Our annual report on environmental health and restoration in the Chesapeake Bay watershed shows we have reached—and in some cases, surpassed—the halfway mark toward half a dozen of the commitments built into the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. In the face of risks posed by land use changes and political uncertainty, our partnership has renewed its emphasis on engaging landowners and local governments in achieving our vision of a sustainable watershed. We stand with federal agencies, states, academic institutions and nongovernmental organizations in a united front against risks and threats.
Bay Barometer: Health and Restoration in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (2015-2016) is a science-based snapshot of the nation’s largest estuary. This data it features informs the work of various individuals and organizations, including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). Earlier this year, CBF graded the Chesapeake Bay a ‘C-‘ in its biannual State of the Bay report; in May 2016, UMCES graded it a ‘C’ in its Chesapeake Bay Report Card.
The indicators of environmental health, restoration and stewardship summarized in Bay Barometer reveal a resilient Chesapeake Bay. The data in this report reflect the Bay’s health over the course of many years and, in some cases, decades. In 2016, for instance, an analysis of the first oyster reefs to be built and seeded with larvae in Maryland’s Harris Creek showed that all reefs met the minimum criteria for success in oyster weight and density, and half met even higher weight and density targets. In the same year, an annual count of blue crabs revealed the population of adult females had reached its highest total of the last five years and was just ten percent below the restoration target. In 2015, underwater grass abundance reached its highest total of the last three decades and surpassed the 2017 target two years ahead of schedule. The continued health of underwater grass beds, the restoration of native oyster reefs and the sustainable management of fish and shellfish will benefit local seafood economies, but will require continued efforts to reduce pollution and protect wildlife habitat. You can track our progress toward the Oyster, Blue Crab Abundance and Submerged Aquatic Vegetation outcomes online.
Reducing Pollution, Protecting Land
Federal, state and local agencies are often on the front lines of pollution control. The pollution-reducing practices that states have put in place—including upgrading wastewater treatment plants, lowering vehicle and power plant emissions, and reducing runoff from farmland—are integral in ensuring the Chesapeake Bay meets its “pollution diet.” A recent analysis shows these practices are in place to achieve 81 percent of the phosphorus reductions, 48 percent of the sediment reductions and 31 percent of the nitrogen reductions needed to reach our clean water goals. Indeed, significant nutrient reductions in the wastewater sector allowed the partnership as a whole to meet its 2025 pollution reduction targets for this sector ten years ahead of schedule.
Federal, state and local agencies also play a critical role alongside nongovernmental organizations and individual landowners in protecting land from development. Between 2010 and 2015, these partners protected more than one million acres, marking an achievement of 50 percent of the target. When fully realized, our protected lands goal will help ensure the watershed can withstand population growth while sustaining the plants, animals and people that live here. You can track our progress toward the Reducing Pollution and Protected Lands outcomes online.
As the watershed’s population grows, development pressures are dramatically changing the landscape. Urban and suburban development can fragment habitat, harden shorelines, increase impervious surfaces and push pollution into rivers and streams. On the other hand, land use pressures can also open opportunities for dialogue and decision-making to protect ecologically and culturally valuable lands or mitigate damage when impacts are impossible to avoid.
Because public and political attitudes toward conservation vary, approaches to education, engagement and policy must be tailored toward local needs and opportunities. For these reasons, our partnership has placed a renewed emphasis on engaging landowners and local governments in our work to restore forest buffers, wetlands and other habitats, protect land from development, maintain healthy watersheds and more. Most notably, the partnership’s governing body recently signed a resolution to support local government engagement; commended the actions taken by local governments and local utilities to address their pollution reduction goals within the wastewater sectors; and committed to raising awareness about the economic and environmental benefits of investing in watershed protection and restoration efforts at the local level.
The well-being of the Chesapeake Bay watershed will soon rest in the hands of its youngest residents. For many, efforts to instill in students a connection to the natural world—and in turn, a desire to care for it—begin with greening the buildings in which students learn. Whether by installing rain gardens and water bottle filling stations like Lanier Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia; turning an unused open-air space to a light-filled atrium like Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C.; or installing a geothermal heat pump and two thousand solar panels like Wilde Lake Middle School in Columbia, Maryland, schools across the region have made big strides toward sustainability.
Sustainable schools are built around reducing environmental impact, improving human health and strengthening environmental literacy. Because certification programs often require progress in each of these three pillars of sustainability, the benefits of sustainable schools are varied, from the conservation of water and energy to the improved test scores that have been linked to hands-on environmental education.
But building a sustainable school can take time and dedication on the part of principals, teachers and facilities staff. While the benefits of sustainable schools are proven—and outweigh costs 20 to 1—resources aren’t always distributed evenly and buy-in is not always easy to get.
“If a school administration does not understand the benefits of a sustainable school program and does not support teachers or other school staff investing time towards school sustainability, then it’s going to be difficult for any school to achieve it,” said Kevin Schabow, coordinator of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Education Workgroup, which advances the partnership’s environmental literacy goals. “There are many priorities for administrators, and school sustainability may not be on their radar.”
