If you are lucky enough to be a community within a designated National  Estuary Program area, you likely have a head start on planning, design and best management practices to conserve wildlife and wildlife habitat. The National Estuary Program (NEP) represents a unique partnership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and numerous federal, state, and local organizations working together to address coastal watershed management challenges. The program leverages the resources of program partners by financing cutting-edge research into key problems impacting the bay; sponsoring demonstration projects to test innovative solutions to these problems such as providing “Mini-Grants” to community groups to engage the public in bay restoration; and developing educational programs targeting key segments of the bay community – including teachers, boaters and homeowners.  A National Estuary Program partnership of citizens, elected officials, resource managers and commercial and recreational resource users works to improve the water quality and ecological integrity of the entire watershed.

EPA's National Estuary Program was established by Congress in 1987 to improve the quality of estuaries of national importance. The Clean Water Act Section 320 directs EPA to develop plans for attaining or maintaining water quality in an estuary. This includes protection of public water supplies and the protection and propagation of a balanced, indigenous population of shellfish, fish, and wildlife, and allows recreational activities, in and on water, requires that control of point and nonpoint sources of pollution to supplement existing controls of pollution. In several cases, more than one State is participating in a National Estuary Program. Each program establishes a Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan to meet the goals of Section 320.

The NEP’s  offer a large cross-jurisdictional landscape approach because they:  they focus on the watershed,  use science to inform decision-making,  emphasize collaborative problem solving and financial and staffing approaches; and,  involve the public.

The successes of the National Estuary Program are largely a result of the programs’ ability to develop long term, sustainable finance strategies.

Florida has several ongoing NEPs including:

• Charlotte Harbor,
• Indian River Lagoon,
• Sarasota Bay, and
• Tampa Bay.

Each of these programs focuses heavily on watershed level planning from the very large scale of an entire basin down to the individual lakes, wetlands and streams that make up the basin. The program serves local communities (that can each become partner members with the NEP effort) by providing consistent assistance regarding:

Management, Administration and Grants - Objective - To provide a structure that supports the implementation of the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP).

Public Outreach, Education - Objective: To provide essential ongoing communications so that the program can address specific requirements and issues associated with the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP).

Data management – Objective: A data management strategy is a required element of each NEP. It provides information about information that is available, including technical information, facilitates the exchange of information among different organizations, and supports efforts for analysis of scientific information. Geographic Information System (GIS) via use of Arc Info and Arc View type data and analyses tools.

Research (keeping things science-based) - Objective: To conduct research targeted for implementation of the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan and to coordinate monitoring approaches so that consistent and reliable information is available throughout the study area and to identify research needs for implementation through partnerships.

Restoration (bring disturbed or damaged habitats back to functional use) - Objectives: To develop and update an landscape level restoration plan and participate in activities which will implement this plan and CCMP objectives and actions relating to restoration. To promote innovative techniques in research and restoration and to conduct research targeted for implementation of the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP).

Advocacy and Legislative Action (identify action items and efforts and directing appropriate resources to them). Objective: Provide a structure for pursuing legislative action to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP).

For example, the Charlotte Harbor NEP consists of the basins of the Peace, Myakka, and Caloosahatchee Rivers (almost 4,500 square miles) that feed freshwater into the coastal area.  In southwest Florida, barrier islands and coastal waters such as Lemon Bay, Matlacha Pass, Pine Island Sound, Charlotte Harbor, and Estero Bay are supplied with freshwater from those three rivers and nearby areas. The Charlotte Harbor estuary and contiguous coastal waters serve as a home, feeding ground and/or nursery area for more then 270 species of resident, migrant, and commercial fishes of the Gulf of Mexico. Manatees, sea turtles, wood storks, and dolphins are also found in the estuary and its watershed.

The Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program challenges local communities to address water quality, wildlife habitat loss, land use changes, and human-induced changes to river flows to protect uses of the estuary. The Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program is building on current efforts to maintain and enhance the estuary system. Emphasis is on taking immediate actions where the problems are known, while filling in gaps in the knowledge of emerging problems. The Charlotte Harbor program has developed a Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) based on the completion of previous problem identification and characterization work, and successful consensus-building activities within the region.

For Charlotte Harbor a cooperative decision-making process is used within the program to address diverse resource management concerns in the 4,400 square mile study area. Many of these partners also financially support the Program, which, in turn, affords the Program opportunities to fund a yearly work program and projects. The CHNEP follows a task-based budgeting process to facilitate long-term funding approaches and priority setting. The focus within yearly workplans is on deliverables. The task-based approach has provided structure to CCMP implementation, workload allocation, and communication with the public. All achievements are tracked using the broad task areas.