Insufficient progress in achieving water quality goals for the Chesapeake Bay has led to demands for more effective measures for addressing agricultural pollution. The responses by federal and state agencies call for ramping up existing programs. This set of papers will highlight opportunities for improving policy outcomes through new approaches.

Restoring the Chesapeake Bay is a complex undertaking operating at the very limits of current understanding about how very large ecosystems operate. The current strategy is based on models and technical information that involve significant uncertainties. Review of the uncertainties generates an argument for adaptive implementation of restoration methods.

The recently established Total Maximum Daily Load for the Chesapeake Bay is forcing states to consider policies for reducing agricultural nonpoint source pollution. Initial plans rely on the familiar suite of voluntary approaches. This paper discusses the shortcomings of this approach and options for improving policy effectiveness.

In response to fish kills that occurred in 1997, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware enacted laws requiring farmers to obtain and follow a nutrient management plan. The policy development and implementation history in these States provide some lessons for regulations that could be employed in response to the new Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) policy.

There is widespread interest in Payment for Environmental Services (PES) programs to complement other environmental management strategies. A PES program may be impractical for the Chesapeake Bay but principles of PES can be adapted to the Bay circumstances.

The successful implementation of pollution load reductions to clean up the Chesapeake Bay involves solving multiple ecological, economic, and political problems.This paper considers how the political process in a representative democracy and federal system of governance might impact the allocation of load reductions and influence the success of the policy.