The Chesapeake Bay received its highest score, a “C-plus,” since 2002 in an annual assessment of its environmental health, “an exciting sign that progress is being made in bay restoration,” said University of Maryland scientists on Tuesday. Despite the progress, the bay will not meet the goals set more than a decade ago in the EPA’s so-called pollution diet, said a conservation group.
The overall health score for the Bay in 2023 was 55 points, up by 4 points from the previous report.
“The report card shows that the results are moving in the right direction, but we need to pick up the pace of these efforts particularly in light of climate change, which will make meeting the targets more difficult,” said Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, president of the Center for Environmental Sciences at the University of Maryland.
For the annual report, the center uses seven factors to gauge the health of the bay. It said scores for dissolved oxygen, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, and aquatic grasses were improving significantly. Chlorophyll and water clarity improved in 2023 but have declined over the long term.
Portions of six states — Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia — plus the District of Columbia are part of the 64,000 square-mile Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. Vast swathes of farmland are part of the watershed. New York and Pennsylvania are major dairy states, for example.
The report card gave the watershed a score of 52, a “C,” the same as the previous year, based on 12 indicators that include water quality and fish populations as well as societal and economic aspects.
In 2010, the EPA established a pollution diet that called for a 25 percent reduction in nitrogen, a 24 percent reduction in phosphorus, and a 20 percent reduction in sediment entering the Bay and its tributaries. States and the District of Columbia were obliged to put controls in place by 2025 to meet the pollution goals, formally called a total maximum daily load.
“Restoration efforts will not meet goals to reduce pollution by the 2025 deadline,” said the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The conservation group said the pollution diet should be updated. Nutrient pollution from sewage plants has been reduced, but “nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment from other sources, specifically stormwater runoff and agriculture, remain areas for improvement.”
Since March, the EPA has awarded $226 million in grants for Chesapeake Bay restoration.