quality control plans, which designate beneficial uses of specified water bodies and establish water quality objectives to protect those uses, and in federal criteria promulgated by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency(USEPA) and applicable in California. Discharges to the San Joaquin River are subject to the provisions of the Water Quality Control Plan for Sacramento River and San Joaquin River Basins (Basin Plan).' The City's permit contains limitations consistent with these requirements. The beneficial uses of water in the San Joaquin River and Delta downstream of the City's point of discharge are municipal and domestic supply, agricultural irrigation, agricultural stock watering, industrial process and industrial service supply water, contact recreation, other non-contact water recreation, warm freshwater aquatic habitat, cold freshwater aquatic habitat, warm fish migration habitat, cold fish migration habitat,warm spawning habitat, wildlife habitat, and navigation.' In order to protect the beneficial uses of water identified in the Basin Plan, the permit issued to the City establishes effluent limitations for numerous constituents that are contained in the City's treated effluent. The City's petition challenges the effluent limitations for eight of the regulated constituents, as well as other provisions of the permit. The City's contentions generally concern the following five subjects: (1) the Regional Board's use of the water quality objectives established in the Basin Plan in determining effluent limitations specified in the permit; (2) limitations on the total discharge of iron and manganese, which the City contends do not properly account for the relationship between total discharge of the constituents and the dissolved concentrations of the constituents for which numeric objectives are established in the Basin Plan; ' A"point source"is"any discernible,confined and discrete conveyance"such as a pipe, ditch, channel,tunnel, conduit or well. (33 U.S.C. § 1362(14).) ' Water Quality Control Plan, Fourth Edition,for the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins. Order No.R5- 2004-0028 identifies various other laws,plans,and policies that apply to discharges under the City's permit. ' Basin Plan,Table II-1. 3.