Saving Seafood

Could planned federal funding cuts jeopardize Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay restoration plans?

April 28, 2025 — The Trump administration’s plans to propose budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) could jeopardize efforts to restore the health of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF).

According to the CBF, the administration’s potential budget cuts would slash NOAA’s total budget by $1.7 billion, from $6.1 billion to $4.5 billion. It would also reduce funding for the National Marine Fisheries Service by approximately 30 percent.

How would the cuts affect the Chesapeake Bay?

The proposed budget plan would significantly reduce NOAA’s financial support and scientific leadership for Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts.

Under the plan, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which currently operates with a budget of $1.1 billion, would be reduced to $789.3 million in fiscal year 2026 under the planned budget.

The NMFS houses NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office, which leads science initiatives across the region and works closely with the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program on restoration efforts, according to the CBF.

Read the full story at CBS News

Chesapeake Bay Dead Zone Smaller Than Previous Years Due To Mild May Temperatures

June 29, 2022 — Researchers are predicting this summer’s dead zone in the Chesapeake Bay will be smaller than the long-term average taken between 1985 and 2021, according to environmental staff.

The change in size is due to the below-average amount of water entering the bay from the watershed’s tributaries this past spring, Chesapeake Bay Program staff said.

Program staff made the announcement alongside researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the University of Michigan, and U.S. Geological Survey.

Decreased nutrient and sediment pollution from jurisdictions within the watershed also contributed to the smaller dead zone, staff said.

The dead zones consist of areas of low oxygen, known as hypoxic regions. This is where there are dissolved oxygen concentrations of less than two milligrams per liter— primarily caused by excess nutrient pollution flowing into the bay, staff said.

Read the full story at CBS Baltimore

Picture of Chesapeake microplastics grows clearer

June 14, 2021 — Scientists have long suspected that the tiny plastic particles floating in the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers — consumed by a growing number of aquatic species — are anything but harmless.

Now, studies by a regional workgroup are beginning to clarify the connections between the presence of microplastics and the harm they could be causing in the Bay region. This research, combined with international interest in microplastics, is setting the stage for more informed management decisions and a flurry of additional studies.

Globally, microplastics have been found in the air we breathe, the food we eat and in human organs — even in mothers’ placentas. It’s possible that humans are ingesting a credit card’s worth of microplastics every week. One of the ways people consume plastics is by eating seafood, though the tiny particles can also be swirling around in tap and bottled water. Assessing the risk of plastic consumption by humans is one important research goal.

In the Chesapeake Bay region, researchers also want to understand how microplastics could be impacting local ecosystems and aquatic species. A workgroup of the Chesapeake Bay Program, a state-federal partnership that leads the Bay restoration effort, identified microplastics in 2018 as a contaminant of mounting concern. A 2014 survey of four tidal tributaries to the Bay found microplastics in 59 out of 60 samples of various marine animals, with higher concentrations near urban areas. A Bay survey the next year found them in every sample collected.

Read the full story at The Bay Journal

Trump administration makes another bid to slash Chesapeake cleanup funds

March 14, 2019 — The Trump administration has once again called for deep cuts in federal funding for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, despite failing twice before to convince Congress to approve similar proposals.

The Trump administration has proposed slashing funds for the Chesapeake Bay restoration. Congress has rejected similar proposals for the past two years.

The move, announced Monday, drew immediate criticism from environmentalists and vows from lawmakers to maintain or even increase spending on the long-running restoration effort.

The fiscal year 2020 budget released by the White House would provide $7.3 million to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the Chesapeake Bay Program. That represents a 90 percent reduction from this year’s funding level of $73 million.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal 

Scientists: Record abundance of underwater grasses shows Chesapeake Bay initiatives are working

April 25, 2018 — Underwater grasses that provide vital places for fish and crabs to live and hide from predators covered more than 100,000 acres of the Chesapeake Bay in 2017 — the most ever recorded in a 34-year-old aerial survey, scientists said Tuesday.

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science found 104,843 acres of grasses across the estuary, the first time since it began its survey in 1984 that vegetative coverage surpassed the 100,000-acre threshold.

It was a third straight year that grass acreage grew, gaining by 5 percent from 2016 to 2017.

The Patapsco River was among the areas with the strongest grass growth. Acreage jumped more than three times, from 3 acres in 2016 to 14 acres in 2017.

Officials with the Chesapeake Bay Program, the federal office that released the data, said the survey results show that its work with bay watershed states to limit pollution is working. The federal-state partnership adopted a “blueprint” in 2010 to reverse decades of environmental degradation and restore the bay’s health by 2025.

Read the full story at the Baltimore Sun

 

Chesapeake Bay sees ‘near-record high’ water quality

December 18, 2017 — EASTON, Md. — Water quality in the Chesapeake Bay has reached a near-record high, according to estimates announced Thursday, Dec. 14, by the Chesapeake Bay Program.

According to preliminary data from the U.S. Geological Survey, almost 40 percent of the Bay and its tidal tributaries met clean water standards for clarity, oxygen and algae growth between 2014 and 2016, which represents a 2 percent increase from the previous assessment period, according to the Chesapeake Bay Program.

Scientists are reasoning it is due in large part to a rise in dissolved oxygen in the deep channel of the Bay.

“The improving trends in water quality standards attainment follow similar trends in other indicators that we track. The acreage of underwater grasses has increased to more than 50 percent of its goal,” Chesapeake Bay Program Director Nick DiPasquale said.

“In addition, we are seeing an increase in the diversity of grass species and the density of grass beds. We also are witnessing improvements in several fisheries, including blue crabs, oysters and rockfish,” DiPasquale said. “While these improving trends are encouraging, we must ramp up our efforts to implement pollution control measures to ensure progress toward 100 percent of the water quality standards is achieved throughout the Bay and its tidal waters.”

Read the full story at the Star Democrat

Trump budget plan would slam Bay

March 7, 2016 — The Chesapeake Bay Program and other federal initiatives that could impact the Bay have been targeted for steep cuts in preliminary Trump administration budget plans sent to federal agencies, prompting alarm from conservation groups and lawmakers alike.

According to a report in The Washington Post, a budget blueprint for the 2018 federal fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, would cut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by nearly a quarter, from $8.2 billion to $6.1 billion, and slash its workforce from 15,000 to 12,000.

Included was a massive 93 percent cut — from $73 million to $5 million — to its Bay Program Office, which coordinates the state-federal partnership. The funding supports research, monitoring and modeling efforts, but the lion’s share — 72 percent — goes to states and local governments to support cleanup efforts.

“The proposed reduction in federal investment in Chesapeake Bay would reverse restoration successes,” said Chesapeake Bay Foundation President Will Baker. “The EPA role in the cleanup of the Chesapeake is nothing less than fundamental. It’s not just important, it’s critical.”

He noted that a bipartisan group of 17 House members from the Bay watershed last month called on the Trump administration to preserve full funding for the EPA’s Bay efforts, and said he hoped the agency’s new administrator, Scott Pruitt, would support the program.

The budget proposal was developed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, without input from agencies.

During his confirmation hearing, Pruitt said the Bay effort was something that should be a “model” for the nation, and that “EPA plays a leadership role in mediating cross-state air and water pollution.”

Besides the Chesapeake Bay, funding for the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico and Puget Sound were also slated for similarly massive cuts of 90 percent or more.

Read the full story at The Bay Journal