The Chesapeake Bay’s health, which has waffled between middling and poor for decades, ticked upward in 2023 to its best condition in more than 20 years, according to the latest annual report from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
In a report card issued Tuesday, the university gave the Bay’s overall health a C-plus for 2023, a half-letter grade improvement from the previous year’s mark. It earned a 55% score, up four points from 2022.
How much real progress that represents is an open question. The university has only been issuing Bay report cards since 2006, but in looking back at water quality, habitat and underwater grass data for previous years, it found that the Bay’s health received exactly the same score in 2002.
This report card comes at a critical time, as the Bay restoration effort is falling short of key goals for the third time in its 41-year history. The state-federal Chesapeake Bay Program is now looking to tweak its most recent strategy, adopted in 2014, to extend it beyond its 2025 deadline. Some scientists and environmental advocates, though, contend that a fundamental overhaul is needed to set different and more realistic goals.
State and federal officials hailed the latest report card as evidence that massive public investments to upgrade wastewater plants and control runoff from farms and development are making headway in restoring the Bay’s water quality, habitat and fisheries.
Adam Ortiz, mid-Atlantic regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, called the report card “a strong indicator of progress,” showing that the restoration effort is back on track and gaining ground. U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) declared that the Susquehanna River, the Bay’s largest tributary and a major source of its pollution, is “the cleanest it’s been in two decades.”
Environmentalists, while acknowledging that the C-plus grade is an improvement, stressed that much more needs to be done. Chesapeake Bay Foundation Vice President Alison Prost said a report produced by a group of Bay scientists shows “there are approaches to Bay cleanup that could be more effective and efficient, and also help us optimize the use of resources.”
The UMCES report card found modestly improved conditions since 2022 in 11 of the Chesapeake’s 15 regions. The lower Bay scored highest at 70%, enough for a grade of B, followed by the upper Bay. Heavily influenced by the Susquehanna, the upper Bay garnered its highest-ever score of 61%.
“This improvement is a testament to efforts to reduce nutrients in the Susquehanna River watershed,” said UMCES Vice President Bill Dennison, “underscoring the hard work in the state of Pennsylvania on nutrient reduction and riparian buffers.”
At least some of the improvements, though, can be attributed to the weather: 2023 was a dry year, with river flows falling to record lows amid drought conditions. Lack of rainfall and snow melt reduced the amount of water-fouling nutrient and sediment pollution flushing into the Bay and its tributaries. By comparison, in 2019, a year of record rainfall, UMCES rated the Bay’s health much lower, at 44%.
Despite weather-influenced oscillations, UMCES scientists say the Chesapeake’s health has trended modestly upward since the restoration effort began in earnest in 1983. After earning a 55% score in 2002, nearly two decades into the cleanup effort, Dennison said that “the bottom dropped out” of the estuary’s condition in a rainy 2003, including the deluge of a tropical storm that blew right up the Bay.
“The good news is that it’s not going as low as it was,” he added, “and it’s steadily, slowly creeping up.”
Even with less runoff in 2023, though, the overall condition of the rivers and streams flowing into the Bay through its 64,000-square-mile watershed showed no improvement from the previous year. Their overall 52% score and C grade remained unchanged.
The highest scoring tributary was the upper James River, which earned a B-minus, while the lowest was the Choptank River, which rated a D-plus.
Most Bay tributaries on the Eastern Shore showed at least some improvement from 2022, which UMCES said might be attributed to dry weather in 2023 causing less farm runoff. But rivers on the upper Eastern Shore are still trending slightly downward. With 40% of the peninsula’s land devoted to farming, the report card suggested that controlling agricultural runoff is key to making real gains there.
UMCES has expanded its report card in recent years to evaluate a range of economic and social factors that could also be affecting the Bay’s health. Overall, it found the watershed lost ground or stayed the same on those fronts, with scores ranging from D-plus to B-minus on individual factors.
This year, UMCES said it is developing an assessment of another environmental threat: debris in the water. Scientists have teamed up with the Ocean Research Project to survey the Chesapeake for “micro-debris” on or near the water’s surface and in bottom sediments.
By Timothy B. Wheeler
Fred W.J. Kirchner says
THE ONLY REASON THE REPORT LOOKS GOOD IS BECASUE THERE WERE NO CONTAINER SHIP TRAFFIC FROM THE PATAPSCO RIVER SINCE THE BRIDGE COLLAPSE. THEY WERE NO DRAGGING ALL OF THE RAW SEWAGE, IN THEIR FOLLOWING SEAS,FROM THE PATAPSCO INTO THE BAY AND SPREADING IT ACROSS THE EASTERN SHORE!!
COVERT INTELLIGENCE, POLITICS AND THE NEWS IS NOT WHAT YOU SEE AND HEAR !! AND THAT IS A FACT!
FRED W.J. KIRCHNER
TOLCHESTER