Texas Administrative Code
Title 31 - NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION
Part 17 - TEXAS STATE SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION BOARD
Chapter 523 - AGRICULTURAL AND SILVICULTURAL WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Section 523.1 - Scope and Jurisdiction

(1) Nonpoint source pollution is pollution caused by diffuse sources that are not regulated as point sources and normally is associated with, but is not limited to agricultural, silvicultural, and urban runoff including construction activities. Such pollution is the result of human-made or human-induced alteration of the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological integrity of water. In practical terms nonpoint source pollution does not result from a discharge at a specific, single location (such as a single pipe) but generally results from land runoff, precipitation, atmospheric deposition, or percolation. Pollution from nonpoint sources occurs when the rate at which pollutant materials entering water bodies or groundwater exceeds natural rates or total loadings exceed natural loadings.

(2) Agriculture includes, but is not limited to, the following activities: cultivating the soil; producing crops for human food, animal feed, planting seed, or fiber; floriculture; viticulture; horticulture; aquaculture; raising or keeping livestock or poultry; and planting cover crops or leaving land idle for the purpose of participating in any governmental program or normal crop or livestock rotation procedure.

(3) Silviculture includes, but is not limited to, the following activities: practices to establish, nurture, protect, and enhance the desired growth of trees for human and/or wildlife benefit; natural or planted afforestation; the propagation and culture of tree seedlings, tree saplings, and Christmas trees; controlling, suppressing, or culling unwanted woody or herbaceous vegetation in a forested area; establishing and/or maintaining strips or belts of trees for purposes of providing wildlife habitat, wind breaks, or riparian buffers; construction and maintenance of roads and fire lanes; practices and operations that facilitate the harvesting, handling, and removing timber products from a site where they were grown.

(1) a water quality management plan certification program required by Agriculture Code § 201.026(g);

(2) a nonpoint source grant program funded by §319(h) of the federal Clean Water Act, as well as available non-federal appropriations provided by the Texas Legislature, to initiate planning, assessment, education, demonstration, research, or implementation projects and programs associated with the effective administration of the Texas Nonpoint Source Management Program;

(3) a total maximum daily load program in cooperation with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and as required by §303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act; the State Board may enter into an agreement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regarding the effective coordination of agricultural and silvicultural nonpoint source pollution components of total maximum daily loads and total maximum daily load implementation plans; and;

(4) a coastal nonpoint source pollution control program as required by §6217 of the Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments of 1990 in cooperation with the Coastal Coordination Council and the Texas Coastal Management Program as required by Natural Resources Code § 33.052.