CPDC: Our Work

The Office of the Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources, through the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), announces the release of Virginia’s Final Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan for meeting the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (the Final Phase III WIP).View or download Virginia’s Final Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan

WIP 101 Fact Sheet

Chesapeake Bay TMDL

Bay TMDL FAQs

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Secretary of Natural Resources: Chesapeake Bay Restoration

The Chesapeake Bay is the world’s greatest estuary and one of our nation’s most significant natural resources. As a Commonwealth we must ensure that we are responsible stewards of the Bay so that future generations can enjoy this natural treasure as much or more than we can. The Bay provides recreation for Virginians and visitors, billions of dollars in economic activity, and tremendous numbers of jobs and products. We are working with all of the other states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, along with the federal government and the District of Columbia, to improve the Bay’s water quality and wildlife.

Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay & Chesapeake Bay Stakeholders Advisory Group

Terms to Know:

Best Management Practice (BMP)

Best Management Practices are structural or engineered devices and behavioral practices that reduce or prevent pollution in stormwater.

TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load)

TMDL identifies how much of a pollutant a body of water can receive while still meeting water quality standards.

Tributary

A tributary is a freshwater stream that feeds into a larger stream, river or other body of water. The larger, or parent, river is called the mainstem like the James River that drains in to the Chesapeake Bay.

Watershed

A watershed is an area of land that drains all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet such as the outflow of a reservoir, mouth of a bay, or any point along a stream channel. Watersheds can be as small as a footprint or large enough to encompass all the land that drains water into rivers that drain into Chesapeake Bay, where it enters the Atlantic Ocean.

Learn more About Chesapeake Bay Watersheds

Final Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan (Phase III WIP)

In accordance with EPA expectations, the jurisdictions’ Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) are designed to accomplish a set of allocation goals identified in the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. The Phase III WIP was submitted to EPA on August 23, 2019. For more information, view the Phase III WIP