Current Progress and Challenges

Current Progress:

  1. Watershed management plans are in effect to preserve natural resources and improve water quality of the Bay.
  2. Preserving lands within the watershed to control land use and management practices.
  3. Reforesting riparian buffer zones to decrease runoff by allowing the soil to reabsorb nutrients.

Office of Management and Budget: Program Assessment, 2006
White House Assessment 2006

Challenges:

  1. New York, Delaware, and West Virginia are not working with the Program to achieve these goals. There is no data available from these states.
  2. Stronger monitoring systems need to be set in place to ensure that nutrient limits are maintained at current goals (EPA 2008).
  3. Thorough planning needs to go into new development practices: the source of 1/3 of nutrients entering the bay (EPA 2007).

Forest Buffers