NEWSLETTER

Chesapeake Assessment Scenario Tool

CAST Newsletter: January 2023

Tips and information to facilitate environmental restoration efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed

Did You Know?

Did you know the Conowingo WIP Baseline and Conowingo WIP are now available? The official Conowingo WIP Baseline and Conowingo WIP are now publicly available on CAST. You can run reports using these scenarios from the Reports page. Note that the Conowingo WIP Baseline scenario needs to be subtracted from the Conowingo WIP scenario to determine the Conowingo load reductions.

CAST Webinars and Training

Upcoming Webinars

This month's webinar will feature Tim Rosen of ShoreRivers discussing how a series of water quality improvement projects were planned, desgined, and implemented at Chesapeake College. These projects spanned several college administrations and included on site stormwater controls as well as agricultural practices on leased land. We will then walk through how to use CAST to quantify the estimated load reductions that result from the efforts that have been made by ShoreRivers' project.

  • Topic: Engaging Partnerships for Restoration and Stormwater Management at Chesapeake College
  • Time: January 19, 2023 at noon EST
  • Join Zoom Meeting
  • Meeting ID: 878 2576 6811
  • One tap mobile +13017158592,,87825766811#

Available Training Videos

In our last webinar, we heard from guest speaker, Amber Ellis, Restoration Director with the James River Association, to learn about their innovative collaborative approach to getting more riparian forest buffers on the ground in the James River Watershed in Virginia. She provided an overview of the James River Buffer Program, how it got started, funding sources, prioritization, outreach strategies, and the 5 elements that make it a success: having a full team, being all inclusive, keeping it simple, being flexible, and staying systems focused. Since the program's launch in 2019, over 660 acres have been installed in the Middle and Upper James Watershed! We wrapped up the webinar by walking through how CAST can be used to quantify the benefits of those efforts in a scenario.

This and other past training videos, on topics ranging from buffers to targeting nutrient reductions, are available in the Learning section of CAST under 'Free Training Videos'. Amongst the variety of training content available, there are also short videos on topics like 'Where do I start,' under CAST 101 - Getting Started.

Chesapeake Bay Watershed Success Story

Cascading System of Floodway Stormwater Containment Basins on Hambleton Creek Farm in Chestertown, MD: A series of four cascading basins were installed to treat agricultural stormwater. Read more about this success story in this thesis, titled Treatment of Agricultural Stormwater Runoff By A Cascading System of Floodway Stormwater Containment Basins.

Does your organization have a Chesapeake Bay Watershed success story you'd like to share? If you have a story you would like to see in the next CAST Newsletter, submit an article using the 'Contact Us' feature from any page of the CAST website.

Chesapeake Bay Program Deadlines

2022 Progress toward the Bay TMDL

The Chesapeake Bay Deadlines refer to the major jurisdictions' annual reporting of new BMPs implemented, and existing BMPs verified as functioning in the watershed. BMP implementation information is used to create annual progress scenarios using CAST and to make assessments and report out the estimated impacts of restoration efforts.

The Phase 6 NEIEN Appendix has been approved and is available for download under CAST Progress Reporting.

  • January 2023: Calls with state technical leads completed. Resubmission reminders continue.
  • February 7, 2023: Final opportunity for states to update BMP data.
  • February 8, 2023: Final progress run information for progress available to jurisdictions - needed for outside reporting of progress on commitments and to keep results relevant.
  • March 8, 2023: 2022 Progress finalized and released on CAST. Progress may be delayed due to unresolved issues surrounding the verification assessments. We intend to make the progress scenearios available on CAST even if the reporting progress indicators has not been released.

Updates to CAST

New features: The Conowingo WIP and Conowingo WIP Baseline are now available on CAST. The Conowingo WIP Baseline scenario needs to be subtracted from the Conowingo WIP scenario to determine Conowingo load reductions.

A full list of changes is available on CAST's Upgrade History. The new CAST version is Phase 6 - 7.5.0.

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