Publications:
ANEP Update
January
2002
NEP
NEWS
The Barnegat
Bay Estuary Program (BBEP) boat flag (burgee), depicting
the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program logo and website address,
is now displayed on the other side of the world, in Hangzhou,
China. This past November 2001, Bob Scro, BBEP Director and
his family spent two weeks in the coastal provinces, where
they adopted their new daughter Olivia Zhi, now 23 months
old. The BBEP burgee was designed by Carla Miners, BBEP Public
Outreach Coordinator, and has been used as a successful communications
tool at local festivals and other public venues in Ocean County,
New Jersey. Anticipating a least one "boat trip" in coastal
China, Bob brought one of the burgees with him and presented
it to the boat captain, who was happy to fly it from his small
craft.
The first
annual "Get to Know Your Bay Day," sponsored by the Sarasota
Bay National Estuary Program, was a huge success! Working
in partnership with Mote Aquarium and the Sarasota Bay Explorers,
SBNEP was able to offer two-hour boat tours of Sarasota Bay
to nearly 300 area citizens. The educational boat tours, held
on September 29, 2001 as a National Estuaries Day project,
gave an up-close view of Sarasota Bay, along with some of
its rookeries and wildlife. Participants also got a free tour
of Mote Aquarium. The event was a great opportunity to get
our message about Sarasota Bay to the public in a very meaningful
way. All seats sold out weeks in advance and plans are already
in the works for next year. A wetlands restoration planting
was also held on National Estuaries Day and three Girl Scout
troops (and their moms) spent the morning assisting SBNEP
and other volunteers in replacing nuisance plants with native
species.
The Tampa
Bay Estuary Program will award nearly $62,000 to community
groups and schools to educate and involve citizens in restoring
and improving Tampa Bay. Twelve of the 26 proposals submitted
will be funded by the Estuary Program. The applications were
evaluated by a selection panel composed of members of the
Estuary Program's Community Advisory Committee. Grants were
awarded in all three Bay Area counties: Hillsborough, Manatee
and Pinellas. This year's Bay Mini-Grants are being funded
by sales of the Tampa Bay Estuary license plate. The specialty
plate, featuring a dramatic illustration of a tarpon,
was approved by the Florida Legislature in 1999 and went on
sale in the Spring of 2000, earning close to $100,000 since
then. Among the Mini-Grant recipients this year:
1) A project
to teach junior and senior high school students to assemble
and operate a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to study
life underwater in the bay.
2) A summer
camp for disadvantaged children that blends elements of art
and science with hands-on bay activities. Artwork created
by the campers will be displayed at the Tampa Museum of Art.
3) The
Global Rivers Environmental Educational Network (GREEN) classroom
program, which uses watershed educator kits to teach
youth to assess watershed health, and then implement
an environmental improvement project.
4) "Spud-Busters"
field trips to a local nature park in which schoolchildren
learn about the importance of native habitats on a nature
walk, and then help to remove invasive air potato vines.
5) Installation of
small artificial reefs by a homeowners' association along
a seawalled section of bay shoreline, to reduce erosion
of sediment from wave energy and provide marine habitat.
Maryland
Coastal Bays Program: New water quality parameters set
by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) under
the auspices of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will
help set meaningful nutrient reduction goals for parts of
the northern coastal bays. Suffering from high nutrient and
low dissolved oxygen levels from excessively developed shorelines,
Assawoman and Isle of Wight Bays have been pinpointed for
clean up under section 303(d) of the US Clean Water Act. A
total maximum daily load (TMDL) of allowable nitrogen and
phosphorous inputs is being set for parts of the northern
bays to improve water quality over time. A TMDL represents
an estimate of the maximum amount of a given pollutant that
a water body can handle in order to maintain sufficient water
quality for living resources. To achieve the goals, a combination
of voluntary commitments and regulatory procedures will be
the rule. Low-cost loans, stormwater retrofit grants, stream
restoration funding, agricultural programs, and help from
all local, state and federal partners in the Coastal Bays
Program will be responsible for meeting these goals. Across
the state, there are 130 rivers, lakes and estuaries that
are considered impaired by nutrients, sediments, toxins, acidity,
or fecal coliform.
