Finally, something we can all agree on: the Chesapeake Bay Agreement. With its roots dating all the way back to 1983, the governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, along with the mayor of Washington, DC, and the EPA administrator, all signed on to clean up the Bay. Since then the Agreement has evolved and undergone several updates; the states of Delaware, New York, and West Virginia became involved; and multiple federal agencies have begun playing a role. Most recently the Chesapeake Bay Program partners have been working on the “Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement Beyond 2025.” The Beyond 2025 version reassesses and redirects the principals and goals of the Agreement, and in truth, after reading through it I find little to argue with. IMHO the people who have been working on it are on the right path. (Though it should be noted that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has pointed out some room for improvement, like a lack of accountability and a need for more specifics and details).
But, will it help? Will anything change? I certainly hope so. As we’ve often stated before, however, while there have been signs of progress in the Bay’s health there have also been signs of trouble. The Bay watershed’s population has boomed and there’s a lot more asphalt now than there was in 1983, so more or less holding the line on issues like water quality, habitat, and land use is in some ways a positive development. Still, the endless algae blooms, high bacterial count spikes, and dwindling fisheries we’re seeing in recent years can hardly be termed a victory.
One of the most interesting things to come of the effort to recalibrate the Agreement isn’t in Beyond 2025 itself, but is the Comprehensive Evaluation of System Response (CESR) report created for it. This is a summary of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee evaluation of why progress has been slower than we had hoped for to date.
The science-types spent four years putting CESR together and some major findings came to light including:
- Despite isolated mishaps that continue to this day, we’ve done a pretty good job at snagging the low-hanging fruit of easily identified points of pollution like wastewater treatment plants. However, tackling nonpoint source pollution has proved far more difficult and the current programs addressing it aren’t reducing pollution enough to meet our goals.
- Nutrient loads have not been reduced enough to slow the growth of water-clouding algae, so we haven’t yet reached a tipping point where water clarity has improved enough for grasses and organisms to significantly remove nutrients on their own. In a few specific areas where water clarity has improved significantly, rebounding grasses and their water-cleansing effects have provided something of a positive feedback loop. We need to see this on a larger scale and in more places.
- Water temperatures, precipitation, land use, and other factors are constantly changing, and historical precedent does not necessarily indicate what efforts will or will not be successful. It’s important to learn, adapt, and utilize more experimentation and innovation as we try to clean up the Bay.
- The slow rate of water quality improvement suggests that attaining the clean water we want remains in the distant future.
There’s a whole lot more to learn from the CESR report, and I'd encourage everyone to check it out. But here’s the bottom line as I see it after studying both Beyond 2025 and CESR: In the Way North and Way South zones we’ve seen some progress. In the Middle Bay zone on the west side things have pretty much held steady. But on the east side things have actually deteriorated. On the whole, with a concerted effort from countless people, dozens of organizations, and both national and state governments, when it comes to the Bay we’ve been working for over four decades to hold the line, at best.
That’s just not good enough.