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as Its major purpose. As part of this effort, each also has 

 attempted to reduce the damage to estuaries through pollution and 

 other causes. Limited in each case to a research-coordinating 

 and recommendatory role, none of the agencies has itself been 

 able to do much about such damage. Moreover, even in the restric- 

 ted role of these agencies, their limited resources -- in money 

 and size of the staff -- have seriously handicapped their 

 effectiveness. 



Like their counterparts in the fisheries, the three interstate 

 pollution control agencies have not become significantly involved 

 in estuarine management. In the case of two -- the New England 

 Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission and the Interstate 

 Commission on the Potomac River Basin -- authority is limited to 

 support of State pollution control agencies. It also extends, in 

 the case of the first agency, over a geographic arei much larger 

 than this region's estuaries. This latter point ar>pears less 

 important in the case of the Potomac commission, because it has 

 shown special concern with the estuarine portion of the river. 

 That concern, however, has almost solely stressed the pollution 

 threat. In both of these agencies, limited financial resources 

 also have curtailed the overall contribution which they can make. 



Although concerned with what clearly are estuarine waters, the 

 authority of the Interstate Sanitation Commission extends only to 

 the control of pollution. Also, while it technically has 



