National Estuary Program (Renewal)

Section 320 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) amendments of 1987 established the National Estuary Program (NEP) to promote long-term planning and management in nationally significant estuaries threatened by pollution, development, or overuse. The NEP's objectives are to protect, preserve, and restore estuaries. The strategy of the program is to focus on estuaries that are nationally significant in recreational and commercial value, and of great importance for fish and wildlife resources. Another facet of national significance is whether lessons learned in working with the estuary can be applied to other coastal areas. The NEP strategy emphasizes estuaries with problems which detract from the estuary=s value and where there is a greater likelihood that NEP efforts will result in improvements in water and sediment quality, as well as in the abundance and variety of living resources. Information on the implementation of the NEP is collected every one or three years to determine the effectiveness of the program.

The latest form for National Estuary Program (Renewal) expires 2023-09-30 and can be found here.

National Estuary Program - Annual Workplan

Federal Enterprise Architecture: Environmental Management - Environmental Monitoring and Forecasting