-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-06-614T		

TITLE:     Chesapeake Bay Program: Improved Strategies Needed 
to Better Guide Restoration Efforts

DATE:   07/13/2006 
				                                                                         
----------------------------------------------------------------- 

******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a  **
** GAO Product.                                                 **
**                                                              **
** No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although **
** figure captions are reproduced.  Tables are included, but    **
** may not resemble those in the printed version.               **
**                                                              **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when     **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed     **
** document's contents.                                         **
**                                                              **
******************************************************************
GAO-06-614T

     

     * Background
     * The Bay Program's Measures Had Not Been Integrated to Assess
     * The Bay Program's Reports Did Not Effectively Communicate th
     * Federal Agencies and States Provided Billions of Dollars in
     * The Bay Program Has Not Always Effectively Coordinated and M
     * Contacts and Acknowledgments
          * Order by Mail or Phone

Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT

Thursday, July 13, 2006

CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

Improved Strategies Needed to Better Guide Restoration Efforts

Statement of Anu K. Mittal, Director Natural Resources and Environment

GAO-06-614T

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I am pleased to be here today to participate in your oversight hearing of
the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort. As you know, the Chesapeake Bay is
the nation's largest estuary and has been recognized by Congress as a
national treasure. In response to the deteriorating conditions of the bay,
in 1983, the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; the District
of Columbia; the Chesapeake Bay Commission;1 and the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) first partnered to protect and restore the bay by
establishing the Chesapeake Bay Program (Bay Program). Subsequent
agreements in 1987, 1992, and 2000 reaffirmed the partners' commitment to
bay restoration, and in their most recent agreement, Chesapeake 2000,
which was signed in June 2000, they established 102 commitments organized
under five broad restoration goals to be achieved by 2010.

My testimony today is based on GAO's October 2005 report on the Chesapeake
Bay restoration effort and addresses (1) the extent to which the Bay
Program has established appropriate measures for assessing restoration
progress, (2) the extent to which the reporting mechanisms the Bay Program
uses clearly and accurately describe the bay's overall health, (3) how
much funding was provided by federal and state partners for restoring the
Chesapeake Bay for fiscal years 1995 through 2004 and for what purposes,
and (4) how effectively the restoration effort is being coordinated and
managed.2

In summary, we found the following:

           o  The Bay Program had established over 100 measures to assess
           trends in various living resources such as oysters and crabs, and
           pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus. However, the program
           had not yet developed an approach that would allow it to integrate
           all of these measures and thereby assess the progress made by the
           overall restoration effort in achieving the five goals outlined in
           Chesapeake 2000. We recommended that the Chesapeake Bay Program
           Office develop such an approach that would allow the program to
           combine its individual measures into a few broader-scale measures
           that could then be used to assess key ecosystem attributes and
           present an overall assessment of this complex ecosystem
           restoration project. In response to our recommendation, the Bay
           Program has developed an initial approach, but more work is still
           needed before a fully integrated approach for assessing
           restoration progress can be implemented.
           o  The Bay Program's primary mechanism for reporting on the health
           status of the bay-the State of the Chesapeake Bay report-did not
           provide an effective or credible assessment of the bay's current
           health status. These reports were not effective because, like the
           program's measures, they focused on individual species and
           pollutants instead of providing an overall assessment of the bay's
           health. Often these reports showed diverging trends for certain
           aspects of the ecosystem, making it difficult for the public and
           other stakeholders to determine what the current condition of the
           bay really was. These reports were also not credible because they
           (1) commingled data on the bay's health with program actions and
           modeling results, which tended to downplay the deteriorated
           conditions of the bay and (2) were not subject to an independent
           review process. As a result, we believe that the Bay Program
           reports projected a rosier picture of the health of the bay than
           may have been warranted. In response to our recommendation to
           clarify how it reports on the health of the bay and management
           actions to restore the bay, the Bay Program has developed a new
           reporting format that separately describes the bay's current
           health and the progress made in implementing management actions.
           In addition, the Bay Program plans to have its Scientific and
           Technical Advisory Committee provide an independent assessment of
           the new reports.3 This assessment is scheduled to be completed by
           late summer.
           o  About $3.7 billion in direct funding was provided for the
           restoration effort by 11 key federal agencies; the states of
           Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; and the District of Columbia
           from fiscal years 1995 through 2004.4 An additional $1.9 billion
           was provided for activities that had an indirect impact on bay
           restoration.
           o  The Bay Program did not have a comprehensive, coordinated
           implementation strategy that would allow it to strategically
           target limited resources to the most effective restoration
           activities. Recognizing that it could not manage all 102
           commitments outlined in Chesapeake 2000, the Bay Program had
           focused its efforts on 10 keystone commitments. Although the Bay
           Program had developed numerous planning documents, some of the
           documents were inconsistent with each other and some of the plans
           were perceived to be unachievable by stakeholders. Moreover, the
           program invested scarce resources in developing and updating
           certain plans, even though it knew that it did not have the
           resources to implement them. While we recognize that the Bay
           Program often has no assurance about the level of funds that may
           be available beyond the short term, this large and difficult
           restoration project cannot be effectively managed and coordinated
           without a realistic strategy that unifies all of its planning
           documents and targets its limited resources to the most effective
           restoration activities. In response to our recommendation to
           develop a comprehensive, coordinated implementation strategy, the
           Bay Program is developing a Web-based approach that will unify its
           various planning documents and adopted a funding priority
           framework. However, the program has not yet developed a
           comprehensive implementation strategy that reflects what can
           realistically be accomplished given available resources. We
           continue to believe that such a strategy is needed for the program
           to move forward in a more strategic and well-coordinated manner.

