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This program, which received $5 million this year in emergency 

 supplemental funds, is a key element of the Service's effort to 

 achieve the Administration's flood-control and ecosystem 

 restoration objectives in the Midwest. 



Our Coastal Ecosystems Program integrates Service capabilities, 

 promotes ecosystem-based policies, seeks partnerships to carry 

 out on-the-ground projects, and serves to catalyze public action 

 to solve problems in the Nation's most significant coascal 

 watersheds. This program began in 1985 with efforts in the 

 Chesapeake Bay and has grown to include nine high priority 

 estuarine and coastal systems nation-wide. Positive results in 

 habitat and fishery restoration efforts in the Bay includes the 

 announcement by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission 

 that the Atlantic coastal stock of striped bass is now restored. 

 This restoration was a result of a concerted effort by State and 

 federal agencies to rebuild the stock. 



Through the Coastal program we have worked with other Federal, 

 State, and local partners to reopen more than two hundred miles 

 of coastal stream habitat to anadromous fish passage, restoring 

 access to former spawning grounds that had been closed for years. 

 The program has worked with EPA and other partners to improve 

 estuarine water quality, with the resultant expansion of 

 submerged aquatic vegetation, a key indicator of environmental 

 quality, as well as an important habitat for many bottom-dwelling 



