Publications:
ANEP Update
December
2002
FEDERAL
NEWS
On
Tuesday, December 3, 2002, five federal agencies released
a final national estuary habitat restoration strategy as required
by the Estuary Restoration Act (ERA), which became law in
November 2000. The five agencies comprise the Estuary Habitat
Restoration Council, also created under the ERA, and include
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, EPA, NOAA, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The strategy, which encourages public-private partnerships,
sets the statutorily-required goal of restoring one million
acres of habitat, and it calls on the Council to organize
and support a task force for tracking progress toward meeting
the one million acre goal.
Within two years, the Council must review data on estuaries,
including historic losses, current loss rates and the extent
of the threat of future loss or degradation. The strategy has been published in the 3 December
2002 Federal Register, Vol. 67, No. 232. To access the strategy, go to http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aces140.html
or http://www.usace.army.mil/estuary.html
NEP NEWS
Thanks
to a generous grant from the Pennsylvania Coastal Zone Management
Program the Partnership for the Delaware
Estuary is cleaning up its act with the debut of Clean
Water Theater. This spring, the Clean Water Theater troupe
of actors will be performing All Washed Up!, a 25-minute
educational and interactive musical that will introduce elementary
school students, in Philadelphia, to the concept of watersheds,
drinking water, stormwater runoff pollution, and the Delaware
Estuary. These free
performances will require participating teachers to attend
a one-day introductory workshop designed and coordinated by
the staff of Philadelphia Earth Force.
The workshop will include hands-on activities, using
"Protecting our Watershed Kits," to introduce key watershed
concepts and issues to educators participating in the Clean
Water Theater assembly program.
After experiencing Clean Water Theater, students will
take the lead and become actively involved in developing and
implementing community service projects. For more information call the Partnership at
1-800-445-4935.
Recently,
Dr. Bruce Richards (Executive Director of the Center
for the Inland Bays) traveled to Destin, Florida where
he met with city officials and engineers to observe a tidal
pumping system in use since 1995. The Destin system
is capable of pumping more than 50,000 gallons per day and
has been shown to improve flushing rates in the receiving
waters. The Board of Directors of the CIB is currently collaborating
with its state and local partners to assess these options
and other opportunities that might improve water quality in
the Inland Bays.
Last
week, the Coastal
Bays Program awarded $100,000 in funding to help its
partners conduct implementation-related water quality projects
in the coastal bays watershed. The program gave $25,000 to
the MD Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to study raphidophytes
such as chattonnela that have recently found their way into
the coastal bays. These insidious microorganisms are toxic
to shellfish and other marine organisms. Another $25,000 will
go to the University of Maryland to study macro algae blooms
and the conditions associated with them in the coastal bays.
To help establish a historical baseline for SAV in the coastal
bays, the program is funding a $21,000 study that will collect,
analyze, and digitize historical SAV photos from the bays
in the 1950's. The results will help researchers create benchmarks
for SAV recovery. In order to better understand the parameters
that create brown tide blooms, the program gave $14,000 to
Old Dominion University to study the relationship between
organic material sources and brown tide blooms in Chincoteague
Bay. Other projects which received funds included $7,000 for
a DNR shell habitat restoration project to create juvenile
clam habitat and $8,000 for the hardware needed to begin a
countywide septic monitoring program called SepTrac.
The
Narragansett
Bay Estuary Program and U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency Region 1 provided funding and technical support to
bring skill-building workshops during October-December 2002
designed especially for watershed organizations.
The Rhode Island Rivers Council hosted the series with
assistance from R.I. Sea Grant.
The Rivers Council is a state-recognized entity that
seeks to build and support local watershed councils and groups.
Rhode Island's watershed councils joined organizations from
the Massachusetts part of the Narragansett Bay watershed in
four workshops taught by the Institute for Conservation Leadership
(ICL), a nationally renowned organization specializing in
building strong conservation organizations. Participants learned
about building strong boards, maximizing the use of volunteers,
developing and fine-tuning missions, grant processes and tips
for successful proposals, and developing funding strategies
based on strong programs. The workshops also helped build
a learning network among the participants, and some excellent
collaborative initiatives will undoubtedly result.
Washington
state Puget
Sound Action Team's eighth report on the comprehensive
findings of the health of Puget Sound is now available, in
Puget Sound Update 2002.
The report combines and analyzes two years of results
from the Puget Sound Ambient Monitoring Program, which includes
detailed monitoring of the Sound's water, marine life and
sediments. Washington
state's natural resource agencies, as well as local governments
and tribes, use the data and information in the scientific
report to help make policy decisions regarding the overall
management of the Sound. For
a copy of the report visit: http://www.wa.gov/puget_sound/Publications/update_02/update_02.htm.