1The Chesapeake Bay Commission is a tristate legislative assembly
representing Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

2GAO, Chesapeake Bay Program: Improved Strategies Are Needed to Better
Assess, Report, and Manage Restoration Progress, GAO-06-96 (Washington,
D.C.: Oct. 28, 2005).

3The Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee is one of the Bay
Program's seven committees that form the organizational and planning
structure for the restoration effort. The committee provides scientific
and technical guidance to the Bay Program on measures to restore and
protect the Chesapeake Bay.

4Key federal agencies include the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm
Service Agency, Forest Service, and Natural Resources Conservation
Service; Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration; Department of Defense's Army, Army Corps of Engineers, and
Navy/Marine Corps; Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service,
U.S. Geological Survey, and National Park Service; and EPA. For purposes
of our report and this testimony, we defined direct funds as those that
are provided exclusively for bay restoration activities (e.g., increasing
the oyster population) or those that would no longer be made available in
the absence of the restoration effort.

                                   Background

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest of the nation's estuaries, measuring
nearly 200 miles long and 35 miles wide at its widest point. Roughly half
of the bay's water comes from the Atlantic Ocean, and the other half is
freshwater that drains from the land and enters the bay through the many
rivers and streams in its watershed basin. As shown in figure 1, the bay's
watershed covers 64,000 square miles and spans parts of six
states-Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West
Virginia-and the District of Columbia.

Figure 1: Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Over time, the bay's ecosystem has deteriorated. The bay's "dead
zones"-where too little oxygen is available to support fish and
shellfish-have increased, and many species of fish and shellfish have
experienced major declines in population. The decline in the bay's living
resources has been cause for a great deal of public and political
attention.

Responding to public outcry, on December 9, 1983, representatives of
Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; the District of Columbia; the EPA;
and the Chesapeake Bay Commission signed the first Chesapeake Bay
agreement. Their agreement established the Chesapeake Executive Council
and resulted in the Chesapeake Bay Program-a partnership that directs and
conducts the restoration of the bay. Subsequent agreements in 1987 and
again in 1992 reaffirmed the signatories' commitment to restore the bay.
The partners signed the most current agreement, Chesapeake 2000, on June
28, 2000. Chesapeake 2000-identified by the Bay Program as its strategic
plan-sets out an agenda and goals to guide the restoration efforts through
2010 and beyond. In Chesapeake 2000, the signatories agreed to 102
commitments-including management actions, such as assessing the trends of
particular species, as well as actions that directly affect the health of
the bay. These commitments are organized under the following five broad
restoration goals:

