Chesapeake Bay Program Goal Implementation Team (GIT) Funding Program - Scope #4 - Beyond Bean Counting: Assessment of Best Management Practices (BMP) Tracking and Accounting Procedures for More Holistic Restoration Goals

Overview

Chesapeake Bay Program Goal Implementation Team (GIT) Funding Program

The Chesapeake Bay Trust has been designated to receive federal funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the Chesapeake Bay Program Goal Implementation Team Funding Program. The work funded by this initiative advances outcomes identified in the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. Each year, certain outcomes are chosen by the Chesapeake Bay Program as top priorities to address, and these stretch across all Goal Implementation Teams (GIT) and workgroups.

The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement contains five themes consisting of 10 goals that will advance the restoration and protection of the Bay watershed. These goals are interrelated: improvements in water quality can mean healthier fish and shellfish; the conservation of land can mean more habitat for wildlife; and a boost in environmental literacy can mean a rise in stewards of the Bay’s resources. Our environment is a system, and these goals will support the health of the public and of the watershed as a whole. Each goal is linked to a set of outcomes, or time-bound and measurable targets that will directly contribute to its achievement. Each outcome has a Management Strategy and Logic & Action Plan which offer insight into how the partnership will achieve each outcome, as well as how we will monitor, assess, and report progress toward abundant life, clean water, engaged communities, conserved lands, and climate change resilience.

GIT 3 – Water Quality – Scope # 4

The goal of the Water Quality GIT is to evaluate, focus, and accelerate the implementation of practices, policies, and programs that will restore water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries to conditions that support living resources and protect human health. To learn more about the Water Quality GIT visit their website at https://www.chesapeakebay.net/who/group/waterquality-goal-implementation-team.

Scope #4 - Beyond Bean Counting: Assessment of Best Management Practices (BMP) Tracking and Accounting Procedures for More Holistic Restoration Goals

Purpose and Outcome of Scope #4: This Scope will create a detailed evaluation report of BMP tracking and reporting under the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) framework by assessing current tracking measures. An evaluation will be completed as part of Scope #4 that will identify opportunities to reduce process inefficiencies, strive to better integrate multiple outcomes into progress assessments, and seek ways to improve engagement with external partners and stakeholders to ensure the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) is working with the best available information. This Scope #4 is limited to the stormwater sector; however, the project has the potential to serve as a pilot that can be replicable for other sectors. The goals of Scope #4 are to allow partners the flexibility to innovate while addressing key information and knowledge gaps, as well as restructuring how state and local water quality efforts can be better integrated with objectives around living resources, human well-being, and climate resilience.

Key Tasks of Scope #4:

* Initial Project Scoping Meeting – The contractor will meet with leadership from the Urban Stormwater Workgroup to discuss the establishment of a project steering committee, as well as to develop a final, prioritized list of critical stakeholder groups to approach, as well as datasets to review.
* Data review – The contractor will review existing CBP Grant Guidance documentation and QAPPs (note: the creation of a QAPP is not required for Scope #4) for each jurisdiction for BMP reporting and verification. Upon review, a matrix will be developed to identify common attributes and unique aspects of each program. This will inform the development of interview questions. Contractors will also collaborate with the steering committee to identify and review datasets and tracking and reporting approaches for assessing progress toward indicators outside of the CBP’s TMDL accountability framework and the National Environmental Information Exchange Network (NEIEN). This may include programs targeting flood mitigation, air and water temperature, habitat restoration, and land conservation. It may also include efforts taking place outside of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed that could be used as potential future models.
* Interviews – After the data review, the contractors will develop questions and conduct a series of 10 to 15 individual or small group interviews with partners from each jurisdiction at the state and local level to identify strengths and weaknesses of each BMP reporting and verification approach/system. The questions will also seek to identify where data gathered, but not reported, may be valuable in assessing other outcomes. Summaries of key discussion points or findings from the interview(s) should be developed for each jurisdiction or other logical aggregation of interviewed partners, which will be included in the final deliverable.
* Assessment – A summary assessment of findings, including the data review and interviews, will be conducted. This will inform a gap analysis, barriers, and next steps for the future of BMP reporting and progress tracking for other CBP Outcomes.
* Outreach – Following the summary assessment, the project team will engage with the Urban Stormwater Workgroup, Water Quality GIT (WQGIT), and other stakeholder groups as needed. These will be opportunities to both inform stakeholders on the status of the project and seek input on key questions throughout the data collection and assessment phases.
* Final report and recommendations – Following data reviews, interviews, assessment, and outreach, a final report will identify how BMP reporting and verification is working in each jurisdiction, comparisons with similar reporting and tracking efforts outside of the CBP, key findings of the interviews and assessments, and proposed next steps for the partnership. Ideally, recommendations would be prioritized, and considerate of feasibility and existing resource limitations. A final presentation of findings and next steps will be given to the Urban Stormwater Workgroup and other stakeholders upon request.

Eligibility

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