During
2002, the Morro
Bay National Estuary Program, through partnerships
with many of its member agencies and non-profits, participated
in the acquisition of over 600 acres of habitat and has successfully
negotiated an option for a conservation easement on another
1860 acres. In March 2002, the Trust for Public Land (TPL),
working closely with the MBNEP, purchased 580 acres in the
Chorro Valley, the main drainage emptying into Morro Bay.
The property, which will be transferred to the California
Department of Fish and Game (DFG) for a habitat preserve,
includes about 2 miles of prime riparian corridors, and large
areas of the natural floodplain that had been contained in
levees to allow farming. Also
in March the MBNEP purchased 17.8 acres of shoreline and associated
dune scrub, the largest remaining vacant, privately-held parcel
on the bay's edge. The property, which includes habitat for several
special status plants and animals, cost $1.7 million and will
be turned over to California Department of Parks and Recreation
as an addition to the existing Morro Dunes Natural Preserve.
This fall, a 40-acre addition to Morro Bay State Park's
Estuary Natural Preserve, was purchased by TPL with funding
from the Coastal Conservancy, WCB, and the Bay Foundation
of Morro Bay. This
property includes riparian corridors and freshwater wetlands,
as well as rare dune scrub habitat.
The site, which cost $1.6 million, also includes a
large archaeological site. Finally, in December, the MBNEP through the
Bay Foundation of Morro Bay reached agreement with the landowner
on an option for a conservation easement covering an 1860-acre
ranch. This property lies directly along the Morro
Bay City limits, and the easement will effectively block further
urban expansion into the watershed from the west.
The easement reduces the allowed development potential,
protects sensitive habitats, and requires the owner to prepare
and follow a ranch plan that incorporates BMPs.
This approach protects the watershed by allowing continuation
of a "working landscape" while removing the possibility of
its conversion to suburban housing-a real threat in coastal
California. The easement
has been appraised at about $2.2 million.
In sum, about 638 acres were protected this year through
in-fee purchases totaling approximately $8.3 million, and
another 1860 acres will be preserved from development through
a $2.2 million conservation easement. All these cases involved years of negotiation
and fund-raising, and would be impossible without strong partnerships
among state and local agencies, as well as national and local
non-profits.
MEETINGS
& CONFERENCES
The
Albemarle-Pamlico
NEP (NC), together with the NC Divisions of Coastal
Management, Water Quality and Land Resources, is co-sponsoring
2 contractor training workshops during the month of January
2003.
Targeted
at virtually anyone involved in earth moving activities on
a daily basis - the training program has been developed to
assist those businesses involved in land clearing activities.
The workshop is designed to give businesses the tools and
knowledge needed to continue to preserve North Carolina's
waterways from sediment damage. In order to acquire credit
for attendance, each participant must complete all 8 hours.
For more information contact Gloria Putnam, NC Coastal Non
point Source Program, (919) 733-5083, ext. 567.
The
Galveston
Bay Estuary Program will be hosting the 6th biennial
State of the Bay Symposium January 14-16, 2003. The
conference will be held at South Shore Harbour Resort and
Conference Center, League City, Texas.
The title of this year's symposium is
"The Future of the Galveston Bay Estuary: Local
Communities Leading the Way". For more details see: http://www.gbep.state.tx.us
or contact srosenbe@tceq.state.tx.us.
The
New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program will
be sponsoring two workshops in early 2003.
The first will be held in January on improving
habitat mitigation. The objective is to facilitate a productive
discussion with regulators and decision makers targeting:
perceived problems with mitigation policy and practice; regulatory
and policy constraints on changing mitigation practice; and
assessment of short and long term possibilities for change.
The
second workshop will be held in March and will focus
on volunteer monitoring. Contact
lmb55@cornell.edu.
Scientists
from universities, government agencies, tribes and consulting
firms; managers and decision-makers from natural resource
agencies; students; and citizens will learn and share at the
2003 Georgia Basin/Puget Sound Research Conference, in Vancouver,
British Columbia, from Monday, March 31, through Thursday,
April 3, 2003. Washington state's Puget
Sound Action Team, Canada's Georgia Basin Ecosystem
Initiative Partners and numerous partner organizations are
sponsoring the international research conference, which is
expected to draw 800 participants to learn about emerging,
new and on-going efforts to help ensure the sustainability
of the Georgia Basin/Puget Sound ecosystem.
To register for the conference and get more information,
visit: http://www.wa.gov/puget_sound/Publications/2003research/RC2003.htm
