Over 120 individuals and experts met in Hunt Valley, MD on October 5 and 6 to discuss opportunities to enhance agricultural conservation by implementing best management practices in the upcoming state watershed implementation plans (WIPs). The conference brought together agricultural experts from inside and outside the watershed who discussed specific best management practices and agricultural conservation techniques that could reduce nutrient loads to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Speakers discussed managing nitrogen, phosphorus, dairy feed, ammonia and manure to reduce nutrient runoff from agricultural lands. Participants discussed which techniques were most likely ready for implementation and acceptance by both policy makers and individual producers. The steering committee is currently summarizing the results of these discussions in a conference report that will be given to the EPA and states following its completion. You can view speakers’ presentations via the links below.

Since EPA treats urban stormwater as a point source, urban stormwater programs are generally subject to an “MS4” (municipal separate storm sewer system) permit. MS4 permit conditions are being increasingly driven by the Bay TMDL and the related WIPs. The Bay TMDL is to be completed by December 2010. The states and the District of Columbia will complete the Phase I WIPs by November 2010 and the Phase II WIPs by November 2011. The TMDL will include waste load allocations for regulated stormwater programs. The Phase II WIPs will include county-level load targets which are anticipated to be reflected in MS4 permits. The workshop brought stormwater experts from exemplary local and national stormwater programs to interact with participants and help them plan for the impending Bay TMDL related requirements.

The Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee and the Water Quality Goal Implementation Team are sponsoring a series of two workshops to provide a forum for the evaluation of pasture and livestock exclusion practices, current implementation, and existing programs throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The workshops will produce science-based effectiveness estimates for these practices for the Chesapeake Bay Program modeling efforts, as well as to test a draft protocol for the development, review, and incorporation of new and existing best management practices (BMPs) for the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership. The first workshop (October 27-28, 2009) will convene a science panel to develop draft practice definitions and model effectiveness values for initial model placeholders. A second follow-up workshop (date to be determined) will finalize a recommendation report for consideration by the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership using the draft evaluation protocol.

A small group of Chesapeake Bay regional experts on sediments, water clarity, and SAV, along with CBP modelers and managers, met at the Doubletree Hotel in Annapolis, MD for 1.5 days on May 28-29, 2009.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Chesapeake Bay Program Water Quality and Sediment Transport Model (WQSTM) suspended sediment, water clarity, and SAV predictions from scenarios run to date, in the context of available data and understanding. The vetted scenarios, results, and recommended course corrections will help keep the CBP on track towards the goal of making defensible recommendations for tidal sediment allocations by 2010. It also will help to identify areas in which additional or alternate information should be used for TMDL development.

STAC and members of the research community have made substantial investments of time and energy in the development of actionable recommendations and plans for addressing climate change. The “ball” has been passed to the Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners for action, and the Committee watching closely for signs of implementation action. STAC can play a key role in tracking their progress and motivating them to accelerate and expand their implementation efforts.

The breadth of the implications of climate change for the Bay watershed means that action from the Bay Program and its partners would have far-reaching consequences. Conversely, continued in action has the potential to undermine an equally broad range of protection and restoration activities.

Outcomes from this workshop and subsequent workgroup meetings will provide the Bay Program and the partners with a summary of relevant recommendations and a framework for assessing progress over time. It will also serve as a “point of departure” in a transition between a focus on assessment to a new emphasis

In the spring of 2009, STAC sponsored two workshops to derive a short list of comparable field monitoring and assessment approaches to assure quantifiable, comparable responses in the NRCS managed basins under Farm Bill implementation. The workshops addressed:

• Developing criteria to select small watersheds for enhanced monitoring and assessment of the relation between implementation of management actions and water-quality response.
• Recommend optimal approaches for several types of monitoring needed in small watersheds: land-use activities, implementation of practices, and water-quality monitoring.
• Present ideas for enhanced assessment of the monitoring information in the small watersheds and how to transfer the results.

The accumulation of toxics in fish has remained one of the key drivers of Chesapeake Bay water quality impairment. The Chesapeake 2000 Toxics Strategy, as part of the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement, was developed to establish a set of goals and guidelines to improve water quality through toxics reductions. While it places particular emphasis on the need for effective toxics monitoring, assessment, and research programs around the region, little is known of what efforts have been put forth to drive these goals forward.

