Back to a D+

from CBF

In January the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) released their bi-annual State of the Bay health index score. The health of the Bay has decreased by one percent bringing us to D+ from the C- the Bay received in 2016. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the drop was largely due to increased runoff associated with the record breaking regional rainfall that carried nutrients and soil into the rivers despite the work that has been done to prevent that.

The 2018 State of the Bay Report scores the health of the bay at 33 out of 100, a D+ according to their scoring system which measures the current state of the Bay against the unspoiled Bay ecosystem described by Captain John Smith in the 1600s, with extensive forests and wetlands, clear water, abundant fish and oysters, and lush growths of submerged vegetation would rate a 100 on their scale. That was a time when this region was 95% old growth forests and sparsely populated.

The current goals of all the Environmental Protection Agency mandated “Clean Water Blueprint” is a grade of 40, by 2025. The Clean Water Plan is a euphemism for the enforceable pollution limits for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution in the Chesapeake Bay (the Bay TMDL) mandated by the EPA to the six Bay states and the District of Columbia. Each of the jurisdictions created a plan (approved by the EPA) called Watershed Implementation Plans or WIPs, to meet those limits by 2025. The states agreed to have the 60% of the needed programs and practices in place by 2017, and to complete the job by 2025.

only part of the report card from CFB

Of the primary Bay states, Virginia and Maryland were close to meeting the 2017 goals but need to accelerate pollution reduction from agriculture and urban/suburban runoff. Washington DC and West Virginia had met their goals. During the last legislative session the Virginia legislature approved a bi-annual budget that contained funding for implementation of pollution reduction practices for agriculture land and limited funds for urban/suburban runoff reduction. The budget:

• Maintains current levels of operational funding for the 47 Soil and Water Conservation Districts at $7,291,091 each year.
• The mandatory deposit to the Water Quality Improvement Fund (WQIF) of the FY19 year-end surplus of $72,800,000.

Unfortunately, this is $35,031,151 less than originally proposed by the governor. That money was intended to finish the remaining SL-6 (stream exclusion fencing) backlog, jump start Watershed Implementation Plan III (WIP3) to achieve the 2025 pollution reduction goals for the Chesapeake Bay ahead of schedule. There is always more money wanted than is available.

The Bay’s health will always be influenced by weather. Unfortunately, most climate change models suggest the region will experience more frequent and severe storms in the future which will increase the challenges of meeting the mandated Bay TMDL. The EPA tells us that fully implementing the state-specific, WIPs (pollution-reduction plans) will still reduce nutrient and sediment runoff and reduce the flooding during storm events by the planted buffers that are part of all the plans. Below you can see the overall trend over the past few decades.