           o  Protecting and restoring living resources-14 commitments to
           restore, enhance, and protect the finfish, shellfish and other
           living resources, their habitats and ecological relationships to
           sustain all fisheries and provide for a balanced ecosystem;
           o  Protecting and restoring vital habitats-18 commitments to
           preserve, protect, and restore those habitats and natural areas
           that are vital to the survival and diversity of the living
           resources of the bay and its rivers;
           o  Protecting and restoring water quality-19 commitments to
           achieve and maintain the water quality necessary to support the
           aquatic living resources of the bay and its tributaries and to
           protect human health;
           o  Sound land use-28 commitments to develop, promote, and achieve
           sound land use practices that protect and restore watershed
           resources and water quality, maintain reduced pollutant loadings
           for the bay and its tributaries, and restore and preserve aquatic
           living resources; and
           o  Stewardship and community engagement-23 commitments to promote
           individual stewardship and assist individuals, community-based
           organizations, businesses, local governments and schools to
           undertake initiatives to achieve the goals and commitments of the
           agreement.

As the only federal signatory to the Chesapeake Bay agreements, EPA is
responsible for spearheading the federal effort within the Bay Program
through its Chesapeake Bay Program Office. Among other things, the
Chesapeake Bay Program Office is to develop and make available information
about the environmental quality and living resources of the Chesapeake Bay
ecosystem; help the signatories to the Chesapeake Bay agreement develop
and implement specific plans to carry out their responsibilities; and
coordinate EPA's actions with those of other appropriate entities to
develop strategies to improve the water quality and living resources in
the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

The Bay Program's Measures Had Not Been Integrated to Assess Overall Restoration
                                    Progress

The Bay Program had established 101 measures to assess progress on
individual aspects of the Bay. For example, the Bay Program had developed
measures for determining trends in individual fish and shellfish
populations, such as crabs, oysters, and rockfish. The Bay Program had
also developed other measures to provide the information it needs to make
management decisions. For example, to help inform its decisions regarding
the effects of airborne nitrogen compounds and chemical contaminants in
the bay ecosystem and to help establish reduction goals for these
contaminants, the Bay Program had a measure to estimate vehicle emissions
and compare them to vehicle miles traveled.

While the Bay Program had established these 101 measures, it had not
developed an approach that would allow it to translate these individual
measures into an overall assessment of the progress made in achieving the
five broad restoration goals. For example, although the Bay Program had
developed measures for determining trends in individual fish and shellfish
populations, it had not yet devised a way to integrate those measures to
assess the overall progress made in achieving its Living Resource
Protection and Restoration goal. According to an expert panel of
nationally recognized ecosystem assessment and restoration experts
convened by GAO, in a complex ecosystem restoration project like the
Chesapeake Bay, overall progress should be assessed by using an integrated
approach. This approach should combine measures that provide information
on individual species or pollutants into a few broader-scale measures that
can be used to assess key ecosystem attributes, such as biological
conditions.

The signatories to the Chesapeake Bay agreement have discussed the need
for an integrated approach over the past several years. However, according
to an official from the Chesapeake Bay Program Office, until recently they
did not believe that the program could develop an approach that was
scientifically defensible, given their limited resources. The program
began an effort in November 2004 to develop, among other things, a
framework for organizing the program's measures and a structure for how
the redesign work should be accomplished. In our report, we recommended
that the Chesapeake Bay Program Office complete its efforts to develop and
implement such an integrated approach. In January 2006, the Bay Program
formally adopted an initial integrated approach for assessing both bay
health and management actions taken to restore the bay. However, according
to a Bay Program official, more work is needed before a fully integrated
approach for assessing restoration progress can be implemented.