The STAC/NOAA funded workshop provided a forum for regional, national, and international researchers, modelers, and regional state agency representatives to assess and evaluate current monitoring and modeling programs for reducing one of the Chesapeake Bay’s more persistent, bioaccumulative toxins: Mercury. Experts put forth recommendations to better coordinate existing mercury monitoring programs and to address current management needs. In addition, workshop participants outlined initial steps for developing the first ecosystem based model for mercury accumulation in the Chesapeake Bay region. A summary of the workshop and its recommendations will be available in a STAC brochure shortly.

In order to better understand how fertilizer runoff is affecting the health of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, scientists must first be able track its usage back to the stores and distributors. However, as it turns out, each state collects this data differently, making it virtually impossible to compare how and in what quantities each state uses its fertilizer. Additionally, the states’ individual fertilizer accounting systems, originally designed to separate fertilizer sales into taxable and non-taxable fractions, often lend to double counting and miscounts all together. Subsequently, even the best available data is deemed as unreliable data sources for modeling nutrient flows to the Bay.

STAC and the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Nutrient Subcommittee co-hosted a workshop in May 2007 aimed to initiate a discussion that would address some of the key concerns with current state fertilizer accounting systems and provide recommendations for syncing state collection methods. A detailed summary of the workshop discussion and recommendations can be found in the workshop proceedings report. Links to the workshop presentations are also available for download on the workshop webpage. These initial collaborative steps will serve well in the Bay Program’s current and future efforts to improve Chesapeake Bay water quality.

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) experts both from within and outside the watershed exchanged a wealth of research and experiential findings regarding the reproductive ecology of Chesapeake Bay SAV species and its application to restoration science. Presentation and discussion sessions generated substantial information for a forthcoming proceedings document, while also revealing many areas of continuing research needs.

Most wetland projects in the Chesapeake watershed involve enhancement of existing wetland acreage, raising the question of whether wetlands that are enhanced in function are better able to retain nutrients and sediments than degraded wetlands, and if so, to what extent these projects should be credited toward implementation of State Tributary Strategies. The objective of this organized session is to determine if a scientific foundation exists to quantify the beneficial effects of wetland enhancement on nutrient and sediment processes. The anticipated outcome of the session is a summary matrix of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment removal rate results normalized for wetland class, drainage area, residence time, flow rate, physiographic region, etc. Specific questions to be addressed during the session include:

• What are the relationships between wetland enhancement, geomorphology, sediment flux, and nutrient removal?
• What is the influence of terrestrial and in-stream carbon contributions on the de-nitrification process?
• What are the relative contributions of valley and upland sources of sediment to total watershed yield?
• How does nutrient processing change with wetland class and function?

To address the GAO’s request for the implementation of an integrated assessment approach and an improved reporting approach, the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) has focused on revising its environmental indicators to address four key areas of concern: 1) bay and watershed “stressors,” (2) restoration activities, (3) the health of the bay, and (4) the health of the watershed. The CBP successfully targeted indicator development for areas 1-3, but continues to lack adequate science-based indicators for assessing the health of the watershed.

On February 20, 2007, STAC and the CBP Monitoring and Analysis Subcommittee teamed up to host a workshop to address these needs. 30 plus regional experts were convened to identify watershed indicators and associated stressors for three principle topics: water quality, habitat, and living resources. Recommendations, which are summarized in the workshop report, provide direction on the types of environmental indicators that should be used to assess the health of the Bay watershed, and indication of critical information gaps and monitoring needed to produce these indicators.

The workshop’s efforts will prove beneficial as the CBP subcommittees begin development of appropriate environmental indicators for the health of the watershed. Additionally, recommendations will provide necessary guidance for developing priorities for additional research, studies, and changes to existing monitoring networks.

The goal of the workshop was to improve understanding and ability to anticipate and interpret timing and trajectories of complex non-linear ecosystem responses to nutrient load reductions and other management actions in Chesapeake Bay. Workshop discussions ranged from analysis of theoretical models of ecosystem dynamics to real-world examples in which evidence of ecological thresholds and feedback interactions have been documented and quantified in aquatic environments. The ultimate goal of this workshop was to understand how these ecological relationships may affect the timing, sequence and spatial patterns by which water quality, habitat conditions and living resources are likely to change in response to management actions such as decreased nutrient loading. Furthermore, the workshop addressed the question of how to identify approaching incipient thresholds that could lead to abrupt ecological change (“tipping points”) by using some combinations of model and monitoring data analysis.

