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Key Elements of
Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement Healthy Watersheds Management Strategy
Content (see Appendix for more guidance related to these elements):
1. Executive Summary.
[To be completed by the CBPO Communications Team]
[About the EPA Healthy Watersheds Program, from their website]
The EPA Healthy Watersheds Program began in 2008 as an initiative to enhance EPA’s
ability to protect healthy aquatic ecosystems and their watersheds. The Program provides
a strategic framework and tools for holistic watershed protection for state, tribal, and
local programs. Key elements of the Program include:
 Partnerships are established to identify and protect healthy watersheds.
 Healthy watersheds are identified by states and tribes with their partners using
scientifically-sound, integrated assessments.
 Healthy watersheds are listed, tracked, maintained, and increased in number.
 Healthy watersheds are protected and, if applicable, enhanced using the best
regulatory and non-regulatory tools.
 Progress on protecting healthy watersheds is measured and tied to securing and
raising the overall goals of EPA’s Water Program, including direct support of the
public health and environmental goals established in EPA’s Strategic Plan.
To date, the EPA Healthy Watersheds Program has worked with several states to conduct
integrated assessments of watershed health. These states include California, Wisconsin,
and Alabama. More information on the Program can be found on the EPA Healthy
Watersheds Program website.
2. Outcomes and Baselines.
Healthy Watersheds Goal: Sustain state-identified healthy waters and watersheds
recognized for their high quality and/or high ecological value.
Healthy Watersheds Outcome: 100 percent of state-identified currently healthy waters
and watersheds remain healthy.
[From Outcome Justification Document:]
Outcome Justification:
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States have developed definitions of healthy watersheds, hence “state-identified.”
Inclusion of “waters and watersheds” recognizes that PA, WV, and NY currently
identify healthy stream segments, not watersheds. Other states identify
watersheds.
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
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Inclusion of “100%” and “currently” provides for more explicit accountability.
There is no baseline year for the outcome (e.g. “By 2025”), as originally proposed
in the Draft agreement, because healthy waters and watersheds would ideally be
protected in perpetuity, and not just by a set date.
Why is this outcome important?
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Complements the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) “dirty waters” approach
to water resources management.
Protection of healthy waters and watersheds avoids high cost of restoration.
Healthy non-tidal watersheds are necessary to assure sustainable Bay health.
Healthy watersheds provide value to local communities, as well as social and
economic benefits.
3. Jurisdictions and agencies participating in the strategy.
Team Lead: Healthy Watersheds Goal Team
Opportunities for Cross-Goal Team Collaboration:
Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team
Habitat Goal Implementation Team
Water Quality Goal Implementation Team
Fostering Chesapeake Stewardship Goal Implementation Team
Participating Partners:
State of Delaware
State of Maryland
State of New York
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Commonwealth of Virginia
State of West Virginia
Chesapeake Bay Commission
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
U.S. Forest Service (USFS)
The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
a. Local engagement.
There is an important role for local governments, watershed associations,
nonprofits and the private sector in achieving the outcome.
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[From Local Engagement WG Minutes:]
Our list of assumptions:
1. Healthy Watersheds provide various local and Bay water quality benefits.
2. Cumulative impact of unsustainable development is the primary threat to
“healthy watersheds.”
3. Land use change is controlled to a significant degree by local decisions and
local factors.
4. The status quo is loss of healthy watersheds.
5. Change in locally-driven land use trends will be required to maintain healthy
watersheds, and “local engagement” is the proposed intervention.
4. Factors influencing ability to meet goal.
[From 2013 Strategy:]
Key factors affecting achievement of the goal and outcome:
1. landscape condition, including forest cover, impervious surface, and connectivity
between terrestrial and aquatic habitats;
2. flow regimes and channel stability;
3. land conservation;
4. private sector land use practices, including forest and stream corridor protection and
stormwater runoff management;
5. government program implementation, including Clean Water Act anti-degradation,
local code and ordinance enforcement, planning, and land protection;
6. accountability, including use of metrics for tracking and reporting stream and
watershed health, threats, and protection status;
7. knowledge level of key constituents and decision makers, including local governments,
local watershed groups and other key interest groups.
