Beneficial Use Impairments (BUIs)

Beneficial Use Impairments (BUIs) are any biological or economical uses of the natural resource that has been negatively impacted by environmental degradation. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) outlines 14 BUIs as the criteria for listing AOCs.

The current status of each BUI is listed below:

	Status - Southern AOC	Status - Northern AOC
1. Restrictions on fish and wildlife consumption	Impaired	Impaired
2. Tainting of fish and wildlife flavor	Not impaired	Not impaired
3. Degradation of fish and wildlife populations	Impaired suspected, assessment needed	Impaired
4. Fish tumors or other deformities	Impaired suspected, assessment needed	Requires further assessment
5. Bird or other animal deformities or reproductive problems	Impaired	Not impaired
6. Degradation of benthos	Impaired suspected, assessment needed	Not impaired
7. Restriction on dredging activities	Not impaired	Not impaired
8. Eutrophication of undesirable algae	Not impaired	Impaired
9. Restriction on drinking water or taste and odor problems	Not impaired
10. Beach closings	Not impaired	Impaired
11. Degradation of aesthetics	Not impaired	Not impaired
13. Added costs to agriculture or industry	Not impaired	Not impaired
13. Degradation of Phytoplankton and Zooplankton Populations	Removed	Requires further assessment
14. Loss of fish and wildlife habitat	Impaired	Impaired

The goal of the Remedical Action Plan (RAP) will be reached when none of these impairments exist.

The St. Lawrence River AOC Program at the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe (SRMT) was developed in October 2010 from a competitive funding award from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) Grant GL-9722130-10. SRMT has been working diligently to make advancements on delisting targets and updating BUI statuses in the St. Lawrence River AOC, under this funding source.

On-going projects under Grant GL-9722130-10 were developed to address six (6) of the BUIs listed above. Studies are further broken down by:

Avian

Brown Bullhead Fish Tumor