A “sedimentshed” is a concept used to determine sediment sources affecting the water clarity of near-shore submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) grow zones of the Chesapeake Bay. Decreases in water clarity due to massive sediment input from the surrounding watershed and sediment resuspension has had a direct impact on the health of SAV beds, and in turn on the health of aquatic life. In 2006, the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Sediment Workgroup began developing an introductory report on “sedimentsheds” (see Workshop Webpage to access the report) in hopes that identifying both the spatial location and categorical components of sediment sources would ensure the use of efficient and effective management strategies for attaining water clarity goals.

The STAC funded workshop, held in January 2007, provided a forum for the Sediment Workgroup to share a draft of the Sedimentshed Report with watershed-wide expertise for review and comments. The group was also able to collect invaluable insight on sediment, and its impacts on water clarity and SAV health. One of the most surprising conclusions from the workshop was the importance of understanding the effects of different sediment types in different ecosystems. For example, while previously perceived as damaging, sand plays an essential role in maintaining healthy SAV beds; reducing sand sources many cause more harm than good.

The workshop’s purpose was to help the Chesapeake Bay Program determine if there is sufficient scientific foundation to quantify the beneficial effects of stream protection/restoration on nutrient and sediment processes. It is widely recognized that there is a growing need to better credit stream restoration actions for various purposes, including use in the Chesapeake Bay watershed model. In fact, the existing Chesapeake Bay Program watershed model’s efficiency number for stream restoration is based on a single study site with limited data. Panelists were asked to address questions such as how their research helps to determine a scientific foundation to quantify the beneficial effects of stream protection/restoration on nutrient and sediment processes, to provide specific recommendations for efficiencies for stream restoration practices, and if the consensus is that there is insufficient science for a specific efficiency recommendation, is there a surrogate (interim) efficiency that could be used? If not, then what research or analysis would be needed to obtain this information? Three stream restoration sub-topics were addressed during the workshop through a series of expert panel presentations and group discussion: urban stream systems, sediments, and nutrients. The information resulting from this workshop will be used in the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) effort to model and track nutrient and sediment reductions from BMPs, e.g., rural stream restoration and protection.

The objective of this workshop is to provide a thorough review of the revised Toxics of Concern (TOC) list. The review should cover the appropriateness of data sources and how they were utilized, the methodology of the developed chemical ranking system used to prioritize chemicals, and clearly defining the intended uses of the list given its limitations and uncertainty. Furthermore, guidance is requested for determining a “cut-off” for the full list of prioritized chemicals, by either Best Professional Judgment or a quantitative method, in order to determine which chemicals are Toxics of Concern, Toxics of Potential Concern, or neither. This review of the revised TOC list is an urgent need, as it is a vital piece of the Toxics Subcommittee’s strategy in directing subcommittee activities and efforts, and as commitments in the Toxics 2000 Strategy, specifically refer to reductions and tracking of “Chemicals of Concern”.

In April 2004 STAC sponsored a workshop on Spatial Management in the Chesapeake Bay that was directed at identifying and defining issues, concerns, and opportunities for increased implementation of spatial management. This follow-up effort will be a two part series of workshops examining the "rules and tools" available and still needed to explore and implement spatially managed habitat restoration in the Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay STAC and NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science propose a cooperative workshop to assess the cumulative effects of shoreline modification. Workshop participants will explore the economic methods used to calculate marginal costs and test the application of these methods to assessing cumulative impacts of shoreline modification. Specifically, participants will: 1.) review the current state of knowledge on the use of the marginal principal in forecasting cumulative impacts; 2.) evaluate the application of this principal to assess and predict the environmental, social, and economic impacts of cumulative shoreline modification (does it make sense, what are the limitations, what might be the applications and benefits); 3.) discuss development of the tool (what data are necessary, how should the analysis be bounded and presented); and 4.) suggest a process for competing the work (who provides support, who should collaborate, timelines, etc.).