The Morro
Bay NEP has released a new educational publication,
"The Restless Estuary - How Natural and Human Forces
Have Shaped Morro Bay." The 25-page, full color booklet
describes the geologic processes that formed Morro Bay and
the more recent human activities that have impacted the estuary's
future. The main text is accompanied by several interesting
"side bars" that discuss the Morros (a series of
volcanic plugs that decorate our local landscape), wetlands,
and a brief history of the development of the harbor, among
other topics. The booklet also reviews current restoration
efforts and will help our community understand how the MBNEP
fits into the future of Morro Bay. If you would like
a free copy, please call the MBNEP at (805) 772-3834.
The Barnegat
Bay National Estuary Program (BBEP), a federal, state,
county, municipal, private and citizen partnership centered
in Ocean County, was notified that the New Jersey Governor's
Office has approved the Comprehensive Conservation and Management
Plan (CCMP). The BBEP is in its sixth year of planning and
partnership development. The written notification was sent
to USEPA Administrator, Christie Whitman (the former Governor
of New Jersey), in Washington, D.C., and will begin a 120-day
period of final review and approval. The USEPA approval will
mark the beginning of the long-term implementation phase of
the program, to be administered by the Barnegat Bay Estuary
Program Office, within the Ocean County Planning Department.
An Approval ceremony is anticipated in the spring 2002.
Local teacher takes Maryland Coastal Bays from Turkey
to Japan: Japan received a taste of the coastal bays last
month when Stephen Decatur Middle School teacher Pat Chambers went
there to show off her Coastal Bays-funded project. Last year
the seventh grade science teacher won a poster contest in
Antalya, Turkey after using a poster she and her students
made to show the results of their $10,000 coastal bays seagrass
study. The work, aided by Horn Point's Dr. Laura Murray, correlated
growth of seagrasses and water quality by mimicking the growth
of algae on seagrasses in each of the four main coastal bays.
Chambers continued her seagrass and water quality monitoring
with students this summer when she was invited to participate
in the EMECS international environmental conference this November
in Kobe, Japan. While in Turkey, several Japanese scientists
were impressed with the coastal bays research and the concept
of coupling research science with education. This year the
EMECS conference introduced, for the first time, an Environmental
Education Fair. Chambers and Georgia Dendrinos, who teaches
in Baltimore City, were in charge of a Maryland Coastal Bays
booth at the conference. They also discussed and took
information on the National Estuary Program.
CONFERENCES/MEETINGS
ANEP/NEP/EPA
Joint Spring 2002 Meeting - The Association of National
Estuary Programs (ANEP), National Estuary Programs (NEP),
and the Coastal Management Branch of the EPA will hold their
spring 2002 joint meeting on March 10 - 14, 2002 in Washington
D.C. For registration information please e-mail drvolk@erols.com.
The Long
Island Sound Study is sponsoring the 12th Annual
Long Island Sound Summit, Environmental Stewardship in
Your Community and Your Backyard on Saturday, April 6,
2002 at the New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York. The
summit will feature keynote speaker, author, James Howard
Kunstler. The day-long summit will focus on protecting open
spaces, sustainable communities, sound gardening and native
plantings, and new and retrofit household practices. Field
demonstrations on the Garden grounds will provide attendees
with tried and true methods easily adaptable to house and
gardens.
This Autumn,
the New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program Habitat
Workgroup will sponsor a two-day National Estuary Program
conference focusing on ecological sustainability, research,
restoration and habitat protection at the American Museum
of Natural History. This conference will include representatives
from other Estuary Programs to share program innovations that
focus on land acquisition, restoration and monitoring and
preservation around the country. It will provide a venue to
compare the successes and challenges of reaching ultimate
goals of ecological protection, restoration, and ecosystem
health. Many topics covered in the NY/NJ HEP HWG 2001 Status
Report will be part of the conference's agenda. They will
review:
- habitat
restoration, monitoring and research progress, funding and
practice
- parklands'
acquisition methodologies and cost-effective alternatives
to land conservation
- zoning
mechanisms and creative programs for habitat protection
- methods
of quantifying the economic value of wetlands
- different
types of creative landscape buffers and their significance
Additional
ideas for sessions and speakers are encouraged from all interested
parties. If participating organizations are interested, affordable,
conveniently located, overnight accommodations may be available
through Columbia University Housing. Please contact Marc A.
Matsil, Chief of NYC Parks /Natural Resources Group at (212)
360-1417; raptor@parks.nyc.gov
or Robert Nyman, HEP Director, US EPA Region II at (212)
637-3809; nyman.robert@epa.gov
for questions and comments
