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Summary
Pages 1-12

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From page 1...
... By 2002, the states of Delaware, New York, and West Virginia committed to the CBP's water quality goals by signing a Memorandum of Understanding. In 2008, the CBP launched a series of initiatives to increase the transparency of the program and heighten its accountability, and in 2009 an executive order1 injected new energy into the Chesapeake Bay restoration.
From page 2...
... Figure 1-1 AND S-1.eps bitmap measures that would be implemented by 2025 to reach the TMDL. In addition, as part of the effort to improve the pace of progress and increase accountability in the Bay restoration, a two-year milestone strategy was introduced aimed at reducing overall pollution in the Bay by focusing on incremental, short-term commitments from each of the Bay jurisdictions.
From page 3...
... The committee was charged to assess the framework used by the states and the CBP for tracking nutrient and sediment control practices that are implemented in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and to evaluate the two-year milestone strategy. The committee was also charged to assess existing adaptive management strategies and to recommend improvements that could help the CBP to meet its nutrient and sediment reduction goals (see Box S-1)
From page 4...
... discharges, numerous issues affect the accuracy, reliability, and consistency of BMP reporting to the CBP. Only five of the seven Bay jurisdictions conduct any level of field verification of agricultural practices, and there are known problems with double counting that agencies are working to resolve.
From page 5...
... Geo-referencing enables managers and modelers to identify the parcel-level location of BMPs, which would aid in inspecting, tracking, and assigning proper delivery ratios and BMP efficiencies, thereby improving the accuracy of the modeled estimates of nutrient and sediment loads delivered to the Bay. Targeted monitoring programs in representative urban and agricultural watersheds and subwatersheds would provide valuable data to refine BMP efficiency estimates, particularly at the watershed scale, and thereby improve Watershed Model predictions.
From page 6...
... The CBP envisioned that through a series of two-year milestone periods with routine assessments of the pace of progress by 2025 the Bay jurisdictions could implement all of the nutrient and sediment control practices needed for a restored Bay, although actual Bay water quality response and recovery might lag behind the 2025 implementation target. The two-year milestone strategy commits the states to tangible, nearterm implementation goals and improves accountability and, therefore, represents an improvement upon past CBP long-term strategies.
From page 7...
... ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT Since 2008, the CBP has advocated for the use of adaptive management at both the state and federal levels as a way to enhance overall management of the program and to strengthen scientific support for decision making. The committee examined the partners' efforts to implement adaptive management and the potential barriers to and possible successful applications of adaptive management for nutrient and sediment reduction in the Bay watershed.
From page 8...
... The federal accountability framework being promoted through the TMDL and the threatened consequences for failure will dampen the Bay jurisdictions' enthusiasm for adaptive management. To support adaptive management, the EPA should modify its accountability framework and offer explicit language indicating that carefully designed management experiments with appropriate monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive actions are acceptable, and that failures resulting from genuine adaptive management efforts will not be penalized.
From page 9...
... Helping the public understand lag times and uncertainties associated with water quality improvements and developing program strategies to account for them are vital to sustaining public support for the program, especially if near-term Bay response does not meet expectations. Although the science and policy communities generally recognize the uncertainties inherent in water quality modeling, load projections, and practice effectiveness and expect that water quality successes will lag implementation, the
From page 10...
... Denmark's nutrient management program provides an alternative model that couples agricultural regulatory requirements with incentives and has resulted in large reductions in nutrient surpluses. The Chesapeake Bay Program could facilitate an analysis of the costs and potential effectiveness of various incentive-based and regulatory alternatives.
From page 11...
... Innovative funding models will be needed to address the expected costs of meeting Bay water quality goals. Targeting agricultural BMP cost-share programs is not always politically popular, but it can produce greater reductions at lower cost than will distributing resources broadly with little attention to water quality impacts.
From page 12...
... Meanwhile, given that nutrient legacy effects in the watershed will significantly delay the Bay's full water quality response to land-based BMPs, the CBP should help the public understand lag times and uncertainties and develop program strategies to better quantify them.


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