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. 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, community- based organizations, businesses, local governments and schools to  undertake initiatives to achieve the goals and commitments of the  agreement. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. In response to our recommendation, the Bay Program developed a  new reporting format that was released for public review and comment in  March 2006. 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. As with direct funding, indirect funding for the  restoration effort had also generally increased over 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. 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. 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. The Chesapeake Bay Program Office is currently developing a  Web-based system to link and organize the program’s various planning  documents. While these actions are important, they fall short of  the comprehensive, coordinated implementation strategy we  recommended. 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.
Why GAO Did This Study

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 Found

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.