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PA BROWNER APPROVES TWO ESTUARY MANAGEMENT PLANS

Release Date: 10/4/96
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PA BROWNER APPROVES TWO ESTUARY MANAGEMENT PLANS

FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1996

BROWNER APPROVES TWO ESTUARY MANAGEMENT PLANS

EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner recently approved comprehensive management plans to restore two estuaries: the Delaware Estuary, signed on Sept. 19, and the Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays Estuary, signed on Sept. 24. Estuaries are coastal waterways, such as a bay or sound, where fresh water from rivers and streams mixes with salt water from the ocean. The Delaware Estuary includes the Delaware Bay and its tributaries and stretches 133 miles from Trenton, N.J., to the mouth of the bay between Cape May, N.J., and Cape Henlopen, Del. In l989, it became part of the National Estuary Program under the Clean Water Act. The restoration plan specifies 77 actions to be taken by federal, state and local governments, as well as private organizations and citizens groups to improve land and water use management, enhance habitat, reduce toxic pollution, improve data gathering and dissemination and increase public education. The Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays Estuary joined the National Estuary Program in l990. The Estuary encompasses about 1,650 square miles and 800 miles of shoreline from the New Hampshire border to the tip of Cape Cod. Over the last six years, the Massachusetts Bays Program has brought together hundreds of citizens, local, state and federal representatives from across the region to develop the plan to restore and protect the estuary. There are now 28 estuaries in the National Estuary Program and 12 comprehensive management plans have been developed and approved. For further information on the Delaware Estuary, call David Sternberg in EPA's Philadelphia office at 215-566- 5548. For additional information on the Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays Estuary, call Ruth Kuykendall at the Massachusetts Bays Program in Boston at 617-727-9530, ext. 402.

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