[From STAC recommendations:]
Natural Systems Factors:
 Degree of WIP Implementation
 Protected Lands Outcome
 Stream Health Outcome
 Toxic Contaminants Outcome
 WQ Standards Outcome
Human Systems Factors:
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Different definitions of ‘Healthy Waters’
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
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Awareness of threats to existing healthy watersheds
Awareness of existing healthy watersheds
[From 10/30 Work Session Minutes:]
The focus on funding TMDL implementation is an influencing factor; a more balanced
investment in restoration (i.e., TMDL) and protection is needed for success.
[From 12/4 LGAC meeting; may not belong in this section:]
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Prevalence of "healthy" watersheds AND "healthy does not equal unimpaired"
create a problem with messaging, e.g. northern tier of PA can't relate to need to
clean up Bay/local streams when they see map.
Need to find balance between economic development and maintaining healthy
waters, comments from Malcolm Derk related to change in PA statute around
buffers, 100 ft. set back
Need to figure out how to share information more effectively, many don't know if
they have healthy waters (opportunity to connect to Local Leadership Outcome!)
Penny Gross (Fairfax County) asked about issue of local governments being sued
for land protection efforts. Include legal challenges in Factors Influencing??
Protection must be articulated in terms of public benefit/economic benefits.
Current efforts and gaps.
[From 2012 Decision Framework]
Landscape condition
Current Efforts: There are a number of watershed-wide characterizations of
landscape condition that can be made available for use in healthy watershed
protection planning and accountability. Among them are the forest, impervious
area and protected lands data layers that are illustrated above under "Factors
Influencing Goals."
Gaps: Generally, there is a lack of information concerning trends in landscape
condition.
Some of the available watershed-wide data layers that characterize landscape
condition are out of date.
Managers need science-based guidance on landscape-scale conditions (e.g.,
minimum percent forest cover, maximum percent effective impervious area) that
are necessary to assure healthy watershed protection.
Local government planning
Current Efforts: With respect to water resources, local government planning
efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed today are preoccupied with the
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exigencies of the Bay TMDL and their respective State Watershed
Implementation Plans.
Gaps: Generally, the identification and protection of healthy watersheds has not
received enough attention in public discourse to make it a planning and resource
allocation priority at the local level. Efforts are needed to raise awareness and
understanding of the issue.
Localities need a better understanding of the economic justification of healthy
watershed protection.
Localities need models of successful healthy watershed protection strategies that
are relevant to their local planning and implementation context.
Land Conservation
Current Efforts: There is a wide variety of government and non-government
land conservation efforts including current state commitments to increase lands
under permanent protection, land conservancies, and the EO13508 strategy
commitment to protect an additional two million acres in the Chesapeake Bay
Watershed.
Gaps: Generally, existing land conservation programs are not targeted for the
particular purpose of protecting currently healthy streams and watersheds.
Land use practices
Current Efforts: There are many existing resources that describe land use
practices that can contribute to healthy stream and watershed protection. They are
widely available through the internet at web sites of government agencies and
non-government organizations at all levels.
Gaps: Evaluation of gaps relevant to the communication, promotion and
implementation of private-sector land use practices may be a topic that the goal
team will pursue at a later date.
Government program implementation
Current Efforts: Antidegradation: State water quality standards include an antidegradation policy and implementation method. The water quality standards
regulation requires States to establish a three-tiered anti-degradation program.
Gaps: Current monitoring programs do not provide adequately for tracking and
reporting the efficacy of the jurisdictions' anti-degradation policies.
Presently, there is no clear linkage between actions that could be taken to protect
currently healthy watersheds (e.g., forest preservation) and the tracking and
accountability system through which management actions will be credited for
purposes of the Bay TMDL.
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a. Actions, tools or technical support needed to empower local government and
others.
5. Management Approach.
[From the 2013 Strategy Document:]
Consensus Goal Team overarching (multi-year) strategies:
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Strategy 1: provide a forum for mutual learning and exploration of scientific and
management issues;
Strategy 2: develop information resources, including health and protection status
tracking capabilities, and otherwise support communications about healthy
watershed identification and protection;
Strategy 3: promote the science that supports better characterization and
protection of healthy watersheds.
[From 10/30 Work Session:]
Achieving this outcome will require two things: “tracking” and “action.”
