Publications:
ANEP Update
September
2002
NEP
NEWS
For
the last two years the Casco Bay Estuary Project has
been working with a diverse group of 17 stakeholders ranging
from the paper industry to environmental advocacy groups to
develop a management plan for the Presumpscot River.
In 2000, historic pulping operations ceased, dramatically
improving both air and water quality, and the State of Maine
decided to purchase and remove Smelt Hill dam, 1 of 9 dams
on the river. These events present both an important
opportunity for restoration of anadromous fish runs and a
potential threat of increased development in the river's watershed.
The collaborative decision-making process being used to develop
the management plan emphasizes: (1) credible information and
analyses as a basis for informed decisions; (2) an open public
process and collaboration among stakeholders; and (3) a search
for creative win/win solutions that ideally serve all the
interests involved or, at least, balance competing interests.
Fact sheets and draft white papers were recently released
for public review and can be found on the CBEP website at
www.cascobayestuary.org.
The
Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program has produced
a 2003 calendar of the Indian River Lagoon - a pictorial tour
of the lagoon by local photographers - to celebrate National
Estuaries Day in October. 2002. The photos included
in the calendar were chosen during a photo contest held by
the Program in early 2002. The calendar will be used
as an education/outreach tool, with each month's layout including
an interesting lagoon fact, information and web site addresses
to learn additional information about the lagoon. Limited
copies of the calendar will be available at the ANEP/NEP/EPA
Fall meeting to be held in Ocean City.
The
Maryland Coastal Bays Program and the Town of Ocean
City co-sponsored the first of several free monthly Pollution
Prevention Workshops Monday, Sept. 9, 2002 in Ocean City.
The workshops enable businesses and individuals to become
"Pollution Prevention Certified," and thereby advertise their
environmental friendliness to consumers. The Coastal Bays
Program designed the Pollution Prevention workshops to target
businesses in Worcester County that put non-stormwater discharge
into the environment. The purpose of the workshops was to educate
the businesses, employees, and the interested public on the
best management practices that they can take to reduce the
impacts their non-stormwater discharges have on water quality.
This certification not only can be used as a marketing
tool, but will also provide businesses with advertising on
the Town of Ocean City website and newsletter acknowledgement.
For more information please contact Gail P. Blazer, Environmental
Engineer at (410)-289-8825 or email at gblazer@ococean.com.
The
Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority and the Trust
for Public Land (TPL) announced that the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency will fund a Source Water Stewardship pilot
project (one of four selected in the nation) to protect and
improve the water quality of the Metedeconk River Watershed,
which provides drinking water to approximately 100,000 people
in Ocean County, NJ and supplies the Authority with 74 percent
of its raw water supply. The Barnegat Bay Estuary Program
(BBEP), administered by the Ocean County Planning Department,
has been working in partnership with the Brick MUA for several
years on this important initiative, which is a priority issue
in the BBEP's CCMP. With funding from the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and in conjunction with other partners, the Brick
MUA will work with a committee of local government representatives,
water suppliers, the BBEP, local conservation groups and Brick
Township in an innovative approach to helping communities
move from planning and analysis to on-the-ground implementation
of drinking water protection strategies. The EPA funded the
projects to demonstrate the use of land conservation and forest
management practices as innovative and sustainable approaches
to drinking water protection that will result in unique approaches
that can be transferred to other communities around the country.
This
summer, a group of about 15 elected officials and staff from
a county in western Denmark, Ringkjoebing County, visited
Washington's Puget Sound to learn about environmental management
from the Puget Sound Action Team and other organizations.
The stop-off in Puget Sound rounded-out the technical
and environmental committee of the Ringkjoebing County Council's
week-long tour where the representatives studied coastal management
and other issues throughout the western United States.
In Puget Sound the Danes learned about the various
challenges of managing Puget Sound. The exchange program focused on the Ambient
Monitoring Program-a coordinated management effort across
multiple levels of government; efforts to balance environmental,
economic and social concerns of shellfish aquaculture; and
the development and operation of port facilities. The Action Team also learned from the Danes
during this truly cultural-sharing experience.
The
Association of National Estuary Programs (ANEP) is
working with the Teaching Learning Network to produce a half-hour
PBS documentary featuring four National Estuary Programs:
Narragansett Bay NEP, Maryland Coastal Bays NEP, Mobile
Bay NEP, and Puget Sound NEP. The film crews began filming in Mobile Bay
on September 22 and will continue on to the other locations
through October 12, 2002.
For more information contact Dawn Volk, ANEP, at drvolk@erols.com.
In
September 2002, 650,000 copies of the 2002 State of the Delaware
Estuary Report were distributed, via 16 newspapers, throughout
the Delaware Estuary region.
The report, a major initiative of the Delaware Estuary
Program, presents the most recent scientific data available
that measures the environmental health of the Delaware Estuary.
This 20-page, full-color educational piece, answers
many of the public's questions about the Estuary.
Is the water quality improving in the Delaware Estuary? Are depleted fish and wildlife populations improving? It contains information regarding horseshoe
crab populations, the status of the Estuary's wetlands, the
recovery of the bald eagle, and much more. For a free copy
contact the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary at
1-800-445-4935.
The
New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium, with the recommendation
of the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program (BBEP), has been
awarded a grant from the USEPA to use the Coastal 2000 dataset
for "NJ Bays", now in its third year, to develop
a preliminary index for detecting anthropogenically induced
changes in the benthic and nekton assemblages of the Barnegat
Bay-Little Egg Harbor estuarine complex. The predictive capabilities
and robustness of two different models will be compared for
both nekton and benthic assemblages independently for Barnegat
Bay-Little Egg Harbor. The proposal focuses on developing
an Index of Biological Integrity-an indicator of ecological
health for Barnegat Bay based on the National Coastal Assessment
work EPA is doing in the Bay. The USEPA does not currently
have such an indicator, and if successful, EPA could then
use the indicator for other mid-Atlantic NEPs.
MEETINGS
& CONFERENCES
Mark your
calendars for the Technology Transfer Conference: "Emerging
Technologies, Tools, and Techniques To Manage Our Coasts in
the 21st Century". This
important Technology Transfer conference is sponsored by the
U.S. EPA Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds in the
Oceans and Coastal Protection Division, and will be held January
28-31, 2003, at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Cocoa Beach, Florida.
For more information please see: http://www.tech-transfer-conference.com
The ANEP/NEP/EPA National Meeting, co-sponsored by
the Maryland Coastal Bays Program and Delaware Inland Bays
Program, will be held in Ocean City, MD on October 15
- 19, 2002. For the
agenda, registration form, and other meeting information see
www.anep-usa.org
The Massachusetts Bays NEP, in conjunction with the
Northeast Region National Estuary Programs, will sponsor a
conference entitled, "Eyes on the Estuaries, Detecting
and Preventing Marine Invasive Species in the Northeast",
on November 14-15, 2002 at the New England Aquarium in Boston.
During this conference participants will hear about the current
status of marine invasive species in the Northeast and the
efforts underway to control their introduction.
For more information and to download the registration
form, click on "What's New" on our website, www.mass.gov/envir/massbays. Contact Shannon Weigle, Program Coordinator,
with questions at 617/626-1229 or shannon.weigle@state.ma.us.
