Report: Chesapeake Bay's health making gains; Pa. still needs to meet its clean-up commitments

A new report by the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science says the Chesapeake Bay’s health has slightly improved but still falls short of meeting government commitments, especially in Pennsylvania.

The report card, which measured the bay’s health along several indicators and in each region, gave the bay a “C” for overall health. It listed the bay’s “overall health index” at 50 percent for 2021, which is a 5 percent increase from 2020.

However, Pennsylvania’s habit of devoting less resources to the bay is once again reflected in the scores, as the bay’s lower region scored much higher than its upper region, which is impacted by the commonwealth.

The overall health indicator is a combination of 10 other indicators — dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, chlorophyll a, water clarity, aquatic grasses, benthic community, stewardship, walkability, and heat vulnerability index — according to the UMCES website.

Read more: https://www.penncapital-star.com/blog/report-chesapeake-bays-health-making-gains-pa-still-needs-to-meet-its-clean-up-commitments/