At the September 2005 Chesapeake Bay Program Reevaluation Workshop, the implications of continued population growth and development on meeting and maintaining nutrient load limits were discussed. The Reevaluation Workshop partners agreed on the need for projecting future land uses, animal populations and point source loads beyond 2010 out to 2030, including intermediate projections between base year and 2030. The Land Growth and Stewardship Subcommittee (LGSS) was assigned the lead responsibility for carrying out this work, working closely with the Nutrient and Modeling Subcommittees as well as the Local Government Advisory Committee. LGSS is developing growth simulation models that can better predict patterns of urban development associated with population increases and have developed this workshop working with STAC as a co-sponsor. The objectives of this workshop are to: 1.) provide background on tools to develop land use projections and alternative future scenarios (Urban growth models and Phase V model) and set the stage for the STAC Review of the urban growth models in February 2006; 2.) Discuss the input to the urban growth models (such as impervious cover, population and employment forecasts); 3.) begin discussion on the alternative future scenarios to be analyzed; and 4.) agree to roles and responsibilities to develop land use projections and alternative future scenarios as outlined in the timeline.

The Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the CBP, with the support of the CBP Modeling Subcommittee and the Chesapeake Community Modeling Program (CCMP), is sponsoring a workshop to discuss future directions for modeling in the CBP. The broad objectives of this workshop include: (1.) exploring the challenges and opportunities likely to face CBP modeling efforts in the next 5-10 years, and (2.) formulating recommendations to help the CBP plan for the future and maximize the utility and openness of its modeling efforts. Presentations and open discussion will address many topics relevant to these broad objectives, including: (1) incorporation of new numerical techniques (e.g., data assimilation), (2) improved co-operation among management and research modelers through open-source community modeling approaches, (3) coupling with larger scale atmospheric and oceanic models, and (4) better integration with monitoring efforts. Additional topics will be generated by participants at the workshop.

Sediment has long been recognized as a major water quality problem in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. The Bay agreement, Chesapeake 2000 (C2K) identifies sediment as a major source of impaired water quality, comparable with nutrients. Impacts from sediment include loss of riparian and streambed habitat, turbidity that prevents or impedes the growth of underwater grasses and conveyance of toxic chemicals and other pollutants that impair water quality. Sediment associated with urban stormwater is a significant part of that problem. Urban stormwater causes streambank erosion, erosion from construction sites, resuspension of previously deposited (“legacy”) sediment and carries suspended solids from urban areas. Monitoring and modeling information are not sufficiently developed to systematically document the scope and impact of the sediment problems in the Bay watershed. The workshop will blend science, technology and management.  It will bring together experts to document the current state of knowledge and identify priorities and recommendations for advancing scientific knowledge, improving monitoring and modeling and improving technology and management practices.

Land use has a direct impact on downstream water quality and habitat. As land is converted from forests and wetlands to agricultural uses, runoff increases causing erosion and carrying an array of pollutants. Further conversion of land for housing and commercial uses brings increasing imperviousness, greater rates of runoff, and additional problems of erosion, pollution, and habitat loss. These state specific workshops will promote the integration of watershed or natural resource management into local land use planning to ensure the implementation of local water quality/quantity, habitat, and forest buffer goals (and ultimately C2K goals). Relevant county examples will be highlighted and discussion on the advantages/disadvantages of each example will be encouraged.

The EPA Chesapeake Bay Program and its state partners have agreed to implement a comprehensive and coordinated Shallow Water Monitoring program as part of the new design to assess the Bay’s shallow water habitats required by the development of the new water quality criteria. Currently, sparse water quality data are collected in shallow portions of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. STAC held a workshop that reviewed the design of the Chesapeake Bay Shallow Water Monitoring Program to ensure that the design meets the objectives established by the Shallow Water Monitoring Design workgroup, while optimizing achievable temporal and spatial coverage with limited resources. The second objective was to solicit input from workshop participants and technical experts in the field of monitoring on outstanding issues regarding implementation, data analyses and model integration. Prior to the STAC workshop, documentation on the tidal monitoring design process was made available to workshop participants. Discussions focused on development of criteria to optimize site selection and monitoring duration, and to enhance coordination with living resource and local source monitoring efforts. The workshop results are currently being compiled and a full workshop report will be completed and published early in 2005.

