Bay water quality declines in more recent data.

'Just 29.6% of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal waters fully attained their water quality goals in the three-year period of 2018-20, according to new figures from the state-federal Bay Program partnership released Sept. 14.

That was the third consecutive annual decline in the Bay’s overall water quality, much of which was blamed on the impact of unusually high rainfall in 2018 and 2019, which drove more water-fouling nutrients off the land and into the Bay.

Before those events, 42.2 % of tidal waters had achieved their goals in the 2015-17 assessment period, the highest since Baywide water quality monitoring began in 1985.

“In the past, the Bay responded positively during periods of average river flow but had short-term declines due to the effects of Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011,” said Peter Tango, the Bay monitoring coordinator with the U.S. Geological Survey. “The high river flows in 2018 and 2019 have caused another short-term decline in the health of the Bay.”

The Chesapeake’s water quality goals are designed to ensure that Bay creatures — from bottom-dwelling worms to striped bass swimming along the surface — have enough oxygen to survive, and that underwater grass beds have clear enough water to thrive.

Attaining those water quality standards throughout the Bay has been the goal of the multi-billion-dollar nutrient reduction efforts in recent decades.'>>>

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