1. Round Robin Updates:

Carol Anders Riggs (Chair), Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control

  • Full time outreach person just began at Del. DNREC (Phil Miller)
  • Next week: event announcing three grants for small towns along the Nanticoke River

Margaret Enloe(Coordinator), Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay

Caitlin Finnerty(Staff), Chesapeake Research Consortium

  • Maternity Leave begins 9/24 through 2013

Jessica Blackburn, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC)

Pat Buckley, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

Cindy Chance, National Park Service (NPS)

  • Chesapeake Explorer App will be launching shortly
  • Collecting social media communication strategies. Send them to her!

Samantha Kappalman, Maryland Department of the Environment

  • October 24: Innovation Clean Water Trade Show at Md. Dept. of Environment
  • Week before: Event at a school celebrating 40th anniversary of Clean Water Act

Rick Keister, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay

  • Local Government Advisory Committee is meeting during Chesapeake Watershed Forum Sept 28-30

Tom Wenz, United States Environmental Protection Agency

  • EPA Chesapeake Stewardship Fun Announcment in Blandensburg next week
  • Similar event in PA sometime for Penn State grants (2 million)
  • How is your watershed Appl due out in October

Catherine Krikstan, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay

Leila Mitchell, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Molly Mullins, Chesapeake Bay Trust

Nita Sylvester, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Holly Waldman, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

  1. Rich Batiuk Presentation (see attached materials)
  1. Summary:
  • Verification is how we keep track of what is going on in the watershed so we can know what makes a difference. (If we don’t know that downspout disconnections are occurring, we cannot know if they made a difference when we look at a neighborhood’s water quality). Verifying that these practices are occurring is essential to measuring their predicted outcomes.
  • Verification sounds like a complicated process, but it can appeal to the public (and the state secretaries who will be approving it) on two basic levels:
  • It will give people “credit” or recognition for what they have done and show them the measurable “difference” that their actions can have.
  • It will allow us to see what practices make the biggest difference, and therefore, which practices are most worth investing in.
  • The messaging will not be a press release or one-time event but an ongoing, consistent push.
  1. Comments from the Crowd:
  1. Pushing verification of these practices will be difficult to do across the watershed and should be state specific. (Samantha Kappalman, Pat Buckley)
  2. Partners that are not states, such as conservation districts and state offices of federal agencies will also need messaging help (Rich Batiuk)
  3. It will be important to est. a few basic messaging principles surrounding BMP verification (i.e. coming up with a name that is more appealing than “BMP Verification” that all partners can use. This way we know we are talking about the same thing). (Margaret Enloe)
  4. Timeline is important to the public. Is there a way to show them how long it takes to “verify” their practices and what the specific difference the practices make? (Nita Sylvester)