Roots of the National 

 Estuary Program 



In an ongoing effort to carry out these agreements, the state 

 legislatures and the District of Columbia have appropriated money 

 to effect the program's recommendations. The federal government 

 continues to provide resources to assist in bay cleanup. The 

 Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes programs are both continued 

 under the 1 987 Water Quality Act. 



The lessons learned and the precedents set by the Chesapeake 

 and Great Lakes programs, along with federal legislation and 

 historic programs such as basin planning, helped lay the foundation 

 forthe National Estuary Program. This program employs collabora- 

 tive problem-solving approaches to balance conflicting uses while 

 restoring or maintaining the estuary's environmental quality. Fur- 

 ther, the program follows the basic problem identification, charac- 

 terization, and phased management process learned from earlier 

 efforts. 



An estuary program is woven together by 



two themes: progressive phases for 



identifying and solving problems and 



collaborative decision making. 



Through the experiences of the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and 

 other programs, EPA and program participants also learned how 

 to get results with less money. The National Estuary Program 

 encourages this by focusing on the most significant problems, 

 using existing data, emphasizing applied research, funding specifi- 

 cally targeted basic research, and employing demonstrated 

 management strategies. These techniques save both time and 

 money, but more importantly, lead to earlier corrective actions. 



In 1985, the Congress directed EPA to conduct programs in four 

 estuaries: Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, Buzzards Bay in 

 Massachusetts, Long Island Sound in New York and Connecticut, 

 and Puget Sound in Washington. In 1986, EPA added San Fran- 

 cisco Bay in California and Albemarle/Pamlico Sounds in North 

 Carolina to the program. 



The two estuaries were added in 1986 because EPA believed it 

 was appropriate to extend the program to new coastal areas. The 

 Agency also wanted to expand the types of pollution problems 

 being addressed, while making certain they were issues of national 

 concern. EPA was further persuaded by the obvious commitment 

 state and local governments and the public in these estuaries had 

 already made to pollution abatement. However, it was clear they 

 could still benefit from the expertise available through EPA's na- 

 tional program. 



The types of environmental problems the national program ad- 

 dressed were, and remain, complex. They include loss of habitat 

 and living resources, contamination of sediments by toxics, eleva- 

 tion of nutrient levels, contamination by bacteria, and depletion of 

 oxygen. These problems can affect human health through contact 

 with the water and by ingestion of contaminated shellfish and 