  The Bay Program's Reports Did Not Effectively Communicate the Status of the
                                  Bay's Health

The Bay Program's primary mechanism for reporting on the health status of
the bay-the State of the Chesapeake Bay report-was intended to provide the
citizens of the bay region with a snapshot of the bay's health. However,
our review found that the State of the Chesapeake Bay report did not
effectively communicate the current health status of the bay because it
mirrored the shortcomings in the program's measures by focusing on the
status of individual species or pollutants instead of providing
information on a core set of ecosystem characteristics. For example, the
2002 and 2004 State of the Chesapeake Bay reports provided data on
oysters, crab, rockfish, and bay grasses, but the reports did not provide
an overall assessment of the current status of living resources in the bay
or the health of the bay. Instead, data were reported for each species
individually. The 2004 State of the Chesapeake Bay report included a
graphic that depicts oyster harvest levels at historic lows, with a mostly
decreasing trend over time, and a rockfish graphic that shows a generally
increasing population trend over time. However, the report did not provide
contextual information that explained how these measures are interrelated
or what the diverging trends meant about the overall health of the bay.
Our experts agreed that the 2004 report was visually pleasing but lacked a
clear, overall picture of the bay's health and told us that the public
would probably not be able to easily and accurately assess the current
condition of the bay from the information reported.

We also found that the credibility of the State of the Chesapeake Bay
reports had been undermined by two key factors. First, the Bay Program had
commingled data from three sources when reporting on the health of the
bay. Specifically, the reports mixed actual monitoring information on the
bay's health status with results from a predictive model and the results
of specific management actions. The latter two results did little to
inform readers about the current health status of the bay and tended to
downplay the bay's actual condition. Second, the Bay Program had not
established an independent review process to ensure that its reports were
accurate and credible. The officials who managed and were responsible for
the restoration effort also analyzed, interpreted, and reported the data
to the public. We believe this lack of independence in reporting led to
the Bay Program's projecting a rosier view of the health of the bay than
may have been warranted. Our expert panelists believe that an independent
review panel-to either review the bay's health reports before issuance or
to analyze and report on the health status independently of the Bay
Program-would significantly improve the credibility of the program's
reports. We recommended that the Chesapeake Bay Program Office revise its
reporting approach to improve the effectiveness and credibility of its
reports. In response to our recommendation, the Bay Program developed a
new reporting format that was released for public review and comment in
March 2006. The new report, entitled Chesapeake Bay 2005 Health and
Restoration Assessment, is divided into two parts: part one is an
assessment of ecosystem health and part two is an assessment of progress
made in implementing management actions. The new report appears to have a
more effective communications framework and clearly distinguishes between
the health of the bay and the management actions being taken. In addition,
the Bay Program plans to have its Scientific and Technical Advisory
Committee independently review the new report and the process used to
develop it. This review is planned for completion by late summer.

  Federal Agencies and States Provided Billions of Dollars in Both Direct and
                  Indirect Funding for Restoration Activities

Eleven key federal agencies; the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia; and the District of Columbia provided almost $3.7 billion in
direct funding from fiscal years 1995 through 2004 to restore the bay.
Federal agencies provided a total of approximately $972 million in direct
funding, while the states and the District of Columbia provided
approximately $2.7 billion in direct funding for the restoration effort
over the 10-year period. Of the federal agencies, the Department of
Defense's Army Corps of Engineers provided the greatest amount of direct
funding-$293.5 million. Of the states, Maryland provided the greatest
amount of direct funding-more than $1.8 billion-which is over $1.1 billion
more than any other state. Typically, the states provided about 75 percent
of the direct funding for restoration, and the funding has generally
increased over the 10-year period. As figure 2 shows, the largest
percentage of direct funding-approximately 47 percent-went to water
quality protection and restoration.

