Participants:
Bill Hayden, VA DEQ (Chair)
Catherine Krikstan, UMCES (Vice Chair)
Margaret Enloe, ACB (Coordinator)
Jenna Valente, CRC (Staff)
Will Parson, ACB
Stephanie Smith, ACB
Leila Mitchell, NY DEC
Phil Miller, DNREC
Darlene Pisani, MD DNR
Renee Kelly, STAC
Samantha Kappalman, The Hatcher Group
Guy Stephens, UMCES
Jessica Blackburn, CAC
Round Robin / GIT Updates:
VA DEQ:

Working with other state agencies to develop activities surrounding the management strategies and the Agreement.

Putting together a display to be used at Virginia’s major environmental conference at the end of the month.
DNREC:

Gearing up for a couple rain barrel building workshops as a part of the Reclaim our River series. o Coca-Cola and Dogfish Head Brewery donated plastic barrels for this event o It is a completely free workshop for the participants

Mark Belton is the new Secretary of DNR

Maryland is in the middle of a legislative session with the new governor, Larry Hogan.

The hot topics in being discussed in reference to the Chesapeake Bay are the Phosphorus
Management Tool and the Stormwater Remediation Fee

DNR is working on pulling together a public meeting about the management strategies and will keep the Communications Workgroup updated when more details are available.

STAC Reports to be released in March: o Peculiarities of Perviousness o Management Effects on Water Quality Trends o Designing Sustainable Stream Restoration Projects


Gearing up for the management strategy release for public input o Will be working up their top three recommendations to the Executive Council

The RFP for the Communications Office grant has been released o The Communications Office runs on a six-year grant cycle o Any non-profit organization can compete to manage the grant and the
Communications Office

Will be running a state-wide, phosphorus-free fertilizer outreach campaign over the next couple of weeks

New York law says that fertilizer retails are required to keep their phosphorus fertilizer separate from their phosphorus free fertilizer and post an informative sign stating why consumers should be using phosphorus-free fertilizers.
Management Strategy Communications Update:

There are three messages that relate to telling the story of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
Agreement: o The Agreement is a turning point in restoring the Bay watershed o The Bay Program brings everyone to the table o There are many challenges that we face in restoring the Bay, but we collaborate to overcome them

Card-sorting exercise o We had 36 categories offered during the exercise o Out of the 36, there were a clear top five that lined up
 Abundant Life
 Clean Water
 Engaged Communities
 Conserved Lands
 Climate Change

Posters and public sessions o We would like to group the posters by the aforementioned categories

Media release and public input period o Rather than having an executive summary for every single management strategy, the plan is to have executive summaries by category that will also serve as press backgrounders o Doing it this way will allow us to tell the story in five different executive summaries rather than in 25. o Additionally, we would like to target news releases based on geographic location

o There will be a master news release that is sent to everyone but we will also tailor each release to make it more locally relevant.

We will promote the strategies via a slider on our homepage

There will also be a news post about the release

The image for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement will be changed to give it a refreshed look.

The actual release will take place during a media briefing phone call and will include GIT chairs as speakers.

Each management strategy page will include a comment box for comments on that specific strategy

There will also be a place for organizations to submit formal letters
Reducing Pollution Indicator Update:

Every March the Bay Program puts out its Reducing Pollution Indicator, which is generated using the Watershed Model and its monitoring data

This year, our model has incorporated more robust data on things like, land use, population and agricultural commodities.

We are always trying to use the best possible data to track our progress toward restoring the Bay.

Every year we present what the trends have been since 2009 and our data shows that loads have been declining across the board.
ChesapeakeStat relaunch:

The Bay Program Web Team has relaunched ChesapeakeStat , we are very excited about this because it is the first step toward reframing the way that we communicate our work

This site will be important for us and help us in showing transparency and progress as well as adaptively manage the process.

The relaunch of the website made it clear the four principles are going to be crucial to the success of our work: o Transparency o Accountability o Reliability o Relevance

Our stakeholder groups expect to find current information about our efforts easily and on the web and ChesapeakeStat is a tool that does just that.

Instead of being a product itself, the site will link to three different web products. o Chesapeake Decisions o Chesapeake Progress o Chesapeake Data


It is also a communications tool that explains how we are governed, how we work and how we can be held accountable for what we do.
Upcoming Meeting: April 2