2013 RMP Insert in SFEP's Estuary News: Celebrating 20 Years of Monitoring the Bay

This RMP publication was distributed as an insert in the October 2013 issue of Estuary News, published by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership. This edition summarizes the history of the RMP and describes how the Program has evolved over the past 20 years.

The article describes how monitoring before the RMP was performed by individual discharges and was disjointed and inefficient. The RMP's formation in 1993 united regulators and discharges to help the region collaboratively improve the Bay's health. Under the RMP, monitoring expanded from just looking near discharge outlets to the entire Bay. Over the past two decades, RMP monitoring has helped identify toxic hotspots that were subsequently cleaned up, identified safer ways to dredge, informed fish consumption advisories, and provided data for TMDLs.

The article also highlights how the RMP adapts to address new challenges and changing regulatory needs. Today the RMP starts collecting data years before the information is needed for regulatory decisions. Two current areas of emphasis for the RMP are contaminants of emerging concern and nutrients.

Download a PDF copy of the 2013 RMP Estuary Insert.