Figure 2: Percentage of the Total Direct Funding Provided for Addressing
Each of the Five Chesapeake 2000 Goals, Fiscal Years 1995 through 2004

Ten of the key federal agencies, Pennsylvania, and the District of
Columbia provided about $1.9 billion in additional funding from fiscal
years 1995 through 2004 for activities that indirectly affected bay
restoration. These activities were conducted as part of broader agency
efforts and/or would continue without the restoration effort. Federal
agencies provided approximately $935 million in indirect funding, while
Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia together provided approximately
$991 million in indirect funding for the restoration effort over the
10-year period.5 Of the federal agencies, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture provided the greatest amount of indirect funding-$496.5
million-primarily through the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Of
the states, Pennsylvania provided the greatest amount of indirect
funding-$863.8 million. As with direct funding, indirect funding for the
restoration effort had also generally increased over fiscal years 1995
through 2004. As figure 3 shows, the largest percentage of indirect
funding-approximately 44 percent-went to water quality protection and
restoration.

5 In addition to the funding provided for the restoration of the bay, EPA
provided more than $1 billion to Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania
through its Clean Water State Revolving Fund program during fiscal years
1995 through 2004. The funds provide low-cost loans or other financial
assistance for a wide range of water quality infrastructure projects and
other activities, such as implementing agricultural best management
practices.

Figure 3: Percentage of the Total Indirect Funding Provided for Addressing
Each of the Five Chesapeake 2000 Goals, Fiscal Years 1995 through 2004

Despite the almost $3.7 billion in direct funding and more than $1.9
billion in indirect funding that has been provided for activities to
restore the bay, the Chesapeake Bay Commission estimated in a January 2003
report that the restoration effort faced a funding gap of nearly $13
billion to achieve the goals outlined in Chesapeake 2000 by 2010.
Subsequently, in an October 2004 report, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Blue
Ribbon Finance Panel estimated that the restoration effort is grossly
underfunded and recommended that a regional financing authority be created
with an initial capitalization of $15 billion, of which $12 billion would
come from the federal government.6

     The Bay Program Has Not Always Effectively Coordinated and Managed the
                               Restoration Effort

Chesapeake 2000 and prior agreements have provided the overall direction
for the restoration effort over the past two decades. Although Chesapeake
2000 provides the current vision and overall strategic goals for the
restoration effort, along with short- and long-term commitments, we found
that the Bay Program lacked a comprehensive, coordinated implementation
strategy that could provide a road map for accomplishing the goals
outlined in the agreement.

In 2003, the Bay Program recognized that it could not effectively manage
all 102 commitments outlined in Chesapeake 2000 and adopted 10 keystone
commitments as a management strategy to focus the partners' efforts. To
achieve these 10 keystone commitments, the Bay Program had developed
numerous planning documents. However, we found that these planning
documents were not always consistent with each other. For example, the
program developed a strategy for restoring 25,000 acres of wetlands by
2010. Subsequently, each state within the bay watershed and the District
of Columbia developed tributary strategies that described actions for
restoring over 200,000 acres of wetlands-far exceeding the 25,000 acres
that the Bay Program had developed strategies for restoring. While we
recognize that partners should have the freedom to develop higher targets
than established by the Bay Program, we are concerned that having such
varying targets could cause confusion, not only for the partners, but for
other stakeholders about what actions are really needed to restore the
bay, and such varying targets appear to contradict the effort's guiding
strategy of taking a cooperative approach to achieving the restoration
goals.

We also found that the Bay Program had devoted a significant amount of
their limited resources to developing strategies that were either not
being used by the Bay Program or were believed to be unachievable within
the 2010 time frame. For example, the program invested significant
resources to develop a detailed toxics work plan for achieving the toxics
commitments in Chesapeake 2000. Even though the Bay Program had not been
able to implement this work plan because personnel and funding had been
unavailable, program officials told us that the plan was being revised. It
is unclear to us why the program is investing additional resources to
revise a plan for which the necessary implementation resources are not
available, and which is not one of the 10 keystone commitments. According
to a Bay Program official, strategies are often developed without knowing
what level of resources will be available to implement them. While the
program knows how much each partner has agreed to provide for the upcoming
year, the amount of funding that partners will provide in the future is
not always known. Without knowing what funding will be available, the Bay
Program is limited in its ability to target and direct funding toward
those restoration activities that will be the most cost effective and
beneficial.

