Recent Actions by the Chesapeake Bay Program Are Positive Steps Toward More Effectively Guiding the Restoration Effort, but Additional Steps Are Needed
Gao ID: GAO-08-1131R August 28, 2008
Since 1983, the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; the District of Columbia; the Chesapeake Bay Commission; and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have partnered to protect and restore the deteriorated Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The partners established the Chesapeake Bay Program (Bay Program) to manage and coordinate a variety of restoration activities and in their most recent agreement, Chesapeake 2000, which was signed in June 2000, they established 102 commitments for the Chesapeake Bay, which were organized under five broad restoration goals to be achieved by 2010. In October 2005, we issued a report in which we reviewed the management, coordination, and reporting mechanisms used by the Bay Program. Our review found that the Bay Program had (1) developed more than 100 measures of restoration but lacked an integrated approach for measuring the progress being made in restoring the bay, (2) reported on individual species and pollutants but lacked independent and credible mechanisms to report on overall bay health, and (3) developed numerous plans for accomplishing its restoration commitments but lacked a comprehensive strategy that could provide a roadmap for accomplishing the goals outlined in Chesapeake 2000, and (4) used its limited resources to develop plans that could not be implemented within available funding levels and was limited in its ability to target and direct funding to those restoration activities that will be the most cost effective and beneficial. To address these concerns, we recommended that the Bay Program take the following six actions: (1) develop and implement an integrated approach for measuring overall restoration progress, (2) revise its reporting approach to include an assessment of key ecological attributes that reflect the bay's health, (3) report separately on the health of the bay and the progress made in implementing management actions, (4) establish an independent and objective reporting process, (5) develop a coordinated implementation strategy that unifies its various planning documents, and (6)establish a means to better target its limited resources to the most cost-effective restoration activities. In December 2007, the Congress enacted the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No. 110-161). An accompanying explanatory statement of the House Committee on Appropriations directed EPA to (1) immediately implement all of the recommendations in our report and (2) submit a report to the Congress demonstrating that our recommendations have been implemented. Following the submission of EPA's July 2008 report to the Congress entitled Strengthening the Management, Coordination, and Accountability of the Chesapeake Bay Program, Congress asked GAO to provide an assessment of the steps taken by the Bay Program to address our 2005 recommendations.
The Bay Program has made progress in addressing the six recommendations made in our October 2005 report. However, while actions taken by the Bay Program have fully addressed three of our six recommendations, additional actions are still needed to fully address the other three recommendations that we made. A Bay Program task force identified 13 key indicators for measuring the health of the bay and categorized these indicators into three indices of bay health. According to the Bay Program, these indices are now being used to assess and report on the overall progress being made in restoring the bay's health and implementing restoration efforts. In response to our recommendation that the Bay Program's reports should include an ecological assessment of the health of the bay, the program is now reporting on 13 relevant ecological indicators. actions. The Bay Program has developed a reporting format that, unlike the previous format, distinguishes between ecosystem health and management actions. The Bay Program is using actual monitoring data for the chapter that has an assessment of ecosystem health. The Bay Program has charged its Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee with assuring the scientific integrity of the data, indicators, and indices used in the program's publications. While the changes the Bay Program has made are an improvement over the reporting process that was in place in 2005, we remain concerned about the lack of independence in the process for several reasons. First, while the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee does not manage the day-to-day activities of the program, the committee is a standing committee of the Bay Program and provides input and guidance on developing measures to restore and protect the bay. Second, we do not believe that the report card issued by the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science is as independent as the Bay Program believes because several members of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee are also employees of the center. the Bay Program has developed a strategic framework to unify existing planning documents and articulate how the partnership will pursue its goals. However, this framework provides only broad strategies for meeting the Bay Program's goals, and does not identify the activities that will be needed to reach the goals, resources needed to undertake the activities, or the partner(s) who will be responsible for funding and carrying out the activities. According to the Bay Program, in addition to the strategic framework described above, it has, among other things, (1) adopted an adaptive management process that will allow it to modify the restoration strategy in response to testing, monitoring, and new knowledge; (2) developed annual targets that it believes are more realistic and likely to be achieved; and (3) established a funding priority framework that lists priorities for agriculture, wastewater treatment, and land management activities. While these are positive steps in the right direction, we do not believe that these steps by themselves will allow the Bay Program to target limited resources to the most cost effective strategies. Specifically, not all annual targets, such as those for underwater bay grasses and oysters, have priorities associated with them. Without a clear set of priorities linked to each of the annual targets, we believe that the partners will not be able to focus limited resources on those activities that provide the greatest benefit to the health of the bay.
