Total Maximum Daily Load of Mercury for Cash Lake Watershed, Prince George's County, Maryland

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) has identified the waters of the MD 8-digit Patuxent River Upper watershed on the State's 2008 Integrated Report as impaired by sediments (1996), nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorus (1996), bacteria (2002 and 2008), methylmercury (MeHg) in fish tissue (Cash Lake - 2002), and impacts to biological communities (2006). A Water Quality Analysis (WQA) of eutrophication to address the nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) listing was approved by the EPA in 2007, and the watershed was delisted for bacteria in 2002 (relisted in 2008 – mainstem only from Old Queen Anne's Bridge Road to the river's confluence with the Little Patuxent River). A sediment TMDL for the MD 8-digit watershed and a bacteria TMDL for the river mainstem from Old Queen Anne's Bridge Road to the river's confluence with the Little Patuxent River are scheduled to be submitted to the EPA in 2010.