STAC responded to a request from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Forestry Workgroup to create a workshop that would help partners implement the urban canopy cover goals of the Riparian Forest Buffer Directive No. 03-01, signed by the Chesapeake Executive Council in December 2003. The workshop brought together urban forestry researchers and practitioners from federal, state, and local levels in the Chesapeake Bay region and beyond to: define the water quality benefits that urban tree canopy provides and how these can contribute toward Chesapeake Bay Program goals; address what an appropriate canopy cover goal for urban watersheds is to produce measurable water quality and quantity benefits; and synthesize knowledge and ideas for the creation of a guide for local governments and community organizations to use in conducting urban canopy cover assessments, developing canopy cover goals, and implementing canopy cover enhancement strategies. The workshop and its report are technology transfer tools intended to help local jurisdictions accomplish the directive’s goals. The workshop and proceedings assist local practitioners in understanding the role of urban tree canopy cover in addressing the goals of the Chesapeake 2000 agreement; learning about various data sources for, and methods of, quantifying tree canopy cover; learning how to set appropriate canopy cover enhancement goals; and, strategies for implementing those goals.

Better quantifying the “lag time” between changes in nutrient and sediment sources in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and improvement in the Bay’s water quality and submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) is critical to help resource managers to implement the most effective nutrient and sediment reduction strategies and for scientists to improve monitoring and modeling. Tributary strategy plans for basins within the Bay watershed have been developed to implement appropriate best management practices (BMP’s) to reduce nutrient and sediment loads to the Bay. These practices are designed so water-quality criteria (for dissolved oxygen, water clarity, and chlorophyll) can be met in the Bay by 2010. However, there is a large degree of uncertainty about the “lag time” between implementing the nutrient and sediment practices and detecting an actual improvement of water quality and SAV in the Bay. The objectives of the workshop were to provide the CBP with a better understanding of the factors affecting the “lag time” associated with improving water quality and SAV in the Bay and provide recommendations for improved monitoring and modeling of these factors. Results from the workshop suggest that “lag times” associated with implementation of management practices, impacts of watershed properties, and response of the Bay water quality will make it very difficult to meet water-quality criteria in the Bay by 2010. Additionally, there are lag times associated with the movement of nutrients and sediment in the watershed. These include the influence of ground water which may cause a lag time from months to decades for improvement in nitrogen concentrations. Watershed properties affecting the storage and transport of phosphorus and sediment may cause lag times of years to decades in water-quality improvements. Lag times in the tidal waters appear to be much shorter. The findings suggest that water-quality conditions in tidal waters may improve within a season as nutrient and sediment loadings are reduced to the Bay.

STAC sponsored a workshop on Spatial Management, including protected areas, that was directed primarily at identifying and defining issues, concerns, and opportunities for increased implementation of spatial management. The workshop was held on April 13 -14, 2004 and was the first of two workshops that STAC will sponsor on this topic. Workshop participants represented a diverse group of stakeholders, management agencies, and academia. The workshop report emphasizes that, while workshop participants were supportive of spatial management, many issues and concerns must be addressed. These include: 1) stakeholder involvement at the outset and throughout development of spatial management planning; 2) the need for an inventory of present spatial management in the Bay ecosystem; 3) the need for science to define how spatial management could perform better than conventional management approaches; 4) the need for evaluation and monitoring of any spatially managed areas and benefits/costs of their implementation; and 5) the need to consider access privileges and the concern over ‘permanency’ of implementation in the absence of sufficient evaluation of performance. The report also indicates broad opportunities for expansion of spatial management in support of Chesapeake Bay resource management and protection, especially for Habitats and Biodiversity Conservation, and potentially for Fisheries Management. Results and recommendations of the present workshop will serve as a framework and foundation for the second workshop that will address technical issues related to design and implementation of spatially managed areas.

