The Elizabeth River Project--What We Do

Five years into implementation, The Elizabeth River Project called 45 diverse stakeholders together (listed
on back cover of full Watershed
Action Plan) to update the plan based on lessons learned and changes in circumstances. The team met throughout 2001. About 70 regional leaders (listed in the full Watershed
Plan’s inside cover) then endorsed
key revised goals in late 2001 and
early 2002.

Highest Priority Actions
1.	The goo must go! Clean up Elizabeth River sediments.
2.	Restore and conserve vegetated buffers, wetlands and forests.
3.	Engage River Star industrial partners to establish pollution prevention as the industrial ethic for the Elizabeth River watershed.
4.	Wet weather: Reduce toxics and nutrients in storm water runoff
5.	Monitor river trends to guide effective restoration and conservation.
6.	Restore contaminated uplands where the payoff is high for enhancing marketability as well as enhancing the environment.
7.	Ensure that a proposed expansion of Craney Island, and other proposed port expansions, are both ecologically and economically responsible.
8.	Educate schoolchildren and the public on river ecology and the Elizabeth River's key challenges.
9.	Reduce litter in the Elizabeth River to the maximum extent practical.

Other Priority Actions
10.	Support local, national and international efforts to reduce levels of the toxic, TBT, in marine paint.
11.	Promote mass transit and alternate transportation based on recognition of automotive usage as a major source of pollution in the river.
12.	Remove abandoned vessels and pilings.
13.	Support efforts to implement a "load allocation approach," defining maximum total levels of pollutants the Elizabeth River ecosystem can tolerate, and allocating portions of the total among industries.
14.	Support efforts to improve insufficient sanitary collection systems.

	Download the full Watershed Action Plan here.

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