Municipal Alliance for Adaptive Management

The Municipal Alliance for Adaptive Management was formed earlier this month when the cities of Rochester, Dover and Portsmouth signed an intermunicipal agreement, creating a framework to collaborate with each other, regulators and stakeholders to improve water quality and reduce total nitrogen in the Great Bay estuary. The towns of Newington and Milton have also signed onto the agreement, and officials from Exeter are expected to at Thursday’s organizational meeting. The Municipal Alliance is open to all communities in the Great Bay watershed.

The Municipal Alliance members have opted into the Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Bay Total Nitrogen (GBTN) Permit to establish and implement an adaptive management framework set forth by the permit. The partnering communities opted into the GBTN Permit because it provides greater, long-term flexibility for meeting regulatory compliance and a more collaborative framework for protecting and promoting water quality throughout the Great Bay Estuary watershed.