GAO-08-1131R, Recent Actions by the Chesapeake Bay Program Are Positive Steps Toward More Effectively Guiding the Restoration Effort, but Additional Steps Are Needed
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Additional Steps Are Needed' which was released on September 26, 2008.
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GAO-08-1131R:
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
August 28, 2008:
The Honorable Barbara A. Mikulski:
United States Senate:
Subject: Recent Actions by the Chesapeake Bay Program Are Positive
Steps Toward More Effectively Guiding the Restoration Effort, but
Additional Steps Are Needed:
Dear Senator Mikulski:
Since 1983, the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; the
District of Columbia; the Chesapeake Bay Commission;[Footnote 1] and
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have partnered to protect and
restore the deteriorated Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The partners
established the Chesapeake Bay Program (Bay Program) to manage and
coordinate a variety of restoration activities and in their most recent
agreement, Chesapeake 2000, which was signed in June 2000, they
established 102 commitments for the Chesapeake Bay, which were
organized under five broad restoration goals to be achieved by 2010.
In October 2005, we issued a report entitled Chesapeake Bay Program:
Improved Strategies Are Needed to Better Assess, Report, and Manage
Restoration Progress (GAO-06-96), in which we reviewed the management,
coordination, and reporting mechanisms used by the Bay Program.
[Footnote 2] Our review found that the Bay Program had:
* developed more than 100 measures of restoration but lacked an
integrated approach for measuring the progress being made in restoring
the bay,
* reported on individual species and pollutants but lacked independent
and credible mechanisms to report on overall bay health, and:
* developed numerous plans for accomplishing its restoration
commitments but lacked a comprehensive strategy that could provide a
roadmap for accomplishing the goals outlined in Chesapeake 2000, and:
* used its limited resources to develop plans that could not be
implemented within available funding levels and was limited in its
ability to target and direct funding to those restoration activities
that will be the most cost effective and beneficial.
To address these concerns, we recommended that the Bay Program take the
following six actions:
* develop and implement an integrated approach for measuring overall
restoration progress,
* revise its reporting approach to include an assessment of key
ecological attributes that reflect the bay's health,
* report separately on the health of the bay and the progress made in
implementing management actions,
* establish an independent and objective reporting process,
* develop a coordinated implementation strategy that unifies its
various planning documents, and:
* establish a means to better target its limited resources to the most
cost-effective restoration activities.
In December 2007, the Congress enacted the Consolidated Appropriations
Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No. 110-161). An accompanying explanatory
statement of the House Committee on Appropriations directed EPA to (1)
immediately implement all of the recommendations in our report and (2)
submit a report to the Congress demonstrating that our recommendations
have been implemented. Following the submission of EPA's July 2008
report to the Congress entitled Strengthening the Management,
Coordination, and Accountability of the Chesapeake Bay Program, you
asked us to provide an assessment of the steps taken by the Bay Program
to address our 2005 recommendations.
To assess the progress that the Bay Program has made in implementing
our recommendations, we reviewed Bay Program documents, such as its
2007 health and restoration assessment and the July 2008 report to the
Congress. We also looked at partners' activities and funding data in
the new Bay Program database, reviewed the Bay Program's Scientific and
Technical Advisory Committee bylaws and operational guidance, and spoke
with officials at EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program Office. We conducted our
work in July 2008 in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. These standards require that we plan and perform
the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives. We believe the evidence obtained provides a reasonable
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
On August 5, 2008, we provided a briefing to your staff on our
assessment of the Bay Program's actions. This letter summarizes the
information presented in that briefing and officially transmits the
slides used during that briefing.[Footnote 3]
Summary:
The Bay Program has made progress in addressing the six recommendations
made in our October 2005 report. However, while actions taken by the
Bay Program have fully addressed three of our six recommendations,
additional actions are still needed to fully address the other three
recommendations that we made. Specifically,
The Bay Program has developed an integrated approach to measure
progress. A Bay Program task force identified 13 key indicators for
measuring the health of the bay and categorized these indicators into
three indices of bay health. In addition, the task force identified 20
key indicators for measuring the progress of restoration activities and
categorized these into five indices that are linked to the goals
outlined in Chesapeake 2000. According to the Bay Program, these
indices are now being used to assess and report on the overall progress
being made in restoring the bay's health and implementing restoration
efforts. We believe that these new indices will help the program better
evaluate its progress and allow it to provide a better overall
assessment of the bay's health and the restoration progress.
The Bay Program has revised its reporting approach to include an
assessment of key ecological attributes that reflect the bay's health.
In response to our recommendation that the Bay Program's reports should
include an ecological assessment of the health of the bay, the program
is now reporting on 13 relevant ecological indicators. We believe that
this new reporting approach is a more credible means of communicating
information on the current health status of the bay.
