Estuaries in the Gulf of America (GOA) support important commercial and recreational fisheries. Many species spend a portion of their life history in these systems, while others may rely on estuaries indirectly through trophic linkages to organisms that move between estuarine and open ocean environments. Several fish and water column invertebrate (FWCI) species with estuarine dependency were identified as priorities for restoration in the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (DWH NRDA), Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group’s Fish and Water Column Invertebrates Strategic Plan. The Coastal Restoration Effects on Inshore, Nearshore, And Offshore Ecological Condition Monitoring and Adaptive Management Activity Implementation Plan (MAIP) leverages U.S. EPA’s National Coastal Condition Assessment (NCCA) protocols and fisheries population and food web evaluation protocols to develop a framework to evaluate the ecological effects of the DWH NRDA restoration activities on condition of estuarine ecosystems. The NCCA collects data on water quality, sediment, benthic macroinvertebrates, algal toxins, and whole fish contaminants. The MAIP outlined a process to select a GOA estuary for a pilot study (presence of DWH NRDA projects, historical water quality data and historical fisheries data) and identified Mobile Bay. During the summer of 2025, MAIP implementation began by collecting field samples and data using NCCA protocols. The data will be used to evaluate the ecological effects of DWH NRDA Nutrient Reduction, Water Quality, and Wetland, Coastal and Nearshore Habitat restoration activities in the system. Additional pilot study implementation activities include the creation of a baseline through the assimilation of existing pre-restoration data, use of NCCA protocols co-located with fish sampling protocols, and analysis of differences in water quality, habitat availability/quality, and FWCI populations between pre- and post-restoration. This presentation will provide an outline of the MAIP approach from the selection of the pilot study location through implementation.