ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Chesapeake Bay's overall health score for the bay and watershed remains unchanged since the last grading period in 2022, according to a new bi-annual report card issued by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Thursday.
The report card gave the bay a 32, a barely-passing D+ score. Out of the 13 indicators assessed, three improved, and three declined. The 13 indicators are compiled and examined by the data and information into three categories: population, habitat, and fisheries.
The latest report made it clear that climate change is amplifying the difficulty of restoring the Chesapeake Bay. Agricultural pollution along the continuing loss of forest areas to development are leading challenges, according to CBF President Hilary Harp Falk.
“While we’ve made significant progress, far too much pollution still reaches our waterways and climate change is making matters worse,” Falk said. “The good news is that the Bay is remarkably resilient and there is tremendous energy around the table."
The report card points out that blue crab and rockfish populations are both struggling. In 2022, blue crab dredge survey results found the lowest number of crabs in the Bay in the survey’s 33-year history.
Meanwhile, juvenile striped bass (rockfish) numbers remained low after years of decline. The report credits large-scale oyster restoration projects which have been completed in eight sanctuary tributaries in Maryland and Virginia, with creating a "renaissance of sorts" in the wild oyster population.
According to the CBF, decades of expensive improvements to municipal sewage treatment plants have achieved significant pollution reductions, but polluted runoff from agriculture, which includes animal manure and chemical fertilizers linked to life-choking algae blooms remains the bays biggest threat.
"After forests, the agricultural sector is the second largest land use in the watershed and about 90 percent of the remaining reductions needed to meet the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint must come from limiting farm-related pollution," the CBF report said. "In addition, approximately 95,000 acres of farms and forests were lost to development across the Bay watershed during the most recent reporting period, from 2013/14 to 2017/18."
The federal and state Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint will continue to be the most promising plan for restoring local rivers, streams, and the Chesapeake Bay. Scientists for the Chesapeake Bay foundation assign each indicator an index score from 1-100. These indicators offer an overall assessment of the Bay's health. To fully restore the bay, it will need to reach an overall score of 70 or more.
Particular progress has been made in Pennsylvania, according to the report, where polluted runoff fouls the Susquehanna River which is the Bay's largest tributary. In 2022, Pennsylvania lawmakers approved $154 million for a new agricultural cost share program to help farmers reduce pollution while increasing production. The recently passed federal Inflation Reduction Act included $20 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support farm pollution reduction practices nationwide.
Virginia adopted a two-year budget in 2022 that included $280 million to assist farmers who install farm conservation practices as well as about $190 million for urban sewer system upgrades and projects to reduce stormwater runoff.
"Investing in agricultural conservation practices also makes good economic sense," the report said. "For every dollar spent helping farmers adopt practices that improve water quality in the Bay and its tributaries, the Bay region would see $1.75 in higher sales and earnings. Fully funding the farm pollution-reduction practices needed to restore the Chesapeake Bay would inject $655 million annually into the region’s economy, including $269 million per year in higher earnings for businesses and workers, according to a report prepared for CBF by Key-Log Economics, an ecological economics research and consulting firm based in Charlottesville, Va."
To read the full report, click here.
Sign up for the Get Up DC newsletter: Your forecast. Your commute. Your news.
Sign up for the Capitol Breach email newsletter, delivering the latest breaking news and a roundup of the investigation into the Capitol Riots on January 6, 2021.