Over the last four years, the Coastal America Partnership has defined a new collaborative planning and implementation process that promotes environmental restoration and protection, while sustaining vital economic development. The partnership combines the individual statutory authorities, expertise and resources of the federal natural resources agencies, and the infrastructure and development agencies, and the military departments. The Coastal America process then integrates these federal capabilities with state, tribal, local and non-governmental efforts to restore and protect our coastal environment thus accomplishing more together than any single organization could accomplish alone. This collaborative multi-agency problem solving structure enables national policy issues to be implemented. Since 1992, Coastal America has initiated over 150 restoration and protection projects in 26 states, two territories and the District of Columbia in collaboration with over 300 non-federal organizations. Through these projects, thousands of acres of wetlands are being restored, hundreds of miles of streams for anadromous fish are being reopened, and numerous endangered species are being protected.
This report provides an analysis of selected projects, from their initial development through their implementation, to identify specific lessons learned. Fifty projects were examined by Coastal America's Technology Transfer Working Group and the project's respective Regional Implementation Team. The analyzed projects were organized into six categories, based upon the type of habitat restoration being conducted, whether the project's focus was endangered or threatened species, or addressing a source of pollution threatening a coastal resource. The lessons learned for each project were divided into two broad categories, technical and procedural.
Our hope is that these project descriptions and analyses will aid not only the development and implementation of future Coastal America projects, but also other agency actions, both federal and non-federal, as additional projects are planned, designed, and implemented. Coastal America is very proud of the accomplishments made to date and believes the process for collaboratively assessing local problems, placing them into a regional context, and implementing consensus based solutions using national programs is a valuable model for public/private partnership ventures. These accomplishments were only possible because of committed individuals, empowered by their parent agencies, to move out in new directions to achieve sustainable development objectives. We are confident that over the next few years, this partnership process will become a paradigm for effective government action.
Robert Perciasepe
Chair, Coastal America Principals Group
and
Assistant Administrator for Water,
U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyVirginia K. Tippie
Director
Coastal America