Beyond 2025 in 2025

What is Beyond 2025?

Photo provided by Chesapeake Bay Program

In 2014, the Chesapeake Bay Program Executive Council (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, New York, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, EPA, and the Chesapeake Bay Commission) signed the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Agreement. This agreement had 10 goals and 31 outcomes that focused on everything from water quality and toxics, to land conservation and public access. The deadline to achieve these goals and outcomes was 2025. This aligned with the goal for the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) to have all projects in place by 2025. Out of the 31 outcomes, 18 have been achieved and 13 are off track or have an unknown status.

In October of 2022, the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council issued a directive to the Bay Program to develop a plan to accelerate progress to get our goals and outcomes as close as possible to being achieved by 2025 and to present recommendations about the future of the Chesapeake restoration effort beyond 2025.

Phase 1

Since the Executive Council’s directive in 2022, the Coalition has worked to ensure the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Reaching 2025 and Beyond 2025 process was inclusive and that the voice of the nonprofit and stakeholder community was heard. Last year, the Coalition was a member of the Beyond 2025 Steering Committee, which wrote recommendations for Beyond 2025 that were eventually adopted by the Executive Council (see previous blog for more background information).

At the December 10 meeting, the Executive Council issued another directive, which asked the Program’s Principals’ Staff Committee (PSC) to review the existing goals and outcomes in the Bay Agreement and propose changes by the end of 2025. It also directed the PSC to revise the Program’s governance and structure by 2026.

Phase 2

In this second phase of Beyond 2025, the work is focused on revisions to the current Chesapeake Bay Agreement. There are opportunities for Coalition members and other interested parties to provide their comments and feedback on the goals and outcomes through Bay Program goal team and workgroup meetings, which can be found here. All of these meetings are open to the public, and information on the meetings, the agenda, call-in, and contact information can be found on the Bay Program’s calendar. The Coalition will continue to update our blog with more information as the process continues.

If you have questions about the process or how to get involved, please contact Kristin Reilly for more information.

Kristin Reilly

Kristin Reilly is the Choose Clean Water Coalition’s Director

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