Tracking:
[From Tracking Workgroup Description Document:]
A framework for tracking healthy watersheds and waters protection could be
thought as a four legged stool or feedback loop including: 1) maps of stateidentified healthy watersheds, 2) the best available assessments of the
vulnerability of those watersheds, 3) the most current information on protections
that are in place to assure long-term sustainability of watershed health, and 4)
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analyses on land use change or other landscape characteristics to track the health
and viability of the watersheds over time.
[Compiled by John Wolf; updated 12-15-14:]
The attached Excel sheet is a table of the current status of Tracking Healthy
Watersheds data sources.
Tracking_Healthy_
Watersheds_12_15_14.xlsx
[EPA funded GIT Project Proposals:]
1) “Identification of Additional Healthy Watersheds”
The US EPA Region III Wetland Program Development Grant awarded the
WV Department of Environmental Protection a grant to complete a Watershed
Assessment Pilot Project for five HUC8 watersheds in WV. The WVDEP
matched the funds and sub-awarded the grant to the Nature Conservancy of
West Virginia.
Project deliverables: Identification of healthy watersheds in West Virginia at
the HUC 12 and/or NHDPlus Catchment scale for potential inclusion into the
State-Identified Healthy Watersheds dataset maintained by the Chesapeake
Bay Program.
2) “Landscape Level Demonstration Project Designed to Test Incentives for
Forestland Retention through the TMDL Model”
DOF will lead a study in the Rappahannock River watershed, George
Washington Planning District, to assess growth trends in the region and
evaluate the spatial variability of forest ecosystem service value. From this,
DOF and DEQ will work with partners (Rappahannock River Basin
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Commission, George Washington Planning District Commission, The Nature
Conservancy, the Chesapeake Bay Commission and Virginia Tech) in the
project area to develop alternative future development scenarios to represent
the range of potential policy approaches to forest land retention in this rapidly
developing region. By simulating the loading impact of the alternative
development scenarios and comparing the cost of additional urban BMP
implementation to offset the loads, the project will demonstrate the costbenefit relationship of forestland retention.
[From 10/30 Work Session:]
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A vulnerability analysis is needed to prioritize efforts in certain areas.
USGS employees at CPBO have done urban lands change models over the
years which could be useful for vulnerability. A new model version is coming
out later this year.
Policy incentives will be a part of the management strategy. CBC and
partners are working on crediting land conservation in the Chesapeake Model.
Who are we missing from the table?
- Local government. Not a monolith – we need to be thoughtful about what
elements of local government we are trying to reach out to.
- Professional planners in the planning field.
- USFS, NRCS
- Learn from LTA about capacity building.
- EPA, Region 3 Regulators – MS4, 404, antidegradation.
- Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (they do a lot of work with landowners
and forestry).
- Local land use advocacy groups.
- DOT (for mitigation of transportation)
- FERC
a. Local Engagement.
6. Monitoring Progress.
[Notes from 10/30 Work Session Minutes:]
 Policy and action are just as important as the tracking component. Policy and
action will help make sure healthy watersheds are maintained.
- We will have to track both health status and protection; tracking protection
is needed to see whether the investments we are making are actually
effective.
- Tracking protection will involve more than just whether or not the land is
protected.
 In the management strategy we might have to define what “protection looks
like.” We may not get it right the first time. Things to consider:
- How much land do we need to protect to maintain the health? A portion
of a watershed may be protected in one county, but not in another county.
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Land protected and mineral rights are separated in Pennsylvania (although
that can be an easy fix if you are working with Land Trusts).
- How effective is a tool of legal action (acquiring legal protection) in
keeping watersheds healthy?
- Policies and engagement are factors of what protection means
On the other hand, what constitutes protection has been elusive for a few
years. Perhaps the management strategy would develop an approach for
tracking protection as opposed to trying to define quantitative metrics and
committing the jurisdictions to use those metrics between now and March.
7. Assessing Progress.
[Notes from 10/30 Work Session Minutes:]
 On monitoring the outcome: how often should we report the status of healthy
watersheds, and who are the decision-makers that will be involved with
reviewing the data? We will have to consider these questions.
8. Adaptively Manage.
9. Biennial Workplan.
[This section will be due in the June – Dec 2015 timeframe]
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