October 6, 1997
Contact: Anne Donovan
(617) 727-9530, x411

Trudy Coxe, Secretary of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, today announced the appointment of Jan Smith as the new Executive Director of the Massachusetts Bays Program. Smith has served as the Coastal Nonpoint Source Program Coordinator for the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office (MCZM) for the last five years.

"Jan has the proven experience to lead the Mass Bays Program into a new era of putting planning into action," said Trudy Coxe, Environmental Affairs Secretary. "With Coastal Zone Management, Jan demonstrated his ability to design a workable program and to bring the right people and resources together to make that program work."

"I am really looking forward to the challenges of being the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Bays Program," said Smith. "So much work has been done by so many participants in the Program to develop a comprehensive plan to protect Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays. I will do everything possible to work with these groups to implement the strategies that they have laid out and to take concrete steps to protect and improve our coastal water quality."

Before taking this position, Smith developed the state's Coastal Nonpoint Source Management Plan under Section 6217 of the Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments. In this position, he coordinated the efforts of all state agencies dealing with coastal nonpoint pollution issues, such as urban and agricultural runoff, to develop workable strategies to improve coastal water quality. Among his many accomplishments, he played a leading role in developing the state's new Stormwater Standards and technical guidance; forged partnerships with the Department of Food and Agriculture, Mass Highways, the Department of Environmental Management's Forestry Division, and other state agencies to implement stormwater solutions; and oversaw the development of a guidebook for farmers to prevent nonpoint source pollution.

Previously, Smith served as the MCZM Water Quality Specialist where he coordinated with numerous state agencies on sewage discharge permitting and regulatory review, aquaculture permitting, and wetlands protection measures. Before coming to MCZM, he was a biologist for the World Wildlife Fund working in Brazil to study the effects of forest fragmentation and deforestation on a tropical ecosystem.

Smith has an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Northeastern University, a graduate certificate in toxicology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Zoology from the University of Washington, and a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Massachusetts. He has been an Associate Member of Marblehead Conservation Commission for 16 years; worked with COAST, a citizen's group working to solve the problems at the South Essex Sewage Treatment Plant for four years; and is a member of the Society for Conservation Biology.

In 1990, the Massachusetts Bays Program (MBP) became the second National Estuary Program in Massachusetts (the first is the Buzzards Bay Project). The MBP is administered by Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management within the state's Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and covers the area from the Merrimack River to Cape Cod, including both Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay. The MBP's primary focus is on research, planning, and management of water quality in order to: protect and restore wildlife and living resources habitat, protect public health from risk of environmental contaminants, enhance the aesthetic quality of the resource, and increase safe public use of the Bays. In 1996, the MBP completed a Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan to address these areas of concern. This is the first action plan of its kind in the region, covering 13 river basins that drain 6,300 square miles of land to the Bays. The plan includes recommendations for 49 coastal communities from the New Hampshire border to the tip of Cape Cod. The MBP is now taking steps to implement this plan.