U.S. EPA announced that a new director will take the helm of the agency's Gulf of Mexico Program.

Ben Scaggs, a Mississippi native, now serves as director of the EPA office at North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, the largest agency presence outside Washington, D.C. He will start the new job April 23, replacing acting program director Gloria Car.

EPA's Gulf of Mexico Program is tasked with protecting, restoring and maintaining the health and productivity of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem in ways that are economically sustainable.

"The Gulf of Mexico is a vast and productive body of water that is of tremendous value in ecological, economic, and social terms," Nancy Stoner, EPA's acting assistant administrator for water, said in a statement. "We will look to Ben to help us to continue in our efforts to ensure that the Gulf flourishes in all its natural richness and variety, while embracing the needs and desires of its people."

The EPA-funded Gulf program is a nonregulatory consortium of state and federal agencies that includes representatives of the business, agricultural and fishing communities; scientists; environmentalists; and leaders from all five Gulf states.

Established in 1988, the program joined the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay programs as flagships of the nation's effort to apply an adaptive management approach to large coastal freshwater and marine ecosystems.

Scaggs joined EPA in 1991. Over his 20 years with the agency, he has worked in the Office of Air and Radiation and as an acting enforcement branch chief in Region 4, which is headquartered in Atlanta.

Scaggs began his career on Capitol Hill with the House Veterans' Affairs Committee before becoming a legislative assistant for Mississippi Democratic Rep. G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery. After completing a master's degree in public administration at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Scaggs worked for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission before moving to EPA.

More than 60 percent of America's waters drain into the Gulf, an economic engine for the fishing, oil exploration, shipping and tourism industries. The Gulf also grapples with some of the nation's largest environmental challenges: rapidly deteriorating wetlands in Louisiana, a nutrient-pollution-fueled "dead zone" that is among the world's largest, and the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

"America's renewed interest in protecting the Gulf in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon incident reminds us of the importance of the Gulf of Mexico Program and its past and future work," said EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz. "Ben has close ties to the Gulf region including family on the Mississippi Gulf Coast as well as in Texas and Florida. I am confident Ben's passion and leadership skills will prove invaluable in the success of the program."