A new take on Chesapeake Bay cleanup goals: What’s in, what’s out?

Leaders of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup are touting a back-to-basics approach in the restoration blueprint set to be finalized by the end of this year.

The Chesapeake Bay Program, the state-federal partnership that leads the regionwide effort, released the proposed revisions to the 2014 Bay cleanup agreement for public comment on July 1.

Public webinars and input

The public comment period on the revised Bay agreement is open through Sept. 1. Visit this link to review the draft, learn about the commenting process or register for Bay Program webinars about each section of the draft. The webinars will be recorded and available on the Bay Program YouTube channel. 

• Overview: July 2, noon
• Habitats and Wildlife: July 8, 11:30 a.m.
• Clean Water: July 15, noon
• Healthy Landscapes: July 24, noon
• Engaged Communities: July 30, noon

The restoration partnership should put efforts to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution at the forefront, emphasizing “practical results,” said Amy Van Blarcom-Lackey, whom President Trump recently appointed to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Mid-Atlantic region.

Nutrient pollution is the Bay’s most vexing problem, and the region has failed to meet its 2025 nutrient reduction goals by a wide margin.

“We will prioritize actionable solutions,” said Van Blarcom-Lackey at a May meeting of the Principals’ Staff Committee, a Bay Program body that consists of senior officials from the federal government, Bay states and the District of Columbia, as well as other key partners. She added, however, that she found the work on streamlining the effort — one of the top directives issued by the program’s Executive Council — to be “a little bit lacking” in the current draft.

A draft of the document, the first top-to-bottom update of the agreement in more than a decade, is available for public comments through Sept. 1.

The 2014 agreement set a voluntary 2025 deadline for achieving most of its goals, including reducing nutrient pollution. The region has fallen short of that goal and several others. As proposed, the update urges many of its targets to be reached by 2035 or 2040, but there is no overarching deadline.

The Executive Council is expected to vote on a final draft of the agreement before the end of the year. The council includes the administrator of the EPA; the governors of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and West Virginia; the mayor of the District of Columbia; and the head of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which consists of legislators from Bay states.

The revised agreement groups priority goals into four broad categories: habitat and wildlife, water quality, healthy landscapes and engaged communities. Twenty-one more specific outcomes are nested within them.

A Bay Program analysis suggests that the amount of resources needed to achieve 14 of the outcomes will likely remain the same. More resources could be required for four, related to fish habitat, forests and trees, changing environmental conditions, and a robust workforce. The amount of resources needed for three others — wetland restoration, land protection and water quality — is unknown.

The 18-page proposed revision to the 2014 Bay Agreement puts forward modest changes. Mostly, it calls for continued progress toward meeting water-quality goals and making the region a more habitable place for humans and wildlife alike.

But it’s also notable for what it doesn’t include. In the wake of executive orders from the Trump administration, direct references to climate change and diversity efforts have been deleted.

Although the Bay Program has many partners that are not part of the federal government, neither modification has drawn much opposition. For example, Marty Qually, a county commissioner of Adams County, PA, and chairman of the Bay Program’s Local Government Advisory Committee, said he initially balked at replacing “climate change” with “changing environmental conditions.” But he came to embrace it, he said.

“I really like the flexibility of it and how it brings in the social science side,” he said.

It is unclear whether the Trump administration will make available the funding and staffing needed to carry out the Bay Program’s initiatives. Federal money supports Bay-related work in several ways: through the EPA Bay Program office; through other federal agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Geological Survey; and through significant grants to states, academic institutions and nonprofit organizations. While promising to maintain the EPA Bay Program’s current funding of $92 million annually, the White House has scaled back other programs that support the effort, and it indicated deeper cuts in the future.

Here’s a look at the most notable changes for each proposed outcome.

Thriving habitat and wildlife

• Blue crabs: A blue crab stock assessment expected in 2026 will be the biggest determinant of this species’ future management. Until then, there isn’t much to say, as illustrated by this goal’s generic verbiage.

• Oysters: Not much more than a decade ago, oyster management in the Bay was at a low ebb. There was no consensus about what to do, and there was significant support for replacing them with a nonnative species. But scientists and policymakers rallied around a restoration strategy involving quantifiable targets, assessment and maintenance — then tweaked those policies as new data arrived. The result has been a dramatic steadying of the population. The update largely maintains this strategy, calling for restoring or conserving 1,800 more acres of oyster reef habitat and maintaining the oyster habitat restored in 11 Bay tributaries under the 2014 agreement.

A kayaker navigates wetlands in Talbot County, MD.

• Fish habitat: The update adds more substance to the 2014 language, which did little more than call for studies. It pushes for improving water quality in shallow waters, guided by Baywide habitat assessments due in 2026. Important forage species, such as menhaden and bay anchovy, would be assessed annually as “good,” “uncertain” or “poor.” The update also urges the development of a target for addressing the impacts of acid mine drainage on fish habitat. Freshwater mussels would receive conservation plans in five Bay tributaries.

• Wetlands: The cleanup has been woefully behind on this effort, garnering just 4,800 acres of the 85,000-acre wetland creation goal. And just over 60,000 acres have been enhanced, well short of the 150,000-acre target. The update dramatically dials back those expectations, reducing the amount of tidal wetlands to be restored or created to 1,000 acres while enhancing 15,000 more. Nontidal wetlands would get 2,000 acres restored or created and 15,000 enhanced. Both would face a 2035 deadline. And priorities would be developed to focus on waterbird habitat within 18 months of the agreement’s signing.

