Join the collaborative effort to protect Washington's waters

Clean and cool water is essential for healthy communities and thriving ecosystems, and we all have a part to play in keeping Washington’s waters clean and cool! To help guide our efforts to address widespread sources of nonpoint water pollution, Ecology is updating Washington’s Water Quality Management Plan to Control Nonpoint Sources of Pollution (Nonpoint Plan) and we invite you to be involved.
 

What is nonpoint source pollution?

Nonpoint pollution doesn’t come from a single pipe or facility. Instead, it comes from many sources across the landscape, like runoff from agricultural fields and parking lots, animal waste, forestry operations, and leaky septic systems. These sources can contribute to harmful levels of bacteria, nutrients, chemicals, and even high water temperatures in our streams, rivers, lakes, and coastal waters.

Nonpoint pollution is a leading cause of water quality issues in Washington – and addressing it requires a coordinated, statewide effort. Learn more about nonpoint pollution and the solutions on our nonpoint webpage.
 

Washington's plan to address nonpoint pollution

The Nonpoint Plan is Washington’s roadmap for reducing nonpoint source pollution. While Ecology is responsible for the Nonpoint Plan, it encompasses collective strategies and partnerships to get clean water solutions on the ground. The Nonpoint Plan provides an overview of nonpoint pollution sources, details the regulatory framework in Washington state, outlines the strategies for addressing pollution sources, provides information on financial incentive programs, and discusses the vital partnerships that exist throughout the state related to this work.

We update the Nonpoint Plan to reflect and guide statewide efforts to address nonpoint pollution. Updating the plan is also necessary to stay eligible for federal funding that we and our partners rely on to implement practices that support both water quality and communities.

“We look to empower our water quality allies through helping partners access funding to incentivize and implement the necessary improvements on the ground. Collaboration with partners in the watershed is critical if we hope to achieve the big improvements we collectively desire,” says Chad Atkins, Ecology’s Watershed Planning Unit Supervisor for Eastern Washington.

During the years covered by the previous plan (2022-2025), Ecology awarded conservation districts $9.4 million, nonprofits $900,000, and Tribes $167,000 to implement practices that address nonpoint pollution and improve the health of the Hangman watershed. Funding programs and partnerships support clean water solutions in the Hangman and all over the state.
 

From 2022 – 2025, our Nonpoint Program provided funding to local partners in watersheds across Washington to improve water quality. Statewide, we supported:

• Over 915 acres of riparian planting,
• 43,555 feet of livestock exclusion fencing,
• 6,301 acres of conservation tillage residue management, and
• 545 septic repair/replacement projects.

 

With this plan update, we remain committed to assisting our partners in accessing the financial tools needed to support both landowners and the health of our waterways.

“While Ecology is a major funding source to protect that state’s waters, other state, federal and Tribal partners are integral in bringing this plan to life,” said Ecology’s Eastern Region Director Brook Beeler, “We couldn’t make progress without our partners and their programs that get projects on the ground in local watersheds.”

 

Guidance to implement site-specific solutions 

Along with the Nonpoint Plan, we are also working on the Voluntary Clean Water Guidance for Agriculture (Clean Water Guidance). This guidance is a technical resource for producers that provides site-specific best management practices (BMPs) to support both water quality and healthy farms. When complete, there will be 13 chapters; five are finished and we will submit the remaining eight chapters to EPA by Dec. 31, 2025. We will post draft chapters on our webpage for early preview as they become available and hold a public comment period later this year. 

2025 Nonpoint Plan update

To ensure the Nonpoint Plan accurately represents our collective strategies, Ecology updates the plan regularly with support from state and local partners. Over the past year, we coordinated and received feedback from partner state agencies, local on-the-ground implementation groups, and Tribes who we work alongside every day to address nonpoint pollution across Washington.

 

We invite your comments

We want to hear from you, too! We are accepting comments from May 22 at 12 a.m. until Aug. 29, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. You can review the draft Nonpoint Plan, along with the accompanying reading guide, on the plan webpage. We recommend reviewing the reading guide before you dive into the Plan itself as it is designed to help readers with this round of updates and provides a high-level overview of content.

Comments on the draft plan can be submitted online or by mail as described below:

• Submit comments online through the 2025 Nonpoint Plan Comment Form.
• Submit comments by mail to:
  Kathryn Loy
  WA State Department of Ecology
  P.O. Box 47696
  Olympia, WA 98504-7696

 

Upcoming webinar

We are hosting a webinar on June 11, 2025, from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. At the webinar, we will discuss our process and share an overview of updates made to the plan. While there will be time for questions, because this is not a formal hearing, we will not be taking oral testimony and encourage comments be submitted through mail or online.

Register in advance on Zoom.

 

Next steps

After the close of the public comment period, we will prepare a response to comments and describe any changes to the draft plan. We will submit the 2025 Nonpoint Plan update to EPA by Dec. 31, 2025.

 

More information

To learn more about our work and Nonpoint Plan, visit our webpage.

Please email nonpoint@ecy.wa.gov with questions or contact Hannah Coe, Nonpoint Policy Lead, directly at hannah.coe@ecy.wa.gov or 360-918-4958.