A grant from the Environmental Protection Agency will help the Virginia Institute of Marine Science assist local government efforts to protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
The three-year, $999,640 grant was announced Tuesday during an EPA press conference at the VIMS campus in Gloucester Point. It will allow VIMS researchers to create planning tools that can help leaders in the Chesapeake Bay watershed make land-use decisions that will prevent pollutants and excess nutrients from entering the Bay’s tributaries.
During his presentation of the award, EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin said, “Through this grant, VIMS will work to reduce wetland loss in Virginia, which will help the state’s economy, as well as its environment.”
VIMS Director of the Center for Coastal Resources Management Carl Hershner will lead the EPA project, which he said will help VIMS develop resource-management plans providing guidance for protecting wetlands in light of “existing land use and development pressures.”
Hershner said VIMS aims to create planning tools specific to localities throughout the state to help local planners, regulators and residents. The project expands on VIMS’ previous contributions to Virginia’s EPA-approved Wetland Program Plan. Protection and regulation of the nation’s wetlands is mandated under the Clean Water Act of 1972.
In the last decade, the focus of the U.S. policy of “no net loss” of wetlands has shifted from preservation of acreage to preservation of the ecosystem services wetlands provide. “It does little good to replace a natural 10-acre wetland with a created 10-acre wetland if the latter doesn’t provide filtration, erosion protection or habitat,” Hershner said.
He will collaborate on the project with Kirk Havens, assistant director of the Center for Coastal Resources Management; Marcia Berman, manager of VIMS’ Comprehensive Coastal Inventory; and Donna Bilkovic, a research assistant professor in VIMS’ Coastal Watershed program.
The team’s work will build off tools VIMS has created for managing tidal wetlands and will use geographic data they’ve collected and interpreted over the past 20 years.
This project will include revising VIMS’ existing monitoring and assessment strategy to make it local government-friendly; enhancing community resource management plans to include tools for risk assessment, defining goals and gauging the scope of the existing ecosystem services; developing new outreach strategies; and developing a web-based tool that will extend the Wetlands Data Viewer to make it easier for use by planners and managers.
A 2003 inventory of wetlands in Virginia showed the state has approximately 515,536 acres of headwater wetlands, which filter the water entering all of the Chesapeake Bay’s tributaries and feeder streams, including the James and York rivers.
VIMS will pursue the project in cooperation with state managers and with the advice of federal regulators. The ultimate goal, Hershner said, “is to have the tools we create facilitate coordination across all levels of government.”
