H.R. 4715: The Clean Estuaries Act of 2010
Advisor
Semester
The Clean Estuaries Act of 2010 is an amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act), whose purpose is to reauthorize the National Estuary Program. Its key goals include expanding the requirements governing conservation and management plans and using collaborative processes to develop a new plan or update existing plans through a management conference. The Clean Estuaries Act also requires the EPA to evaluate conservation and management plan implementation every four years to determine the degree to which the goals of the plan have been met. The results of these evaluations would be submitted to the appropriate management conference for review and comment and the report would be made available to the public. Among other revisions of management, the Clean Estuaries Act also aims to redefine the terms for estuaries and estuarine zones and reporting on the effectiveness of programs and practices for improving water quality, natural resources and sustainable uses of estuaries covered by the conference.