Chesapeake Bay Action Plan
After decades of effort, the voluntary, collaborative approach to restoring the health and vitality of the Chesapeake Bay— the largest estuary in the United States—has not worked and, in fact, is failing.
A diverse group of 57 senior scientists and policymakers have joined forces to save the Bay. This is our plan.
GERALD WINEGRAD: NATURE IS THE BEST PRESCRIPTION FOR HEALTH AND LONGEVITY | COMMENTARY
As we plunge into the New Year enveloped in grey wintry weather and heightened socio-economic and political stress, let us seek relief in nature, a cure-all for distress, anxiety and depression.
Evidence of the need for this natural balm is everywhere. Suicide is a major national public health problem with U.S. suicide rates among the highest of wealthy nations. In 2024, the U.S. suicide rate was 15.6 per 100,000 people, 26th highest of 183 countries and well above the world average of 9.2. By comparison, our neighboring nation of Mexico is at 7 and Canada has a 9.4 rate.
GERALD WINEGRAD: WEAK NEW BAY AGREEMENT IS DEATH WARRANT FOR CHESAPEAKE | COMMENTARY
The agreement has been politically sanitized to appear as if meaningful plans are being made, when actually it is a major setback.
GERALD WINEGRAD: FOREST DESTRUCTION STILL THRIVES IN BAY REGION | COMMENTARY
When forests are destroyed and fragmented by development, agriculture and timbering, their ecological services and economic benefits may be lost if timbered land is not reforested or allowed to regenerate. The EPA-led Bay Program and scientists connected with bay restoration have recognized the incredible importance of forests to a healthy bay, especially streamside forested buffers.
DECLINE OF UNDERWATER GRASSES IMPEDES BAY RESTORATION | COMMENTARY
Remarkably, Maryland DNR’s Brooke Landry, their SAV program chief and chair of the Bay Program’s SAV Workgroup, touted the SAV data with the greenwashing that pervades bay restoration: “Despite many environmental pressures on the Bay, we continue to see signs of resilience and recovery in our underwater grasses. The increases in SAV acres observed in three of the four salinity zones this year are truly a testament to the effectiveness of long-term nutrient reductions and collaborative restoration efforts.” Really?
COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE DRAFT 2025 CHESAPEAKE BAY WATERSHED AGREEMENT
The Draft omits references to the most critical commitment of the Bay states and EPA in the 2014 Watershed Agreement—to meet the TMDL and fully implement each state’s WIP. This omission tarnishes the entire process as this TMDL has guided restoration for 15 years, and supposedly still does. Meeting the reductions in N,P,S is the most important commitment in the 2014 Agreement as well as its predecessor, the 2000 Bay Agreement.
GERALD WINEGRAD: DON’T FEAR THE REMARKABLE ALLIGATOR | COMMENTARY
Alligators have thrived for thousands of years in the Everglades system, elsewhere in Florida and in other southeastern states, especially Louisiana. Their lineage goes back 200 million years. But they barely survived the wanton slaughter of perhaps 8 million and habitat destruction wrought by humans over the centuries. After being reduced to 200 animals, their listing as endangered species sparked a comeback where they now number 5 million, 1.3 million in Florida.
These predators are an ecologically important species that enthralls my sense of wonderment as I consider alligators and all crocodilians as among nature’s most perfect creatures. Let’s dispel the myths about gators and threats to humans.
RESTORING THE CHESAPEAKE REQUIRES POLITICAL COURAGE | COMMENTARY
By Gerald Winegrad Last week’s column detailed the embarrassing shortcomings of a farcically weak draft Bay Agreement to guide future efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay. This draft new plan from the EPA-led Bay Program would be the fourth over the last 42 years. EPA also imposed a mandated pollution reduction plan, called a TMDL, in 2010…
CHESAPEAKE BAY CRUSHED BY A CRAB COLLAPSE | COMMENTARY
By Gerald Winegrad Oh no! Just when you think it can’t get any worse for the Chesapeake Bay, we are hit with the news of crashing numbers of our iconic blue crabs. The reality of the drastic decline in an already depleted population is devastating to me personally. Like the Godfather tending his tomato plants in…
We are senior Chesapeake Bay scientists and policymakers from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania who have concluded that after decades of effort, the voluntary, collaborative approach to restoring the health and vitality of the largest estuary in the United States has not worked and, in fact, is failing. Our group unanimously recommends that all states draining into the Chesapeake Bay adopt our 25 action items in their Watershed Implementation Plans (WIP) and implement them to improve the Bay’s water quality and to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act.
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