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ERA
Information:
The Estuary Restoration
Act
Photo
Credit: NOAA's Fisheries Restoration Center
The Estuary Restoration Act (ERA) makes restoring estuaries a national priority and has the goal of restoring one million acres of estuarine habitat by 2010. Representatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Army work together to implement the Act.
On November 8, 2007, the ERA was modified via amendments to the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 (pdf, 3 pages, 36KB). The complete Act with incorporated amendments (pdf, 9 pages, 196KB) can also be viewed.
The original Estuary Restoration Act (pdf, 26 pages, 168K) was passed into law on November 7, 2000. The Act was created in order to promote the restoration of estuary habitat by:
- forging effective partnerships among public agencies and between the public and private sectors;
- providing financial and technical assistance for estuary habitat restoration projects; and,
- developing and enhancing monitoring and research capabilities.
The Act established an interagency Council to carry out these directives, and required the Council to develop an Estuary Habitat Restoration Strategy with the goal of restoring one million acres of estuary habitat by 2010. The Act also directs NOAA to develop monitoring protocols for estuary habitat restoration projects, and to create and maintain a national database of restoration projects.
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