The Chesapeake Bay Program has invested in several numerical models to address issues related to management of the estuary. The Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Model (CBWQM) has been the primary tool used to forecast estuarine ecosystem responses to variations in nutrient and sediment inputs from the watershed. Although this model includes variables related to food supply at lower trophic levels (plankton, benthos) and related to benthic habitat conditions (O2, SAV), it does not simulate dynamics of exploited fisheries populations. Many of the goals of the Chesapeake 2000 agreement relate to interactions between water and habitat quality and populations at upper trophic levels. This workshop helped us address the following goals: to assess capabilities and limitations of CBWQM and Ecopath with Ecosim for addressing interactions between water quality, habitat condition, food availability, and fisheries population dynamics; to identify possible mechanisms by which these two models could interact via direct or indirect coupling; and to consider alternative modeling approaches for simulating dynamic interactions between exploited animal populations and the ecosystems that they inhabit. The workshop discussions led to several tentative conclusions regarding model coupling and recommendations for future action.

It is important that sound scientific information be available to inform the decision-making process with regards to the potential introduction of C. ariakensis to the Chesapeake Bay. Neither the risks, potential consequences nor the potential benefits of introducing C. ariakensis to the Chesapeake Bay are adequately known. The current understanding of the biology and ecology of C. ariakensis is insufficient to predict whether an introduction will provide desired benefits or have a substantial adverse impact within the Bay or other Atlantic Coast estuaries over short or long time scales. STAC convened a workshop of research scientists in Annapolis on December 2-3, 2003 to discuss and prioritize research needed to fill critical gaps in our ability to predict risks and benefits that might result from an introduction of diploid C. ariakensis to Chesapeake Bay. The outcome of this effort represents a disciplined approach to prioritize research needs and only those that were considered to be most important were recommended in the workshop report. The credibility of decisions surrounding the proposed introduction of C. ariakensis depends upon the quality of the science that underpins the decision-making process— a process that ultimately, will require management and the scientific communities to work in concert to achieve an outcome in the best interest of the long-term health of Chesapeake Bay.

STAC responded to a request from the CBP Communications and Education Subcommittee (CESC) to advise them in their efforts to quantify the benefits of a mass media campaign. On September 15, 2003, STAC convened a one day workshop for presentations by experts who have participated in efforts to quantify behavior changes, especially those affected as a result of a campaign of this scale, as well as experts who have conducted mass media campaigns resulting in behavior change. The purpose of the workshop was to provide recommendations for the types of information that need to be collected and the methodology for collecting, tracking and reporting that information in order to measure behavior change(s) effected as a result of the CESC mass media campaign and campaign methodology to effectively measure and to increase response rate/behavior change. Following the presentations, select members of CESC and STAC, and the presenters participated in facilitated discussions to reach consensus on recommendations and a plan of action for the following topics: campaign plans, target audience, expected response rate, tasks for completion and information that should be collected by the ad firm, quantifying benefits, and ways to encourage “piggybacking” on the campaign by other organizations and outreach vehicles.

This workshop will promote science-based approaches to assist the Chesapeake Bay Program partner jurisdictions and their local partners in developing or enhancing existing efforts to meet the following Chesapeake 2000 goal: "By 2004, each jurisdiction, working with local governments, community groups and watershed organizations, will develop stream corridor restoration goals based on local watershed management planning." The workshop will focus the cooperative effort of scientists and managers to assist jurisdictions in determining how they will begin or continue working toward setting these integrated goals. The objective of the workshop is to identify common elements to consider when establishing jurisdictional stream corridor restoration goals by 2004. The products of the workshop will be recommendations for how to begin or continue developing stream corridor restoration goals in each jurisdiction that integrate existing programs and planning efforts. Participants will include scientists and managers from Chesapeake Bay Program partner jurisdictions, academic institutions, and non-government organizations who are engaged in stream corridor evaluation, restoration, and protections, as well as local government experts who are engaged in local watershed management planning.

It is now apparent that restoring the Chesapeake Bay will require nutrient and sediment reductions far beyond those currently achieved. The Chesapeake Bay Program recently agreed to new capped loads of 175 million pounds per year of nitrogen and 12.8 million pounds per year of phosphorus delivered to the Chesapeake Bay. Watershed farmers have been leaders in implementing conservation and nutrient management plans and other traditional conservation technologies. However, all sources of nutrients and sediments to Chesapeake Bay, including agriculture, will need to achieve major additional reductions while assuring that reductions from current practices are realized and maintained. Developing meaningful strategies to meet these goals will require scientific assessment of current, emerging and potential practices, programs and policies to assure that all opportunities for reductions are realized. This forum will brought together leading experts on various aspects of agricultural nutrient pollution control to discuss current, emerging and future practices, technologies and policies that can help achieve needed reductions within a sustainable agricultural system. Speakers provided their vision for innovation based on recent, emerging and future innovation while discussion among scientists, engineers, and economists broadened and diversified the vision. The forum also included discussion of factors that influence adoption of innovation and policies and approaches to implementing innovation.

