Virginia’s Final Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan

The Office of the Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources, through the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), announced the release of Virginia’s Final Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan for meeting the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (the Final Phase III WIP) on August 23, 2019.

View or download Virginia’s Final Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan

The Commonwealth held a robust and comprehensive public review of the Draft Phase III WIP from April 5 through June 7, 2019, as evidenced by the more than 4,800 comments received. Multiple, significant revisions to the Draft Phase III WIP were necessary to improve clarity, to provide updated information, and to offer additional explanation and detail for specific initiatives. The efforts by many organizations and individual citizens that went into the development of the Phase III WIP and the input during the public comment period are greatly appreciated.

The next few years will continue to require engagement from all nutrient source sectors, whether regulated or unregulated, whether governed by permits or voluntary, whether encompassing large facilities or individual citizens. Virginia will assess its progress every two years as part of periodic milestone updates and all interested stakeholders are encouraged to stay engaged and continue their contributions to a successful restoration effort.

Read Secretary Strickler's cover letter to the Environmental Protection Agency 

The Final Phase III WIP best management practice (BMP) input deck is available through the Chesapeake Assessment and Scenario Tool (CAST). The scenario is titled "WIP 3 Official Version."

An Excel file containing all Final Phase III WIP tables is also available for download. The file now includes sediment targets.

EPA Evaluation of Phase III WIPs

EPA released its evaluations of final Phase III Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) from Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution to the Chesapeake Bay. View or download the evaluations on the EPA Chesapeake Bay TMDL webpage.

PDC Phase III WIP Submittals

The files below are the results from the local engagement process that 14 Planning District Commissions in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed engaged in from July to December 2018. The PDCs’ role in this process was to facilitate meetings with the localities and other stakeholders in their areas, to select a mix of BMPs (“input deck”) based on progress with BMP implementation to date, and to identify corresponding programmatic actions that would work best within the PDC area. PDCs were also asked to identify capacity and funding needs for the identified programmatic actions and BMP input decks.