That said, making a school sustainable can begin with grassroots enthusiasm. “Student voice is a powerful thing,” Schabow said. Whether the driver is a desire to compete with other schools or the knowledge that sustainable schools are good for staff and students alike, motivation can come in the form of a superintendent who encourages principals to go green, a teacher who excites students about stewardship or a group of students who lobby their principal for a change.
In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a total of 502 public and charter schools—or 12 percent of all public and charter schools—are certified sustainable by one of the following programs: U.S. Green Ribbon Schools, Eco-Schools USA, Maryland Green Schools and Virginia Naturally Schools. Maryland is home to most of the sustainable schools in the region, in large part because their robust in-state program was established almost 20 years ago. Indeed, state-specific programs are not equal: in some states, these programs are robust; in others, these programs are not well-established; and in others, these programs do not yet exist. The Chesapeake Bay Program will continue to monitor sustainable schools in the region and provide support through funding and other means.
Schabow notes that the partnership’s sustainable school goal—which was adopted in the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement and aims to continually increase the number of sustainable schools in the region—has increased awareness around the sustainable school initiative. “I’m hopeful that we can continue supporting state projects and see increased interest and participation in these programs,” Schabow said. “That’s really what we’re looking for. We’ve got the baseline [counted], but we want to see more.”
Learn more about our work to increase sustainable schools in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
A tray at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) holds the remnants of some of the unique organisms found in the stomach contents of fish. Depending on the species, a fish’s diet may include smaller fish like bay anchovy and menhaden, or underwater invertebrates like mysid shrimp, worms and bivalves.
Fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay are an important part of the region’s culture, economy and ecosystem. As key species in the food web, larger fish like striped bass and bluefish rely on “forage”—the smaller fish, shellfish and invertebrates that underwater predators feed on. But despite their importance, uncertainty remains about the species that make up the forage base and how they interact with their environment.
Programs like the Chesapeake Bay Multispecies Monitoring and Assessment Program (ChesMMAP) and the Northeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (NEAMAP), which collected the samples above, help scientists understand which forage species predators rely on by looking directly at the source: the fishes’ stomachs.
"The main objectives of the survey are primarily to get a handle on the abundances of all the different fishes and invertebrates that are inhabiting the Bay," said Jim Gartland, an Assistant Research Scientist at VIMS, one of the many organizations who partner to conduct the surveys. With a better understanding of the interactions between predators and forage species, experts can work to better support both predator species and the Bay ecosystem as a whole.
Learn more about forage in the Chesapeake Bay by watching our Bay 101: Fish Food video.
Image by Will Parson
For many of us, cold weather means digging your coat out of the closet and turning up the thermostat. But for the animals that call the Bay home, it means adapting to spending winter outdoors: by hiding in hibernation, by growing their own warm winter coat or by traveling south to warmer weather. Below, learn how a few of these native critters spend their winters.
Many animals stay in the Chesapeake Bay region year-round—but others are quick to leave once temperatures cool. While some striped bass remain in the Bay throughout the winter months, many head south to the warmer waters of the Virginia and North Carolina capes. In spring and early summer, they’ll return to the Bay’s tidal tributaries to spawn.
As water temperatures in the Bay start to cool, blue crabs retreat from the shallow areas where they spend the summer into deeper waters. After burrowing into the mud or sand at the water bottom, the crustaceans lie dormant for the winter months. While not technically considered hibernation, dormant crabs remain inactive until water temperatures rise above around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Because the cold crabs are slow and sluggish, they’re easier to track down—which is why experts in Maryland and Virginia conduct their annual survey of blue crab population between December and March.
Blue crabs aren’t the only critters that spend winter in the mud. Typical residents of saltwater marshes and mudflats, diamondback terrapins bury themselves into river banks and at the bottom of creeks and rivers to hibernate. There, they remain completely submerged and inactive until temperatures begin to warm.
The wood frog can be found in forests throughout the Bay watershed, particularly in the northern reaches of Pennsylvania and New York. These tiny amphibians have garnered attention for their winter survival method: they freeze. Many frogs are known to survive winter by freezing a portion of the water that makes up their body and are able withstand being frozen for a couple of weeks at temperatures a little below freezing. But wood frogs are remarkable in the length of time—and extreme temperatures—they can tolerate. In the most frigid areas of their range, like Alaska, wood frogs have been known to stay frozen for up to seven months at zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Delmarva Fox Squirrel
While many critters go dormant to endure the winter, others remain just as active as ever. With the help of its soft, fluffy coat, the Delmarva fox squirrel is able to keep warm nesting in tree hollows. Like other squirrels, the Delmarva fox squirrel buries nuts and acorns in the ground to feed on throughout the winter.
The Chesapeake Bay region may be too cold in the winter for some animals, but for the tundra swan and other waterfowl, it’s a warmer destination. As their name implies, tundra swans live for part of the year in the Arctic tundra. As temperatures drop, they migrate to the wetlands and marshes of Bay region in late October and early November, where they stay until returning to the Arctic in early spring to breed. The Bay’s underwater grasses provide much-needed food for tundra swans and other migrating waterfowl.
Curious about how other Bay critters spend the winter? Learn more in our Field Guide!