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The North Coast Regional Board has conducted numerous studies over the last ten years to justify widespread new regulations to control pathogens in the Russian River and its major tributaries.  About 20 years ago, legislation known as AB 885 triggered this activity, although Russian River septic systems had long been blamed by upstream neighbors for polluting the Russian River. While several other sources of bacterial pollution were acknowledged in the Regional Board’s 350+ page TMDL Report, most of the document focused on septic systems as having the greatest need for remediation.