6The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Blue Ribbon Finance Panel was established to
identify funding sources sufficient to implement basinwide cleanup plans
so that the bay and tidal tributaries would be restored sufficiently by
2010 to remove them from the list of impaired waters under the Clean Water
Act. The panel was composed of 15 leaders from the private sector,
government, and the environmental community.

The Chesapeake Bay Program Office recognizes that some of the plans are
inconsistent and unachievable. The office told us that it was determining
how to reconcile the program's various plans and stated that these plans
were developed to identify what actions will be needed to achieve the
commitments of Chesapeake 2000 and were not developed considering
available resources. The office also recognizes that there is a
fundamental gap between what needs to be done to achieve some of the
commitments and what can be achieved within the current resources
available. According to Chesapeake Bay Program Office officials, the
development of an overall implementation plan that takes into account
available resources had been discussed, but that the partners could not
agree on such a plan. We recommended that the Chesapeake Bay Program
Office develop a comprehensive, coordinated implementation strategy that
takes into account available resources.

In response to our recommendations, the Bay Program has taken several
actions. The Chesapeake Bay Program Office is currently developing a
Web-based system to link and organize the program's various planning
documents. In addition, program partners adopted a funding priorities
framework in October 2005 that designates three broad funding
priorities-agriculture, wastewater treatment, and developed and developing
lands-for accelerating the implementation of the states' tributary
strategies. While these actions are important, they fall short of the
comprehensive, coordinated implementation strategy we recommended. The
program still needs to reconcile the inconsistencies of the program's
various planning documents and clearly link the 10 keystone commitments
with the funding priority framework adopted by program partners. We
continue to believe that the development of a comprehensive, coordinated
implementation strategy that lays out what the program plans to accomplish
and that is directly linked to the funding that is available would allow
the program to move forward in a more strategic and well-coordinated
manner.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, it is well recognized that restoring the
Chesapeake Bay is a massive, difficult, and complex undertaking. While the
Bay Program has made significant strides, our October 2005 report
documented how the success of the program has been undermined by the lack
of (1) an integrated approach to measure overall progress; (2) independent
and credible reporting mechanisms; and (3) coordinated implementation
strategies. These deficiencies have resulted in a situation in which the
Bay Program could not present a clear and accurate picture of what the
restoration effort had achieved, could not effectively articulate what
strategies would best further the broad restoration goals, and could not
identify how limited resources should be prioritized. We are encouraged
that the Bay Program is taking actions to address our recommendations
because, without these actions, we do not believe the Bay Program will be
able to change the status quo and move the restoration effort forward in
the most cost-effective manner.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to
respond to any questions that you or Members of the Subcommittee may have.

                          Contacts and Acknowledgments

For further information about this testimony, please contact Anu Mittal at
(202) 512-3841. Other individuals making significant contributions to this
testimony were Sherry McDonald, Assistant Director; Bart Fischer; and
James Krustapentus.

(360689)

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in
its entirety without further permission from GAO. However, because this
work may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this material
separately.

GAO's Mission

The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation and
investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its
constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and
accountability of the federal government for the American people. GAO
examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies;
and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help
Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO's
commitment to good government is reflected in its core values of
accountability, integrity, and reliability.

Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no cost
is through GAO's Web site ( www.gao.gov ). Each weekday, GAO posts newly
released reports, testimony, and correspondence on its Web site. To have
GAO e-mail you a list of newly posted products every afternoon, go to
www.gao.gov and select "Subscribe to Updates."

Order by Mail or Phone

The first copy of each printed report is free. Additional copies are $2
each. A check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent of
Documents. GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or more
copies mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent. Orders should
be sent to:

U.S. Government Accountability Office 441 G Street NW, Room LM Washington,
D.C. 20548

To order by Phone: Voice: (202) 512-6000 TDD: (202) 512-2537 Fax: (202)
512-6061

To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs

Contact:

Web site: www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm E-mail: [email protected]
Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470

Congressional Relations

Gloria Jarmon, Managing Director, [email protected] (202) 512-4400 U.S.
Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7125 Washington,
D.C. 20548

Public Affairs

Paul Anderson, Managing Director, [email protected] (202) 512-4800 U.S.
Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7149 Washington,
D.C. 20548

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-614T.

