Skip to main content

Chesapeake Bay Program: Improved Strategies Needed to Better Guide Restoration Efforts

GAO-06-614T Published: Jul 13, 2006. Publicly Released: Jul 13, 2006.
Jump To:
Skip to Highlights

Highlights

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.

Full Report

Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Data integrityEnvironmental monitoringstate relationsFinancial analysisFunds managementPerformance appraisalPerformance measuresProgram evaluationProgram managementReporting requirementsStrategic planningWater pollutionWater qualityWater resources conservationWildlife conservationEnvironmental restorationProgram goals or objectives