We gratefully acknowledge the federal and state agencies who financially supported this project: the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA); the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS); the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD-DNR), Coastal Resources Management Program of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), under the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 as amended by the Office of Ocean Coastal Resource Management (OCRM); and the School of Marine Science, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary (VIMS). Also, we thank the Allied - Signal Foundation, Inc. for providing a private grant to VIMS for this work.
Acknowledgement would not be complete without commendation for the groups that provided ground truthing of SAV beds, which was used in conjunction with interpretation of the 1994 photography. The USFWS with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation organized citizens to report locations and species composition of grass beds around the bay. Kathryn Reshetiloff of the USFWS was responsible for compiling and tabulating the citizen ground-truth data. Stan Kollar of Harford Community College (HCC), Maryland, Kent Mountford, Senior Scientist with the USEPA, the Essex Community College SAV Work Group, Maryland, and Peter Bergstrom, USFWS, provided ground-truth data for certain specific regions of the Maryland portion of the Bay. Virginia Carter and Nancy Rybicki of the USGS National Center provided ground-truth data for the Potomac River. Michael Naylor and Paul Kazyak of the MD-DNR, Chesapeake Bay Research and Monitoring Division, and the Maryland Patuxent River Park staff, provided ground- truth data for the Patuxent River. Ken Moore, Susan Bogardy, Jill Goodman, and James Fishman of VIMS provided ground-truth data for the lower bay. The Ocean Pines Boat Club of Berlin, Maryland, provided ground truth for Chincoteague, Isle of Wight, Sinepuxent, and Assawoman Bays.
The production of this report required the dedication of numerous scientists, technicians, artists, photographers, and others. The following people deserve a note of thanks: Rich Batiuk and Carin Bisland, USEPA-Chesapeake Bay Program Office; Kathryn Reshetiloff, USFWS; Vincent Pito, MD-DNR; and Christina Pompa, CBF. Peter Bergstrom of the USFWS, Dick Hammerschlag of the U.S. Park Service, and Carin Bisland, with editor Tawna Mertz, of the USEPA also reviewed the draft of this report and provided helpful comments and suggestions for improving the quality of the final product. We are especially grateful to the dedicated VIMS personnel who contributed greatly to the production of this report: Susan Bogardy, Krisna Davis, Carol Hayes, and Christine Wilcox for their tremendous assistance and perservation in digitizing the SAV maps, editing the digital data files, mapping ground-truth information, and for their constant, careful efforts to maintain high quality control; Gerald Harrison and Susan Rollins for grant administration; Wanda Cohen, Kay Stubblefield, Harold Burrell, and Sylvia Motley of the VIMS Publications Center for report production services; and Kent Forrest, artist, for the beautiful watercolor painting used on the cover of the report.
Air Photographics, Inc. conducted the aerial photographic missions and was responsible for the high quality aerial photographs.