Oct. 17, 2000—The Environmental Protection Agency administrator has signed a comprehensive plan designed to preserve and restore the San Juan Bay Estuary in Puerto Rico.
Administrator Carol Browner signed the plan Tuesday. Regional EPA officials and the government of Puerto Rico signed the plan Wednesday.
The final plan, called the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) contains 49 actions, of which 21 are high-priority actions, to assess and address the environmental challenges faced by the estuary.
It is expected to cost an estimated $300 million to fully implement. Much of that will be spent to restore the highly-polluted Martin Pena Channel, along which communities have been built without sewage treatment and solid waste collection facilities.
The estuary was added to the National Estuary Program in 1992. It is one of 28 estuaries nationwide in the program; of those, 21 now operate under CCMPs.
For more information, visit EPA's Region 2 Office at http://www.epa.gov/region2. Additional information also will be posted on the NEP web site: http://www.epa.gov/owow/estuaries/nep.htm.
