Publications

Every major source of energy used by modern society has an environmental impact-and all too often these impacts are negative. Today, the Chesapeake Bay region has an unprecedented opportunity to take the lead in a new era of energy production that could produce a wealth of positive impacts for our economy, farms and families, as well as our forest, rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay. The opportunity lies with the new biofuels inducstry, which is currently exploding on both the national and itnernation levels.

View document [PDF, 3.8 MB] Next-Generation Biofuels: Taking the Policy Lead for the Nation 2008

The purpose of this project was to perform a cost evaluation of implementing nitrogen limits of treatment (LOT) technology at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. LOT technology was defined as technology that would produce a 12 month average effluent total nitrogent (TN) concentration of 3mg/L from each of the WWTPs. Most of this effort was a follow up to the evaluation of 51 WWTPs performed under a previous project entitled, "Evaluation of Wastewater Treatment Plants for BNR Retrofits using Advances in Technology".

View document [PDF, 7.5 MB] An Evaluation of the Cost of Point Source Nitrogen Limits of Treatment Implementation in the Chesape

A Comprehensive List of Chesapeake Bay Basin Species 1997 is an update of a 1992 document published by the Environmental Protection Aency Chesapeake Bay Program Office 9CBP/TRS 70/92). It provides a list of aquatic and aquatic-associate organisms found in recent decades in the Chesapeake Bay Basin. The list was originally extracted from moitoring data collected by federal and state agencies and private institutions. An extensive search identified other available aquatic Chesapeake species information. Newly identified species int he Maryland and Virginia Chesapeake biomonitoring programs were added and the list reviewed to remove duplications and erros. Species were then matched by scientific name to their National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) codes. any remaining species that could not be matched by either NODC code or scientific name were reexamined. It they proved to be valid species, they were given temporary codes.

View document [PDF, 2.8 MB] A Comprehensive List of Chesapeake Bay Basin Species 1997

The goal of the project was to design a more effective way to harvest invasive catfish (predominantly blue catfish, Ictalurus furcatus) in Virginia waters stunned by low-frequency electrofishing (LFE). LFE was conducted from May 18, 2015 to October 6, 2015; however, no weight was harvested on October 6 when water temperatures were 19oC . None of the data collected from the October 6 trip was used for catch statistics. Seventy-five trips were made during the LFE season; 37 in the James River and 38 in the Pamunkey River (Figure 1). The last day enough blue catfish (BCF) were susceptible to make commercial harvest worthwhile was September 29, 2015 when water temperatures were 23oC. In 2014 only large hooped (handle length about 2.5m long with a 0.4m2 net opening) were used to collect stunned fish. During the 2014 study 155,161lbs of catfish were harvested electrofishing for 5430 minutes resulting in a catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) of 28lbs per minute. In 2015 a total of 334,680lbs of catfish were landed electrofishing for 12850 minutes resulting in a CPUE of 26lbs per minute (Figure 2, Table 1). Three different new harvest techniques methods were attempted to increase the harvest efficacy of invasive BCF compared to regular dip netting: 1) a modified butterfly skimmer (Figure 3), 2) pulling a hoop net along the side of the boat, 3) dragging a surface trawl behind the boat (Figure 4). All three techniques were compared to a chase boat that utilized simple dip nets. The chase boat using dip nets harvested significantly more weight than the new techniques (Table 2). One modification that substantially helped harvest of small fish was using dip nets with smaller openings (0.24m2) and handles 3.5m long. The smaller nets had a wire mesh which allowed fish to be dumped out quicker without hanging in the mesh.

View document [PDF, 1.9 MB] Analysis of Collection Gears for Electrofishing Harvest Efficiency of Blue Catfish in VA Waters

This document describes how to access biological monitoring data at the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) Data Center in Annapolis, Maryland. It provides information:

View document [PDF, 6.5 MB] The 1996 Users Guide to Chesapeake Bay Program Biological and Living Resources Monitoring Date

In the years since the conference on the Chesapeake Bay that was held at the Wye Institute in September, 1968, the people of the Chesapeake Region, together with the rest of the nation, have increasingly recognized that environmental matters must be considered in planning and governing in both the pubic and private sectors. Aware of a vigorous mixture of completed, ongoing and projected studies, and of strong public environmental concern the principal state officials of Maryland and Virginia, requested the Chesapeake Reserach Consortium, Inc. to plan and convene a conference that would focus on the governance of Chesapeake Bay. This publication contains the task force reports from the workshop, the panelists' conference participants.

View document [PDF, 6.5 MB] Proceedings of the Bi-State Conference on the Chesapeake Bay April 27-29, 1977

On June 28, 2000, the Chesapeake Executive Council signed a new agreement for the restoration of the Bay, entitled Chesapeake 2000. Unprecedented in scope and complexity, the new accord called for a range of actions, most with specific goals and a timeframe of 2010 for completion. While many of the goals were related to the Bay's water quality improvements, others dealt with the need for healthy and productive natural systems throught the 64,000 square mile watershed. Among the most important means to achieve the goals is the permanenet protection of open lands, including farms, forests and wetlands.

View document [PDF, 4.6 MB] Conserving Chesapeake Landscape; Protecting Our Investments, Securing Future Progress

Rich Batiuk, EPA, Chesapeake Bay Program Office, described the objectives of the critical issues forum, the questions posed to the forum participants by the Toxics Subcommittee, and the process for incorporating forum findings into the reevaluation of the 1988 Basinwide Toxics Reduction Strategy. To ensure the findings from the Chesapeake Bay Water Column Containation Critical Issues forum are fully considered in continuing efforts to reevaluate the revise the Basinwide Toxics Reduction Strategy. Representatives from the Bay basin jurisdictions presented findings from their respective water column contaminant monitoring programs, with emphasis on concentration ranges observed at Bay tidal water station. No formal presentations of water column data from the New York, Delaware, and West virginia portions of the Chesapeake Bay basin were made as the available data were very limited.

View document [PDF, 1.7 MB] Chesapeake Bay WaterColumn Contaminants Critical Issue Forum Proceedings

View document [PDF, 1.6 MB] Algal Flow Way BMP Expert Panel Report

Since 1983, the Chesapeake Bay Program has been working in cooperation with local governments, industry, farmers, environmentalists, conservation associations, citizen groups, and others throughout the Bay region to restore the water quality in the Bay and its rivers by reducing pollution through management efforts. To help guide these efforts and mark progress toward a cleaner, healthier Chesapeake, the Bay Program set a series of challenging goals to achieve its top priority-the restoration of the lving resources including finfish, shellfish, underwater grasses and other aquatic life and wildlife. The most important water quality goal set by the Bay Program was the 1987 goal of a 40% reduction of the controllable loads of the nutrients nitrogen and phsophorus entering the Bay between 1985 and the year 2000. In 1992, the Bay Program agreed to maintain the reduced nutrient loading levels beyond 2000 a huge challenge in the face of population growth in the region.

View document [PDF, 3.3 MB] Chesapeake Bay Nutrient Reduction Progress and Future Directions 1997