United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on Interior, 

Environment, and Related Agencies 

Committee on Appropriations, House of 

Representatives

CHESAPEAKE BAY 

PROGRAM 

Improved Strategies Needed 

to Better Guide Restoration 

Efforts 

Statement of Anu K. Mittal, Director 

Natural Resources and Environment 

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT 

Thursday, July 13, 2006

 

GAO-06-614T 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

July 13, 2006

CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM 

Improved Strategies Needed to Better 

Highlights of GAO-06-614T, a testimony Guide Restoration Efforts 

before the Subcommittee on Interior, 

Environment, and Related Agencies, 

Committee on Appropriations, House of 

Representatives 

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 had developed 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. 

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 mittala@gao.gov. 
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:

• 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 

 1

The Chesapeake Bay Commission is a tristate legislative assembly representing Maryland, 

Pennsylvania, and Virginia. 

2

GAO, Chesapeake Bay Program: Improved Strategies Are Needed to Better Assess, 

Report, and Manage Restoration Progress, GAO-06-96 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 28, 2005). 

Page 1 GAO-06-614T 
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. 

• 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. 

• 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 

 3

The 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. 

Page 2 GAO-06-614T 
through 2004.4

 An additional $1.9 billion was provided for activities that 

had an indirect impact on bay restoration. 

• 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 wellcoordinated manner. 

 4

Key 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. 

Page 3 GAO-06-614T 
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. 

Background 

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

Page 4 GAO-06-614T 
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: 

• 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; 

• 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; 

• 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; 

• 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 

• Stewardship and community engagement—23 commitments to 

promote individual stewardship and assist individuals, communitybased organizations, businesses, local governments and schools to 

undertake initiatives to achieve the goals and commitments of the 

agreement.

Page 5 GAO-06-614T 
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 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.

The Bay Program’s 

Measures Had Not 

Been Integrated to 

Assess Overall 

Restoration Progress 

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 broaderscale 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

Page 6 GAO-06-614T 
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 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. 

The Bay Program’s 

Reports Did Not 

Effectively 

Communicate the 

Status of the Bay’s 

Health 

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 

Page 7 GAO-06-614T 
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.

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. 

Federal Agencies and 

States Provided 

Billions of Dollars in 

Both Direct and 

Indirect Funding for 

Restoration Activities 

Page 8 GAO-06-614T 
Figure 2: Percentage of the Total Direct Funding Provided for Addressing Each of 

the Five Chesapeake 2000 Goals, Fiscal Years 1995 through 2004 

Source: GAO analysis of agency data, in constant 2004 dollars.

Water quality protection and restoration

($1.7 billion)

Sound land use ($1.1 billion)

Vital habitat protection and restoration

($491 million)

Living resource protection and restoration

($233 million)

4%

Stewardship and community engagement

($156 million)

6%

13%

30%

47%

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 

 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. 

Page 9 GAO-06-614T 
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. 

Figure 3: Percentage of the Total Indirect Funding Provided for Addressing Each of 

the Five Chesapeake 2000 Goals, Fiscal Years 1995 through 2004 

Source: GAO analysis of agency data, in constant 2004 dollars.

Water quality protection and restoration

($841 million)

Sound land use ($702 million)

Vital habitat protection and restoration

($209 million)

Stewardship and community engagement

($102 million)

4%

Living resource protection and restoration

($72 million)

5%

11%

36%

44%

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 

Page 10 GAO-06-614T 
capitalization of $15 billion, of which $12 billion would come from the 

federal government.6

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. 

The Bay Program Has 

Not Always 

Effectively 

Coordinated and 

Managed the 

Restoration Effort 

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

 6

The 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. 

Page 11 GAO-06-614T 
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.

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 

Page 12 GAO-06-614T 
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. 

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. 

Contacts and 

Acknowledgments 

Page 13 GAO-06-614T (360689) 
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