The Chesapeake 2000 agreement calls for new nutrient reductions to remove water quality impairments in the Chesapeake by 2010. This ambitious goal will drive development and application of new technologies to close the gap between existing program capabilities and the new pollution reduction goals. Ultimately, the application of better, more capable technologies will better serve the Bay Program principals of equitable, cost effective pollutant reductions that are fully protective of the Chesapeake. This is a forward looking workshop directed toward providing information on innovative nutrient removal technologies for point sources that will assist in achieving the 2010 nutrient reduction goals. To explore wider application of these technologies in the Chesapeake watershed, a two-day workshop will be conducted on advanced technologies, which can be applied in the Chesapeake Tributary Strategies in order to achieve ambitious 2010 nutrient reduction goals. The purpose of the workshop is to 1) improve understanding of new point source treatment technologies, 2) identify and understand BNR nutrient reductions beyond 8 mg/l in the watershed and in the rest of the country, 3) examine zero-discharge technologies such as spray irrigation or other water reclamation practices for nutrient from wastewater treatment plants, 4) examine how new point source technologies can be best demonstrated and encouraged in the Chesapeake watershed.

The objective of these workshops was to address impediments to what is commonly referred to as "environmentally sensitive" or "low impact" development at the subdivision scale and at the design scale for the features of streets, conservation of vegetation, and site preparation. These items are identified in "better site design" publications published through the auspices of the Chesapeake Bay Program, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and others. The question that was addressed by workshop participants was "why are not these principles more evident in actual on-the-ground development practices?" This subject is addressed in the Chesapeake 2000 commitment 4.2.2 which calls for states and local governments to identify and remove state and local impediments to low impact development designs to encourage the use of such approaches and to minimize water quality impacts. A product of this workshop will be a matrix or summary chart that identifies the impediments associated with the principles; options as to their being overcome within each jurisdiction; and, any identified actions that need to be accommodated. Participants in the workshops included individuals who are familiar with the laws governing structure in PA, MD, and VA who will address the reality of why there is not a broader application of these principles on a daily basis. In addition, the building community was also represented.

New chemicals are constantly introduced into the environment. Some chemicals have been introduced into the environment for some time and we are only just becoming aware of their distribution and potential effects. This workshop helped to assess the risk associated with a few emerging contaminants, such as alkyl phenols and brominated flame retardants, in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and identify informational needs for researchers and managers interested in preventing bioaccumulative toxic impacts. By utilizing and linking local and national experts and research on these contaminants, managers will be better armed to understand the risks associated with these contaminants in the environment. The goals of the workshop were to (1) evaluate the available information on the occurrence and potential consequences of emerging chemicals in the Chesapeake Bay, and to (2) discuss how management, regulatory, monitoring, and research programs can better anticipate possible issues resulting from the introduction of new chemicals into commerce. The workshop attendees consisted of a mixture of scientists actively studying emerging chemicals in the Chesapeake Bay, water quality managers responsible for assessing and managing potential risks associated with these chemicals, and other interested parties.

Through requests from the regional research, management, and industry communities, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recently agreed to "…examine the ecological and socio-economic risks and benefits of open water aquaculture or direct introduction of the non-native oyster, Crassostrea ariakensis, in the Chesapeake Bay." Through support from the US EPA, NOAA, US FWS, MD DNR, Virginia Sea Grant, Maryland Sea Grant, and Connecticut Sea Grant, the NAS has convened an experts committee to review all pertinent information relevant to this issue. As part of this effort to gather as much information as possible, the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) of the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) co-sponsored with the NAS a two day meeting that convened regional researchers, managers, watermen, and industry representatives to provide short summaries of C. ariakensis related materials for NAS Committee deliberations. Meeting topics were derived from submitted suggestions and Committee needs.

