NATIONAL INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT BUILDS PARTNERSHIPS AND RAISES FUNDS «*£ ESTUARY PROGRAM A formal Interlocal Agreement in Tampa Bay, Florida, has helped ensure sustained funding to the region's estuary program since 2000, and generates at least $415,000 in cash each year as a match toward EPA funding. J Established in 1990, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program (TBEP) has worked diligently to involve local governments and Tampa Bay area citizens in its activi- ties and in 1998 adopted a formal Interlocal Agreement that committed 15 partners to achieving the goals of the program's bay restoration plan. Partners included city, county, and state governments, a water management district, a regional planning council, a port authority, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. THE NATIONAL ESTUARY PROGRAM IN ACTION Tampa Bay Estuary Program Goals of the bay restoration plan focus on restoring and sustain- ing a healthier bay that will sup- port recreational and commer- cial uses. Goals are related to improving water and sediment quality, restoring seagrass beds and coastal habitats, and reduc- ing bacterial contamination. Partners also committed to im- proving fish and wildlife regula- tion and enforcement, managing dredging and dredged material, and increasing public education and involvement. TBEP's success in reaching con- sensus on the Interlocal Agree- ment can serve as a model for similar efforts by other commu- nity-based programs: • Having a champion kept the process moving. The water man- agement district's representative on the TBEP Policy Board, an ex- perienced contract attorney, conceived the idea of the agree- ment, drafted it, and worked to build consensus among stake- holders and overcome obstacles in the process. • Long-term stakeholder rela- tionships supported consensus. The Tampa Bay community has EFFECTIVE EFFICIENT ADAPTIVE COLLABORATIVE ------- been working together on bay management and protection for 25 years, ever since the first Bay Area Scientific Information Sym- posium (BASIS) in 1982. Several milestones followed BASIS that built a tradition of regional coop- eration among bay area scien- tists and resource managers and fostered consensus on the Inter- local Agreement. ment would be a good invest- ment for the partners. It was es- timated that the added cost each year to TBEP's partners for im- plementing the restoration plan was insignificant compared to their overall budgets. Visit www.tbep.org to learn more about this and other TBEP efforts. • Incentives encouraged partici- pation. For example, participa- tion in the Estuary Program may have been spurred, in part, by a desire to ensure that the pro- gram followed a non-regulatory approach to resource manage- ment. Regulators agreed to ex- tend reasonable flexibility in per- mitting projects of TBEP partners that helped achieve the goals of the bay restoration plan. Further, a track record of afford- able, successful demonstrative projects showed that the agree- EPA's National Estuary Program (NEP) is a unique and successful coastal watershed-based program established in 1987 under the Clean Water Act Amendments. The NEP involves the public and collaborates with partners to pro- tect, restore, and maintain the wa- ter quality and ecological integrity of 28 estuaries of national signifi- cance located in 18 coastal states and Puerto Rico. For more information about the NEP go to www.epa.gov/owow/ estuaries. The NEP: Implementing the Clean Water Act in ways that are Effective, Efficient, Adaptive, and Collaborative. EPA-842F09001 ------- |