January 6, 2023 — The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) just released its State of the Bay report, which comes out every two years. The overall score for 2022 remained unchanged from 2020’s grade at a D-plus—not the result the foundation was hoping for.
The State of the Bay report looks at 13 indicators within the categories of pollution, habitat and fisheries. Each indicator gets a score, and together they provide an overall score out of 100. A score of 70 would mean a fully-restored Bay has been achieved; a 100 is the Bay’s condition before European settlers arrived in the 1600s.
This year, the score remained a 32/100. Three indicators improved, three worsened, and the remaining seven were unchanged.
Phosphorus levels came down, but overall water clarity worsened. Nitrogen, toxics, and dissolved oxygen indicators were unchanged from 2020.
CBF says one of the biggest places where Bay restoration efforts are struggling is agriculture pollution. Urban and suburban runoff are also increasing due to land development, increased stormwater from climate change, and “inconsistent enforcement by government agencies,” CBF says.
In one sign of hope, the Bay’s dead zone in the 2022 season was the 10th-smallest since the states began tracking it 38 years ago. And the Bay region has seen more farm conservation funding from the federal government and the states that should reduce nitrogen and phosphorous.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Chesapeake Bay Program recently acknowledged that the Bay states aren’t going to reach the 2025 “pollution diet” goals set back in 2010.