Washington State Benchmarks

The default regulatory limits for this model are those for Washington State (i.e., "Washington State Benchmarks" selected under input 4. Benchmark preset).

Note that the freshwater and marine benchmarks for water and sediment may differ in your region. If this is the case, and you would like your own regional benchmarks to appear in the results charts and tables, please select "Custom Benchmarks" under input 4. Benchmark preset. With the "Custom Benchmarks" preset, you may adjust any or all benchmarks to ones appropriate for your region.

The following notes pertain to the default Washington State Benchmarks:

1. Acute criteria are one-hour average concentrations;
2. Chronic criteria are four day averages that are allowed once every three years;
3. Marine saltwater copper (Cu) quality criteria from, Ambient Water Quality Criteria - Saltwater Copper Addendum (DRAFT) April 14, 1995;
4. Water Quality Criteria for metals from WAC 173-201;
5. Marine Sediment Quality Criteria (SQC) for metals and PAH from WAC 173-204;
6. Freshwater SQC for metals, PAH, and Penta estimated using WDOE (2003);
7. 3.0  μg TPAH/L is a threshold below which photoenhanced PAH activity has not been observed. Users can also use the ∑TU<0.18 method of Swartz et al. (1999) by assuming that PAH are released from creosote in the proportion as they are found in expressate from treated wood;
8. SQC for Marine PAH and Freshwater Penta are organic carbon-based. Values are corrected for the model user input 31. Sediment total organic carbon (TOC).