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About ANEP

The Association of National Estuary Programs (ANEP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting responsible stewardship and a
ANEP: The 28 NEPs
Map of the 28 NEPs | Click Here
common vision for the preservation and restoration of our nation's bays and estuaries.  Established in 1987 by amendments to the Clean Water Act to "identify, restore, and protect nationally significant estuaries of the United States," ANEP works with the 28 National Estuary Programs (NEPs) around the country to coordinate the national agenda and to achieve support and communication among them.

The ANEP is a trade association comprised of these 28 NEPs. It supports the local programs and serves as a unified voice for issues affecting them and the nations' estuaries. This voluntary, community based, watershed program focuses not just on improving water quality in an estuary, but on maintaining the integrity of the whole system-its chemical, physical, and biological properties, as well as its economic, recreational, and aesthetic values.

For more on ANEP ...

- ANEP Policy Statement | Click Here

- ANEP Fact Sheet | PDF

- ANEP Fact Card | PDF

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The Association implements its national agenda by educating coastal constituents and decision-makers about estuarine issues and successful citizen efforts nationwide. Members include interested citizens, recreational users, business owners, industry representatives, commercial fishermen, farmers, local government representatives, scientists, policy makers, and agency staff involved in NEPs nationwide.

In particular, the programs have identified a need to carry over the strong public/private partnerships created during the development of the management plans into the long-term implementation stage as a means to ensure that agreed-upon actions are carried out, change in the estuaries are monitored, and actions are redirected, as needed. It is also recognized that the exchange of information among the NEPs about approaches to resolving environmental and programmatic issues has proven valuable to all the programs, and a mechanism for more effective intercommunication is needed. Through ANEP, communication has increased among the NEPs and with the larger resource management community in order to share the expertise and practical experience gained in the NEPs.


ANEP Accomplishments:

ANEP.

  1. was a leader in the successful campaign (FY00) to have President Clinton sign S. 835. This critical legislation commits federal dollars to restore a million acres of estuary habitat and ensures the continued survival of the National Estuary Program. The Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000 authorizes a total of $275 million over the next 5 years for matching funds for local restoration projects and also designates an additional $35 million per year for the next four years to support the National Estuary Program (NEP). The bill also clarifies that NEP funds may be used to carry out existing, locally-crafted conservation and management plans (CCMPs) for the 28 NEPs across the U.S.

  2. was a leader in the only organized drive towards reauthorization of the Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 320

  3. was a leader in the $1 million extra appropriation (FY98), reversing a previously declining EPA budget request
  4. produced the Citizens Report to the Nation, a compilation of all 28 NEPs and summaries of each program. Fact cards have also been generated for each of the nationally designated estuaries.

  5. produced a series of Technology Transfer modules of scientific and management issues of concern to the 28 NEPs

  6. designs and maintains an ANEP website

  7. produces a monthly update of the 28 NEPs' activities and distributes it to all 28 NEPs and interested citizens around the country.


Through the National Estuary Program, many environmental problems are being solved.  Funding has made these and other NEP success stories a reality:

  • The Massachusetts Bays Program led an interagency approach to shellfish bed restoration that will restore and protect 13 shellfish beds along Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays.  As part of this effort, the program has linked up with business interests to promote innovative technologies for pollution prevention and remediation.

  • Through the work of the Barnegat Bay NEP, more than 32,000 acres of critical habitat area have been preserved in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey.

  • Over 40,000 acres of impounded marsh and mangrove wetlands have been reconnected to the Indian River Lagoon on Florida's eastern coast, one of the most U.S. productive ecosystems in an area with high population growth and human pressures.  On the Gulf Coast, the Sarasota NEP has helped achieve a 28-38 percent reduction in nitrogen loadings to the Bay, spurring a seven percent increase.

  • Both the programs in Coastal Bend and Bays, Texas and Tampa Bay, Florida are developing long-term dredged material management plans to provide environmental protection and to maximize beneficial uses of dredged materials.

  • The San Juan National Estuary Program is reducing the number of unauthorized raw sewage discharges from boater pump out stations and the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program played a seminal role in having the entire bay and the State's coastal waters designated a No Discharge Zone (the first large estuary to achieve that designation).

  • Maine's Casco Bay Estuary Program teamed up with local lobstermen to study habitat in Portland Harbor (discovering that the harbor supported a thriving lobster community, larger than anyone had thought) and then to relocate thousands of harbor lobsters to other areas while the harbor was dredged thereby protecting an important natural resource while supporting the increased economic development that the dredging allowed. 

  • The New York/New Jersey Harbor NEP, through its Habitat Workgroup, has prioritized and produced GIS coverage of habitat sites targeted for restoration and acquisition by the two states.  This process has already resulted in the funding several millions of dollars worth of restoration projects.  The data is being used to identify not just potential sites, but also other factors that can impair restoration such as erosion problems and incompatible land uses.

  • The San Francisco Estuary Project has partnered with local commissions to provide 25 educational workshops for 1400 developers, contractors and local officials.  This training and information has resulted in improved compliance with erosion and sediment control requirements in the Bay area - increasing from 30-40 percent in the early 1990s to 90 percent in 1998.

  • The Long Island Sound NEP has been an instrumental force in developing the scientific data that has resulted in the ongoing and planned upgrades of sewage treatment plants (at a cost of $8 billion) to reduce nitrogen loading to the Sound leading to improved levels of dissolved oxygen that better support marine life.

  • In Mobile Bay, NEP, the local Estuary Program responded to community concern over introduced species from ship ballast water by creating a cooperative project with the U.S. Coast Guard to check ship logs for compliance with voluntary maritime ballast exchange policies.

  • 700 acres of Florida upland habitat were restored through the removal of exotic plant species and restoration of natural hydrology in a partnership effort led by the Charlotte Harbor NEP.

  • On November 6, 1998, the Seabrook Middle Ground clam flat in coastal New Hampshire was reopened to clamming for the first time in nearly 10 years due to work coordinated by the New Hampshire NEP. The reopening points to marked water quality improvements in the Harbor largely due to increased municipal sewerage coverage in the Town of Seabrook and other smaller scale pollution control measures around the Harbor.