Chesapeake Bay Scores C-Minus on Health Report Card

Water clarity was consistently poor throughout the estuary, reaching target levels at a frequency of zero to four percent.

Water quality in the nation's largest estuary received the same grade in the 2007 UMCES assessment, yet, scientists are intrigued by new long-term trends showing that improving areas continue to get better while degrading areas continue to get worse.

"These diverging positive and negative trajectories in some of the Bay's key areas show there are important ecological feedbacks that come into play once restoration efforts reach a certain level," said UMCES researcher and project leader Dr. Bill Dennison.

Grades were calculated based on dissolved oxygen, water quality and examinations of the health of algae, aquatic grasses and floor-dwelling organisms.

While the bay's overall health earned a C-minus, the health of the 15 individual sections of the bay and its rivers assessed in the report card ranged from a B-minus for the tributaries of the upper western shore of Maryland to an F for the tributaries on the lower western shore.

The UMCES report card is the second major assessment of the Chesapeake's health this year, following the Bay Program's Bay Barometer, which gave the bay a score of 38 out of 100. Report cards also have been issued for individual bay tributaries, including the Magothy, South, Severn and Patuxent rivers.

Restoration efforts on the James River in Virginia and the tributaries of Maryland's upper western shore - including the Bush and Gunpowder rivers - appear to be having a positive influence, as water quality and the health of underwater life continue to improve.

In other areas, such as Maryland's lower western shore tributaries - including the Magothy, Severn and South rivers - nutrient and sediment pollution continue to hinder progress to improve local ecosystem health, according to Dennison.

The reporting regions that scored the lowest for water quality are the Back and Patapsco rivers and the Patuxent River, which all were graded D-minus.

Patuxent Riverkeeper Fred Tutman said, "The overall water quality health of the Patuxent River reveals no meaningful progress toward desirable water quality some 30 years after the State of Maryland embarked on efforts to clean up the river."

"It's necessary that citizens take leadership in monitoring water quality in the Patuxent," Tutman said. "The persistent lack of progress in healing our waterway is making citizens cynical that there is genuine willpower to correct the problems. We plainly need to turn up the heat if we expect to have clean water again in this tributary."

Crab pots on Chesapeake Bay. The commercial crab fishery on Chesapeake Bay is impaired by overfishing and poor water quality. (Photo by Ali Undorf)

The upper Eastern Shore tributaries, the Choptank River and the York River earned a grade of D.

The middle Bay was graded D-plus.

The Potomac River, the Rappahannock River, Tangier Sound and lower Eastern Shore tributaries, and the lower Bay all were graded C-minus.

The James River earned a C, while the upper Bay received a C-plus.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday it has awarded a $662,900 grant to Cape Charles, Northampton County, Virginia to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows that end up in Chesapeake Bay.

The grant will be used to upgrade the Mason Avenue pump station, the main pump station of the town's wastewater collection system, located 40 feet from Cape Charles Harbor, which is connected to the Chesapeake Bay.

"This grant reflects EPA's commitment to rebuild our infrastructure to stem the tide of sanitary sewer pollution. It is another important step in our vigorous effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay," said Jon Capacasa, director of the water protection division for EPA's mid-Atlantic region.

Total cost of the project is $1.2 million. The town is required to correct this sanitary overflow as part of a February 2006 letter of agreement with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

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