Secretary Salazar on Release of Draft Reports Required by Chesapeake Bay Executive Order
September 10, 2009
Announcer: Leaders in the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior today released the seven draft reports required by President Obama’s executive order on the Chesapeake Bay. The reports contain a range of proposed strategies for accelerating cleanup of the nation’s largest estuary and its vast watershed. Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar participated in a teleconference with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. The following are his remarks.
Secretary Salazar: We at the Department of the Interior are proud to have joined with all of our partners at all levels of government and the private sector to move forward with President Obama’s vision to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay.
For too long, our nation has turned its back to the waterways of America. Rivers that run through cities have become polluted. Watersheds have been disappearing for over a century. And many of the bays and deltas that supply our nation’s drinking water are in a state of collapse.
But in recent years, communities across America have begun to turn to face the watersheds of our country and to restore them as amenities. The truth is: our waterways can be economic engines – for the fisheries they support, the recreation activities that people enjoy, and for the clean water on which we depend.
And that is what we as a team are doing with the Chesapeake Bay, thanks to President Obama’s leadership.
Like the Everglades and like the California Bay Delta, the Chesapeake Bay is one of the national treasured landscapes of America. We must protect and restore.
That is why Interior is playing such a prominent role in this initiative. We at Interior manage one-fifth of our nation’s landmass, have some of our nation’s leading scientists and land managers, and we oversee more than 390 national parks and 550 wildlife refuges in fifty states.
The reports being issued today include several recommendations that will guide Interior’s efforts as part of this collaborative process.
The reports on which DOI worked recommend that our Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Geological Survey, and the National Park Service work to identify opportunities for landscape-scale conservation in the area. We have to protect habitat and we have to restore ecosystems.
That means leveraging federal dollars through programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund to conserve lands and waterways around the Chesapeake.
We may need to expand some wildlife refuges. And we may need to explore options for adding certain appropriate areas to the national park system.
Secondly, the reports being issued today recommend that Interior bolster scientific research around the Chesapeake to help guide land and water management decisions at all levels. Our scientists at USGS and the Fish and Wildlife Service working closely with the scientists and leadership of the Department of Commerce and NOAA have much to contribute to this effort.
Finally, the reports speak to the importance of managing the Chesapeake for the impacts of climate change. We must be able to adapt our management of lands, waters, and wildlife to account for the possibility of shifting migration patterns, rising waters, and changing hydrological conditions.
Once again, I’m proud of the progress that we as a team are making under this Chesapeake Bay initiative. These reports are the product of an unprecedented coordination of efforts among federal agencies on this critical issue. We look forward to continuing our work on this agenda and getting to a point where we can fulfill the vision of President Obama on the Chesapeake.
Announcer: This has been a podcast from the U.S. Department of the Interior.