Publications

Of the 260 fish species that occur in the Chesapeake Bay, the most sought after by both sport and commercial fisherment are the migratory species. These include "anadromous" fishes, such as striped bass, river herring,s turgeon and American and hickory shad, that spend most of their adult lives in saltier coastal waters but return each year to spawn in freshwater, as well as semi-anadromous species such as white and yellow perch. The term anadromous is taken from the Greek wirds "ana" meaning upward, and "dromos", meaning running. Another class of migratory fish are the "catadromous" species, represented in the Bay watershed by the American eel. Catadromous fish spend most of their lives in freshwater, returniing to ocean waters to spawn. Together, anadromous and catadromous species are described as diadromous, or migratory betweem saltwater and freshwater.

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The 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement contains a set of objectives and commitments for restoring and protecting the living resources of the Chesapeake Bay. The overall goal of the Living Resources section of the Agreement and its accompanying text frame the Bay-wdie, ecosystem approach for bringing back a living Chesapeake. This document respond to the following Living Resources commitment:n "by July 1988, to adopt a schedule for the development of Bay-wide resource management strategies for commercially, recreationally, and selected ecologically valuable species."

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This report's findings highlight the valuable role that point sources and agriculture play in the restoration of the Bay. The very fact that five of the six practices chosen are agricultural further underscores the costliness of poorly planned urban development in the watershed. Despite the challenges that lie ahead, the options identified in Cost-Effective Strategies for the Bay should be encouraging. Our analysis shows that significant nutrient reductions can take place with a targeted investment of public dollars. Most of the remaining reductions will be urban and these challenges will be enormous. The Commission choose to tackle this subject in a future report.

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Chesapeake Bay has been the subject intensive research on cultural eutrophication and extensive efforts to reduce nutrient inputs. In 1987 a commitment was made to reduce controllable sources of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) by 40% by the year 2000, although the causes and effect of eutrophication were incompletely known. Sibseqiemt researh, modeling, and monitoring have shown that: (i) the estuarine ecosystem had been substantiaooy altered by increased loadings of N and P of approximately 7- and 19-fold, respectively; (ii) hyposia substantially increased since the 1950s; (iii) eutrophication was the major cause of reduction in submerged vegetation; and (iv) reducing nutrient sources by 40% would improve water quality, but less than originally thought. Strong public support and political commitment have allowed the Chesapeake Bay Program to reduce nutrient inputs, particularly from point sources, by 58% for P and 28% for N. However, reduction of nonpoint sources of P and N were projectec by models to reach only 19% and 15% respectively, of controllable loadings.

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The Chesapeake Bay Atlantic Croaker and Spot Management Plan was developed under the direction of the Fisheries Management Workgroup. Staff from the Maryland Department of Natural REsources (MDNR), Tidewater Administration, fisheries Division were responsible for writing the plan and addressing comments on the draft versions. Support was provided by staff from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), fisheries Division were responsible for writing the plan and addressing comments on the draft versions. The FMPs are to be implemented by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth of Virginia, District of Columbia, Potomac River Fisheries Commission, and State of Maryland as appropriate. Inder a timetable adopted for completing management plans for several important species, the Atlantic Croaker and Spot FMP was scheduled for completion in December 1991.

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This report on new and more cost-effective strategies for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay was prepared by the policy analysis workshop at the School of Public Policy of the University of Maryland. The policy analysis workshop is a course in the master's study of an important public policy issue. This year there were ten students with undergraduate majors ranging from biology to public policy to Russian literature. The combined efforts of the students amounted to more than 750 hours, including review of the literature, meetings with experts on the Chesapeake Bay, and other methods of study. The Executive Summary presents the principal findings, conclusions and recommendation.

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The recommendations contained in this report are offered to assist you in the upcoming debate on agricultural conservation, which will be a key part of the 2007 Farm Bill reauthorization. Over 40 listening sessions, involving more than a thousand individuals and statkeholder organizations in the Chesapeake Bay six-state watershed, were held in the spring and summer of 2005. We transmit the ideas formed from those discussion as a starting point for further dialogue and refinement as you work to develop the content of the 2007 Farm Bail. We believe the extensive farmlands of the Chesapeake Bay region, draining into the largest estuary in the Chesapeake have application to the multitude of other fragile and recovering watersheds in the nation.

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This workshop was convened in response to the recognition that extremely valuable economic, wildlife and aesthetic resources have been lost during the last sveral decades as a direct result of seagrass declines thoughout our Nation's coastlines. The centrol role of seagrasses in maintaining tghe physical, chemical and biological integrity of many coastal ecosystems has been well documented (McRoy and Helfferich, 1977; Phillips and McRoy, 1980; Zieman, 1982; Phillips, 1084; Thayer, et. al., 1984; Zieman and Zieman, 1989). Seagrass habitats provide nursery and feeding grounds for fish, shellfish and wildlife, including several endangered and numerous economically valuable species. The planned objectives of the workshop were to:

1. summarize the scientific knowledge regarding the lisgh requirements of seagrasses,

2. examine the effects of modifying water transparency on the survival, distribution, abundance and growth of seagrasses, and

3. examine the capability of federal criteria and state or local water quality standards and water quality management programs to protect seagrasses from deteriorating water quality.

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The scope of this report is limited to a discussion of methods for calculating the capital and operations and maintenance (O&M) gaps for clean water and drinking water. Although the findings will inform policy discussion, this report confines itsel to estimating the gap, and it does not attempt to discuss the array of policy considerations stemmping from the results. The analysis also compared projected operations and maintenance (O&M) needs to current spending. O&M needs for both clean water and drinking water were assumed to be a function of capital stock. To estimate current O&M spending data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Census Bureau and held this level constant over the 20 year period.

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This plan proposes improved means of assessing stocks of finfish and shellfish in Chesapeake Bay. It identifies outstanding data needs for stock assessment models for Bay fisheries. Recommendations include improved ways to collect catch, effort, and biological data from commercial and recreational landings in addition to long-term surveys for estimating relative abundance of important species in all regions of the Bay Plan and its tributaries. There are recommendations in the Plan for studies of early life stages designed to examine natural and human-caused sources of mortality and to investigate biological effects of pollution, habitat loss, and disease.

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