Maintaining Progress in Restoring the Chesapeake Bay Holding the Line on Nutrient Pollution After 2000. Report to the Implementation Committee of the Chesapeake Bay Program from the Cap Issues and Policy Group

摘要

The Cap Issues and Policy Group of the Chesapeake Bay Program developed this report to be used by its partners for general guidance in writing their own cap strategies. In the writing of the report, the workgroup has provided potential issues and options to be used by the Chesapeake Bay Program and jurisdictions as a guidance document. In 1987, the Chesapeake Bay Program adopted a goal of reducing pollutant nutrient loads to the Bay by 40% from 1985 levels by 2000. This goal was principally focused on improvements in dissolved oxygen levels and living resources in the deeper parts of the Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Agreement 1992 Amendments stated that once the nutrient reduction goals were achieved, loads could not increase. This represented the first official recognition of the nutrient goals as 'capped loads' that must, at a minimum, be maintained once they are met. Such a requirement seems obvious if Bay restoration is to last, but a capped load goal establishes a point in time, 2000, after which all increases in nutrient load must be completely offset. During tributary strategy development, the jurisdictions accounted for growth in load between 1985 and 2000, but did not develop plans for maintaining capped loads.