The Bay Program has revised its reporting format to distinguish between
the health of the bay and the results of management actions. The Bay
Program has developed a reporting format that, unlike the previous
format, distinguishes between ecosystem health and management actions.
For example, its most recent report, entitled Chesapeake Bay 2007
Health and Restoration Assessment, is divided into four chapters:
chapter 1 is an assessment of ecosystem health, chapter 2 describes
factors impacting bay and watershed health, chapter 3 is an assessment
of restoration efforts, and chapter 4 provides an assessment of local
water quality assessments. The Bay Program is using actual monitoring
data for the chapter that has an assessment of ecosystem health. We
believe that the new report format is a more effective means of
communicating separately on the health of the bay and the status of the
restoration effort.
The Bay Program's actions fall short of establishing a fully
independent and objective reporting process. The Bay Program has
charged its Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee with assuring
the scientific integrity of the data, indicators, and indices used in
the program's publications. In addition, it has instituted a separate
reporting process by the University of Maryland's Center for
Environmental Science, which assesses the bay's health in report-card
format. While the changes the Bay Program has made are an improvement
over the reporting process that was in place in 2005, we remain
concerned about the lack of independence in the process for several
reasons. First, while the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
does not manage the day-to-day activities of the program, the committee
is a standing committee of the Bay Program and provides input and
guidance on developing measures to restore and protect the bay. We
therefore believe that this committee cannot provide a fully
independent review of Bay Program reports. Second, we do not believe
that the report card issued by the University of Maryland's Center for
Environmental Science is as independent as the Bay Program believes
because several members of the Scientific and Technical Advisory
Committee are also employees of the center. We therefore continue to
believe the Bay Program can take additional steps to establish a more
independent peer review process that will further enhance the
credibility and objectivity of its reports.
The Bay Program has taken steps to develop some of the key elements of
a comprehensive, coordinated implementation strategy. In response to
our recommendation to develop a comprehensive, coordinated
implementation strategy, the Bay Program has developed a strategic
framework to unify existing planning documents and articulate how the
partnership will pursue its goals. According to the program, this
framework is intended to provide the partners with a common
understanding of the partnership's agenda of work. However, this
framework provides only broad strategies for meeting the Bay Program's
goals, and does not identify the activities that will be needed to
reach the goals, resources needed to undertake the activities, or the
partner(s) who will be responsible for funding and carrying out the
activities. Therefore, we continue to believe that additional work is
needed before the strategy that the Bay Program has developed can be
considered a comprehensive, coordinated implementation strategy that
can move the restoration effort forward in a more strategic and well-
coordinated manner.
The Bay Program has taken initial steps needed to target limited
resources to the most cost-effective strategies. According to the Bay
Program, in addition to the strategic framework described above, it
has, among other things,
* adopted an adaptive management process that will allow it to modify
the restoration strategy in response to testing, monitoring, and new
knowledge;
* developed annual targets that it believes are more realistic and
likely to be achieved; and:
* established a funding priority framework that lists priorities for
agriculture, wastewater treatment, and land management activities.
While these are positive steps in the right direction, we do not
believe that these steps by themselves will allow the Bay Program to
target limited resources to the most cost effective strategies.
Specifically, not all annual targets, such as those for underwater bay
grasses and oysters, have priorities associated with them. Without a
clear set of priorities linked to each of the annual targets, we
believe that the partners will not be able to focus limited resources
on those activities that provide the greatest benefit to the health of
the bay. In addition, while the program has established a process to
identify what activities have been undertaken and what level of funding
has been provided by each of the partners in any given year, it
continues to lack information on what activities should have been
undertaken and how much funding was needed. Without this benchmark
information, the Bay Program partners will remain unable to identify
gaps and duplication in their efforts, which will be key inputs
necessary to effectively implementing an adaptive management approach.
Agency Comments:
We obtained oral comments from EPA on our assessment of the actions
taken by the Bay Program in response to our recommendations at a
meeting with two EPA Associate Directors assigned to the program and
other senior Bay Program officials. These officials concurred with our
assessment of their actions and provided us with technical comments
that we have incorporated as appropriate.
As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to
Administrator of EPA, the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget, and appropriate congressional committees. We will also provide
copies to others upon request. In addition, the report will be
available at no charge on GAO's Web site at [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov].
If you and your staff have any questions or need additional
information, please contact me on (202) 512-3841 or mittala@gao.gov.
Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public
Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Major
contributors to this report were Sherry McDonald, Assistant Director,
and Barbara Patterson.