• Stream health: The 2014 agreement sought to improve the health and function of 10% of watershed stream miles above a 2008 baseline. It had risen by 6% as of 2017, making it on track for completion in 2025. The updated agreement would shift that goal to improving 3% of stream miles every six years. That isn’t expected to require more resources to accomplish.

• Brook trout: The current agreement pressed for an 8% increase in occupied brook trout habitat by 2025. The fish require clean, cold water for survival. There hasn’t been enough monitoring to confirm whether that goal has been attained, but experts believe the region has fallen short because of continued development and warming water. The update aims to increase brook trout occupancy by 1% by 2035 while increasing abundance at 10 monitoring sites.

• Fish passage: The 2014 agreement set a goal of opening 1,000 stream miles to fish migration, and the region achieved this goal just two years later. In 2020, the Bay Program set a regionwide goal of adding 132 miles every two years. Dam removals have slowed in recent years because the easiest and least costly projects have already been completed. Still, the new agreement ups the two-year target slightly to 150 miles.

• Underwater grasses: The goal would be increased from 185,000 to 196,000 acres Baywide, setting an interim target of 95,000 acres by 2035. Approximately 83,000 acres of grasses existed in 2023, the most recent year for which data was available.

Clean water

• Water quality standards and monitoring: The 2014 agreement mainly called for increasing monitoring capacity and reporting results to the public. The update sets forth more specifics. Notably, it sets a modest target of at least 0.2% improvement per year in attaining a key water quality indicator. That matches the 1985-2022 trend, which is often criticized as having been too slow.

Technicians with the U.S. Geological Survey take water samples from the Choptank River in Maryland.

• Reducing nutrient and sediment pollution: The Bay Program is expected to refine its nutrient reduction goals in 2030 using new computer models. Until then, the new language allows the states and DC to continue working under their existing pollution reduction plans or use “other innovative strategies.” The agreement will eventually be updated with new goals and deadlines. The proposed changes for the first time allow demonstrating progress through “multiple lines of evidence,” including monitoring.

• Reducing toxic contaminants: No significant changes. The proposed language promotes research and information-sharing into reducing toxic contamination, with an emphasis on PCBs, plastics, mercury and PFAS (or “forever chemicals”).

Healthy landscapes

• Protected lands: Under the revised agreement, the partnership would strive for protecting up to 2 million acres of land by 2040 — equal to the goal set by the 2014 agreement for 2025. As of 2022, the effort had recorded 1.6 million newly protected acres, putting it on target for reaching the 2025 goal.

• Land-use decisions: The update would roll two 2014 outcomes into one. Both are aimed at providing communities and organizations with “actionable” information to help with land use decisions. The Bay Program considers both on track for meeting the existing goals. But the pace of development in the region suggests that little has been done to slow the loss of undeveloped land. Tweaks in the proposed update give little indication of change.

Healthy forest surrounds Sidling Hill Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River in western Maryland.

• Healthy forests and trees: The revised language calls for reducing the loss of existing canopy and for planting 35,000 acres of community trees by 2035. That’s a lofty goal — over nearly a decade, the region has planted little more than 11,000 acres of urban trees. The long-term goal for streamside buffer coverage would increase from the existing 70% to 75% of such acreage under the new language. The Bay watershed lost about 21,000 acres or 0.4% of forest cover located within 100 feet of waterways from 2013-2018, research shows.

• Adapting to changing environmental conditions: The 2014 agreement included a goal to increase the resilience of the ecosystem and human communities to climate change. Other than removing all references to “climate” and instead referring to “changing environmental conditions,” the main difference in the new language is an emphasis on “nature-based solutions” to rising seas, erosion, heavier rainfall and other impacts of a changing climate. That means less concrete and more living shorelines, restored wetlands and other “green” infrastructure.

Engaged communities

• Stewardship: The 2014 agreement seeks to increase the number and diversity of trained restoration volunteers. The new language omits the word “diversity” and sets a 2040 deadline for making sure practitioners have the best data and technical assistance.

• Local leadership: This outcome looks to boost local officials’ knowledge of and ability to implement conservation actions. The update calls for increasing the percentage of local leaders reporting resource management actions every two years.

Students take an outdoor field trip to learn about the Bay and its rivers near Annapolis, MD.

• Workforce: This new goal establishes 2035 deadlines for advancing restoration efforts that create jobs. This replaces the diversity outcome, which was added in 2020 to identify and recruit people “not currently represented” in the effort.

• Public access to waterways: The 2014 agreement aimed to develop 300 new water access points by 2025. As of 2023, there were 285 added. The new agreement is less ambitious, proposing 100 more sites by 2040. It also urges expanding access to urban conserved lands by a percentage to be determined by a 2026 study.

• Student experiences: The 2014 agreement set a goal of making sure each student has at least one meaningful watershed educational experience in elementary, middle and high school, “depending on available resources.” The update sets a goal of 75% of a state’s students being enrolled in a district that offers such experiences.

• School district planning: Little change. The outcome seeks to “continually” increase the number of school districts that have policies and practices in place that support environmental education and sustainability. The update sets a 2040 target.

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