To view the full product, including the scope

and methodology, click on the link above.

For more information, contact Anu K. Mittal at (202) 512-3841 or
[email protected].

Highlights of GAO-06-614T , a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations,
House of Representatives

July 13, 2006

CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

Improved Strategies Needed to Better Guide Restoration Efforts

The Chesapeake Bay Program (Bay Program) was created in 1983 when
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake
Bay Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed to
establish a partnership to restore the Chesapeake Bay. The partnership's
most recent agreement, Chesapeake 2000, sets out an agenda and five broad
goals to guide the restoration effort through 2010. This testimony
summarizes the findings of an October 2005 GAO report (GAO-06-96) on (1)
the extent to which appropriate measures for assessing restoration
progress have been established, (2) the extent to which current reporting
mechanisms clearly and accurately describe the bay's overall health, (3)
how much funding was provided for the effort for fiscal years 1995 through
2004, and (4) how effectively the effort is being coordinated and managed.

What GAO Recommends

GAO made three recommendations in October 2005 to ensure that EPA's
Chesapeake Bay Program Office completes its efforts to develop and
implement an integrated assessment approach, revises its reporting
approach to improve the effectiveness and credibility of its reports, and
develops a comprehensive, coordinated implementation strategy that takes
into account available resources. GAO is not making any new
recommendations in this statement.

The Bay Program haddeveloped over 100 measures to assess progress toward
meeting certain restoration commitments and providing information to guide
management decisions. However, the program had not yet developed an
integrated approach that would allow it to translate these individual
measures into an assessment of overall progress toward achieving the five
broad restoration goals outlined in Chesapeake 2000. For example, while
the Bay Program had appropriate measures to track crab, oyster, and
rockfish populations, it did not have an approach for integrating the
results of these measures to assess progress toward the agreement's goal
of protecting and restoring the bay's living resources. In response to
GAO's recommendation, the Bay Program adopted an initial integrated
approach in January 2006.

The State of the Chesapeake Bay reports did not provide effective and
credible information on the current health status of the bay. Because
these reports focused on individual trends for certain living resources
and pollutants, it was not easy for the public to determine what these
data collectively said about the overall health status of the bay. The
credibility of these reports had been undermined because the program had
commingled actual monitoring data with results of program actions and a
predictive model, and the latter two tended to downplay the deteriorated
conditions of the bay. Moreover, the Bay Program's reports were prepared
by the same program staff who were responsible for managing the
restoration effort, which led to reports that projected a rosier picture
of the bay's health than may have been warranted. In response to GAO's
recommendation, the program has developed a new reporting format and plans
to have the new report independently assessed.

From fiscal years 1995 through 2004, the restoration effort received about
$3.7 billion in direct funding from 11 key federal agencies; the states of
Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; and the District of Columbia. These
funds were used for activities that supported water quality protection and
restoration, sound land use, vital habitat protection and restoration,
living resources protection and restoration, and stewardship and community
engagement. During this period, the restoration effort also received an
additional $1.9 billion in funding from other federal and state programs
for activities that indirectly contributed to the restoration effort.

The Bay Program did not have a comprehensive, coordinated implementation
strategy to help target limited resources to those activities that would
best achieve the goals outlined in Chesapeake 2000. Although the program
had adopted 10 key commitments to focus the partners' efforts and had
developed numerous planning documents,  some of these documents were
inconsistent with each other or were perceived as unachievable by program
partners. In response to GAO's recommendation, the Bay Program is
currently developing a Web-based system to unify its various planning
documents and has adopted a funding priority framework. These actions,
while important, fall short of the strategy recommended by GAO.
*** End of document. ***