Ten federal agencies, including EPA, recently released the seven draft reports required by President Obama's May 12 Executive Order on the Chesapeake Bay. The reports contain a range of proposed strategies for accelerating cleanup of the Bay and its watershed, which includes a significant part of New York State.

The draft reports collectively call for increased accountability and performance from pollution control, habitat protection, and land conservation programs, including an expanded use of regulation to address pollution control and additional voluntary and market-based solutions.

The draft report on water quality includes some of the more significant potential changes to existing programs. In this report, EPA proposes to develop new regulations for the Chesapeake Bay to significantly reduce runoff pollution from urban, suburban, and agricultural sources. The report also relays EPA's intention to hold the states in the watershed more accountable for controlling pollution.

In a related action, EPA recently issued a notice of its intent to establish a Bay-wide TMDL for nutrients and sediments.

INFO: Contact EPA's Patty Scott at 202-566-1292. The draft reports are available at http://executiveorder.chesapeakebay.net. For information about the TMDL, contact EPA's Jennifer Sincock at 215-814-5766.