This website addresses issues currently affecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and New York State.

Below find a link to the Draft Tributary Strategy for New York as released by NYS DEC:

http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/33279.html

Status of The Chesapeake Bay

The “Chesapeake Bay Program” (CBP) is a multi-state/federal partnership that has been working toward restoring the Chesapeake Bay since 1983. Although the program has made great efforts, continued water quality impairments within the Bay led the EPA and the states to the list over 90% of the Bay tidal waters as “impaired” due to low dissolved oxygen levels and other problems related to nutrient pollution.

The EPA, as a result of a law suit, will require a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Chesapeake Bay in 2011. To avoid this regulatory TMDL, the Chesapeake Bay Program voluntary partnership has committed to correct all nutrient and sediment problems in the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries sufficiently to remove it from the list of impaired waterbodies under the Clean Water Act by 2010. This is a unique opportunity to test a voluntary approach to a regulatory necessity.

The Chesapeake Bay Program defined the water quality conditions necessary to protect aquatic living resources (through Chesapeake Bay water quality criteria for dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll a, and water clarity). The Program then assigned load reductions for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment needed from each tributary basin to achieve the necessary water quality. The Susquehanna River contributes 50% of the fresh water to the Bay.