Seven years ago, Wetlands Watch embarked on a campaign to get waterfront homeowners to better manage their backyard wetlands.  This was the origins of the Homeowners Guide - funded by a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Fund - the Chesapeake Bay License Plate fund in VA.

Now, we need to redouble those efforts in light of the Chesapeake Bay restoration's Watershed Implementation Plans (WIP). We are working with a range of organizations across the Bay and in Hampton Roads to push again to get private property owners to take care of their backyard wetlands, improve habitat, and reduce nutrient and sediment runoff.

Shereen Hughes, our assistant director, has been appointed to the Chesapeake Bay Program's Master Watershed Stewards Action Team.  She has identified successful models for private property conservation landscaping, such as Maryland's Watershed Stewards Academy, and we are exploring establishing the network in Virginia.

Under the mandatory WIP's, each watershed has to have plans to clean up Bay tributaries, and implement them.  For developed areas on the Bay, such as the cities/counties of Hampton Roads, there are fewer options for reducing nutrient and sediment flows to the tributaries.  Yet many groups are working to put conservation landscaping programs onto property owner's land, efforts that will result in fewer nutrient and sediment runoff.

Wetlands Watch is seeking to have these programs coordinated and expanded, so that there are conservation options in urban/suburban areas, meaning backyard wetlands and habitat are improved while local governments can get appropriate pollution reduction credits at the same time.

We will keep you updated on this work as it moves forward.