Sincerely yours,
Signed by:
Anu K. Mittal:
Director:
Natural Resources and Environment:
Enclosure:
[End of section]
Enclosure: Briefing slides:
GAO‘s 2005 Report on the Chesapeake Bay Program and the Bay Program‘s
Response to Recommendations:
August 5, 2008:
Recommendation: Establish an Integrated Approach to Measure Progress:
In 2005, we reported that:
* The Bay Program had 101 measures for individual species or
pollutants.
* These measures were appropriate for assessing progress made in
achieving certain restoration commitments and to guide management
decisions.
* However, the Bay Program had not developed an integrated approach to
assess progress toward achieving the five broad restoration goals.
Recommendation: Develop and implement an integrated approach to assess
overall restoration progress. In doing so, ensure that this approach
clearly ties to the five broad restoration goals.
Bay Program‘s Response to GAO‘s Recommendation:
* A Bay Program task force identified 13 key indicators for measuring
bay health and integrated these indicators into 3 broad indices.
* In addition, the task force identified 20 key indicators for
measuring the progress of restoration efforts and integrated these
indicators into 5 broad indices.
* The indices are linked to the overall restoration goals, and
according to the Bay Program, it is using these indices to assess and
report on the overall progress made in restoring the bay‘s health and
in implementing restoration efforts.
* We believe these new indices will allow the Bay program to better
evaluate and report on progress it is making toward its goals.
Recommendation: Improve the Effectiveness and Credibility of the Bay
Program‘s Reports:
In 2005, we reported that Bay Program reports did not provide an
effective and credible assessment of the bay‘s health. The reports:
* focused on the status of individual species or pollutants instead of
providing information on a core set of ecosystem characteristics;
* tended to downplay the deteriorated condition of the bay, and;
* lacked an independent report review process.
Recommendations:
* include an assessment of the key ecological attributes that reflect
the bay‘s health;
* separately report on the health of the bay and management actions,
and;
* establish an independent review process.
Bay Program‘s Response to GAO‘s Recommendations:
* The Bay Program has revised its annual reporting process to use a set
of 13 indicators to report on the key ecological attributes of the
bay‘s health.
* The program‘s annual reports distinguish between indicators of the
bay‘s health and management actions.
* We believe these changes will improve the clarity of the program‘s
report.
* The program charged its Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
with reviewing the data in its annual reports, and instituted a
separate reporting process by the University of Maryland Center for
Environmental Science.
- We do not believe the Bay Program has taken adequate steps to
establish an independent review process.
Recommendation: Develop a Comprehensive, Coordinated Implementation
Strategy and Realistic Work Plans:
In 2005, we reported that:
* The Bay Program lacked a comprehensive, coordinated implementation
strategy that would allow it to strategically target limited resources
to the most effective restoration activities.
* Some of the Bay Program‘s planning documents were not consistent with
each other, and some were perceived to be unachievable by the
restoration partners.
Recommendations:
* Develop an overall, coordinated implementation strategy that unifies
the program‘s various planning documents.
* Establish a means to better target limited resources to ensure that
the most effective and realistic work plans are developed and
implemented.
Bay Program‘s Response to GAO‘s Recommendations:
The Bay Program developed:
* a strategic framework to unify its planning documents;
* annual targets that it believes are more realistic;
* an activity integration plan to identify and catalogue implementation
activities and resources, and;
* dashboards that provide high-level summaries of key information, such
as status of progress.
In addition, the Bay Program has also adopted an adaptive management
approach to modify its strategy as needed.
We believe these are positive steps in the right direction, but
additional steps, such as identifying resources, assigning
accountability, and setting priorities linked to annual targets,are
needed to focus on activities with the greatest environmental benefit.
How much funding was provided for the restoration effort for fiscal
years 1995 through 2004?
* Eleven federal agencies; the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia; and the District of Columbia provided almost $3.7billion
(constant 2004 dollars) in direct funding to restore the Bay.
* $1.9 billion in additional funding was provided by 10 federal
agencies, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia for activities
that have an indirect impact on the Bay‘s restoration.
* We did not make recommendations about the need to aggregate
information on the amount of funding contributed by the partners.
However, the Bay Program has established a database to collect
information on the amount and source of funding being used and planned
for restoration activities.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] The Chesapeake Bay Commission is a tri-state legislative assembly
representing Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
[2] GAO, Chesapeake Bay Program: Improved Strategies Are Needed to
Better Assess, Report, and Manage Restoration Progress, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-96] (Washington, D.C.: Oct.
28, 2005).
[3] We also testified on our assessment of the steps taken by the Bay
Program to address our recommendations on July 30, 2008. See GAO,
Chesapeake Bay Program: Recent Actions Are Positive Steps Toward More
Effectively Guiding the Restoration Effort, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-1033T] (Washington, D.C.: July
30, 2008).
[End of section]
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