They provide food and shelter to wildlife, serve as natural filters that reduce pollution flowing into Bay waters, and they help improve the wellbeing of communities by slowing flood waters, producing oxygen, and providing green spaces.
#BEST OF THE BAY 2012 FULL#
Download the Full Report About the Report Press Releaseįorests, wetlands, and underwater grasses are critical to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. We must demand our elected and appointed leaders follow science, enforce the Blueprint, and invest in finishing the job. Saving the Bay can be the world's greatest environmental success story and a model for tackling the existential threat of global climate change. We won’t back down until EPA holds all Bay states accountable for their pollution-reduction commitments. Environmental Protection Agency to do its job. In September, CBF, our partners, three watershed states, and the District of Columbia sued the U.S. Already facing a challenging road to the finish line, these actions put the entire Bay restoration effort further at risk. The Trump administration reversed dozens of clean air and water regulations, and it failed to enforce the Blueprint's terms.
Still, efforts must drastically accelerate to implement the Blueprint by the 2025 deadline and reach a target score of 40. Long-term data trends show a shrinking dead zone, and large-scale oyster restoration is working. Of the 13 indicators CBF assesses, four showed declines. In 2020, the score declined one point to a 32, largely due to ineffective management of the Bay's striped bass.
The road to restoration is steep, and the clock is ticking. But as this year's State of the Bay shows us, the Bay that 18 million of us call home is still a system dangerously out of balance. Experts agree the science-based Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint may be our last chance to save the Bay.