During previous years, several Low Impact Development (LID) workshops were conducted throughout the Chesapeake Bay Region to give participants an overview of the technology and its potential value for helping preserve and restore natural resources in the Bay Region. Due to the success of this series of workshops, there was an apparent need for additional series of LID workshops, which would target specific audiences. This new series of workshops was designed to provide a technical approach to Low Impact Development smart design activities, economic and environmental benefits, design principals, and management practices. It addressed the design aspect of LID for storm water management paradigms for both new development and urban retrofit to protect and restore watershed hydrology, receiving waters, living resources, and to meet NPDES and TMDL goals. The workshop also incorporated many of the Chesapeake Bay Program's goals and those Chesapeake 2000 agreement commitments that focus on managing urban storm water. For this series of workshops, the instructors coordinated with the various jurisdictions to tailor the content of the individual workshops to each jurisdiction's desired focus. Due to the continuing success of these workshops, several more workshop topics have been designated for the future such as incorporation of the LID approach into local government storm water programs, and design and implementation of the LID approach.

The Chesapeake 2000 agreement establishes a clear management objective "By 2004 assess the effects of different population levels of filter feeders such as menhaden, oysters and clams on Bay water quality and habitat." (Section 1.4.1) The overall purpose of the workshop was to better determine if the Chesapeake Bay community can fully address this commitment by the desired date. A two-day workshop brought together resource managers and scientists to fully explore the feasibility of using existing ecosystem process (EPM) and/or individually based models (IBM) to address this and other commitments related to filter feeders. The principal topic of this workshop was to characterize the primary filter feeders of the Bay both past and present. The meeting objective was to identify the existing models available to assess the impacts of those primary filter feeds on the Bay's water quality and habitat. Particular attention was focused on oysters and menhaden as potential management options for nutrient/sediment removal; however, other filter feeders such as zooplankton and epibenthic fauna were also explored. In order to address the commitments, a modeling framework was developed that includes both water quality and ecosystem processes for assessing ecosystems that contain primary filter feeders.

This workshop was designed to highlight the present and future capabilities of satellite and air-borne sensing technologies to assess water quality and land-use changes in estuarine environments with direct application to the Chesapeake Bay. Experts from within the Bay scientific community, as well as from other estuaries, provided an overview of the technology as well as its application to estuaries and watersheds. The workshop assisted a recommendation made to the Bay Program that they embrace remote sensing technologies to replace or supplement existing monitoring efforts by providing an overview of existing technologies utilized within the Bay as well as from selected other estuaries. The audience of this workshop was made up of Chesapeake Bay Program scientists and managers, and graduate students and academic scientists interested in a review of the field.

In November of 1997, the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee (CBSAC) held a workshop that focused on the monitoring of alosids. The participants of this workshop concluded that current monitoring was providing useful information on restoration activities being conducted, however, there are monitoring and information gaps concerning stock assessments and tributary specific needs such as population sizes and habitats. STAC conducted a follow up workshop to continue cross-jurisdictional discussions relative to the management of the American Shad. The Chesapeake 2000 agreement calls for the assessment of trends in priority migratory species as well as for the development of tributary specific population targets by 2002. This workshop gathered experts involved in alosid and other migratory species research and monitoring to evaluate the current monitoring approach as it relates to the recovery of American Shad, and these experts discussed the methods by which target population sizes for priority species can be established. Emphasis was placed on identifying and evaluating methods that could be used to develop tributary-specific targets for the restoration of alosid fishes in the Chesapeake Bay.

This workshop will survey the potential impact of current feeding practices on the ecosystems of the Chesapeake Basin emphasizing the possible effects of pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other additives used in feeds and excreted in animal manures. The workshop is in response to Chesapeake Bay stakeholder recommendations from the Toxics Non-point Source Forum where stakeholders identified animal feed and manure, and its potential for toxic impacts, as an emerging issue. The focus of the workshop will be on agricultural issues with emphasis on water quality and aquatic biota: human health issues will not be addressed. Specific topics will include chicken feed additives, potential environmental impacts of pharmaceuticals and metals, and microbial resistance. These issues need to be addressed within the Chesapeake Bay Basin for the likelihood of occurrence and the potential ramifications.