The Environment Texas Research and Policy Center, an Austin-based advocacy and study group, requested compliance records covering 2005 for major dischargers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The records show how often a treatment plant exceeded its permit limits.

The report found no water quality violations in 2005 by Dallas Water Utilities, the city system that operates two plants that discharge treated wastewater into the Trinity River.

However, it listed at least one permit violation each month by the North Texas Municipal Water District, which serves areas east and northeast of Dallas, and by the cities of Seagoville in Dallas County and The Colony in Denton County. Garland, in Dallas County, went over its permit limits in seven months during 2005.

Permits are meant to protect aquatic and human life. They limit the amount of organic material, suspended material, nutrients and chemicals in wastewater, as well as the amount of water that flows through a plant in order to avoid breakdowns.

In North Texas, the most recent assessment by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, published last year, found excess bacteria in the Trinity River?EUR??,,????'?????<