EPA Seeks Comment on Climate Ready Estuaries Vulnerability Assessments

On September 8th, EPA published a Federal Register Notice announcing a 30-day public comment period for the draft documents entitled, “Vulnerability Assessments in Support of the Climate Ready Estuaries Program: A Novel Approach Using Expert Judgment.”  Volume I includes results for the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and Volume II includes results for the Massachusetts Bays Program.  At the same time, EPA is also announcing that the Eastern Research Group, an EPA contractor, will select two independent groups of scientific experts to conduct a peer-review of the same draft documents. EPA will forward the public comments that are submitted in accordance with this notice to the external peer-reviewers for their consideration during the review.

The two reports are considered pilot ecological vulnerability assessments that are intended to demonstrate the novel methodology and inform adaptation planning (under EPA’s Climate Ready Estuaries Program) for other estuary managers throughout the nation.  EPA does not specify what type of comments the Agency would like to receive.  Therefore, if interested, you may want to look at both the process and conclusions in the reports when considering your comments.

Comments are due by October 11, 2011.  For more information and to view the documents, visit the web site links as follows:

• The Federal Register Notice:  http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-09-08/html/2011-22993.htm
• The San Francisco Estuary Partnership report:  http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/global/recordisplay.cfm?deid=236588

• The Massachusetts Bays Program report:  http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/global/recordisplay.cfm?deid=237920