Press Center

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced more than $12.6 million in grants to support the restoration and conservation of the Chesapeake Bay watershed in six states and the District of Columbia. The grants will generate more than $21.2 million in matching contributions for a total conservation impact of $33.8 million.

The grants were awarded through the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund (CBSF), a partnership between NFWF and the EPA’s Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Grants Program (INSR Program) and Small Watershed Grants Program (SWG Program). Additional support is provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Altria Group Restoring America’s Resources partnership and CSX.

Grant winners were announced at the project site of a previous grant recipient – a recently completed community greenway and bioretention rain garden at the Miramar Landing Community in Middle River, Maryland.

“Through the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and our partners, especially the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, continue to invest in locally-led efforts to protect and restore the more than 100,000 miles of local rivers and streams that feed the Bay,” said Jeff Trandahl, executive director and CEO, NFWF. “These investments demonstrate that the actions necessary to restore local rivers and streams go hand in hand with opportunities to enhance local communities like those here in Middle River.”

The projects supported by the 44 grants announced today will establish methods to improve waterways, restore habitat and strengthen iconic species in Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The funds will engage farmers and agricultural producers, homeowners, churches and businesses in on-the-ground restoration that supports quality of life in their communities, improving local waterways and ultimately the health of the Bay.

The INSR Program awarded more than $7.3 million to 13 projects, with recipients providing more than $13.7 million in match. The program provides grants to innovative and cost-effective projects that dramatically reduce or eliminate the flow of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution into local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay.

The SWG Program awarded more than $5.3 million to 31 projects, with recipients providing nearly $7.5 million in match. The program provides grants to organizations and municipal governments that are working to improve the condition of their local watershed through on-the-ground restoration, habitat conservation and community involvement. Grant recipients expect to reduce pollution through infrastructures including greener landscapes and community outreach initiatives that promote native landscaping and improved practices for managing runoff.

“A healthy Bay means a healthy economy for Maryland and the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed region and this cannot be accomplished without a reliable federal partner,” said Senator Ben Cardin, a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “Public-private partnerships like the ones announced today ensure that communities throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed have access to clean waters, as well as healthy fish and wildlife. Such strategic investments generate new economic activity, create jobs and save taxpayer dollars. It’s why I was proud to shepherd through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reauthorization of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. All of us have a part to play in helping restore the Bay and the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund makes it possible for local communities to get involved.”

This year’s Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund grant recipients include:

• Gunpowder Valley Conservancy ($791,837) will mobilize communities to work together to enhance stormwater treatment and restore forests and streams in the Middle River, Tidal Gunpowder, Bird River and Lower Gunpowder watersheds.
• Pigtown Main Street, Inc. ($173,763) will replace impervious surfaces on Washington Boulevard in Baltimore’s Pigtown neighborhood to improve stormwater management and reduce runoff from storm events affecting this Baltimore neighborhood.
• Chesapeake Bay Foundation ($663,711) will assist local governments on Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore to develop increased stormwater management capacity, and facilitate a collaborative regional structure among cities and towns including Cambridge, Easton, Oxford and Salisbury, and Queen Anne’s and Talbot County, that will aid in the planning, prioritization and streamlined delivery of restoration projects.

A complete list of the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund 2017 grant recipients is available here. 

“Countless neighborhoods like Miramar Landing, businesses, agricultural operations and wildlife habitat areas come together in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries to form one of the most unique economic ecosystems in the world,” said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger. “I am proud to support grant funding through the EPA and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for non-profit and other organizations to determine best practices in Chesapeake Bay environmental and water resource management.”

“By working together from the local to the federal level, everyone is encouraged to be a stakeholder in the protection of the one of our country’s most treasured and valuable resources, the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” he said.

“The Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund does tremendous work to advance Bay restoration and conservation efforts,” said Rep. John Sarbanes, co-chair of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Caucus. “By making these kinds of critical investments in the Bay Watershed, we can continue steadily improving Bay waterways, ecosystems and wildlife – which will help ensure that the Bay remains our region’s key economic driver and a national treasure for generations to come.”

“EPA is committed to supporting local communities using innovative, sustainable, community-based approaches for improving the health of their local rivers and streams throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” said Cecil Rodrigues, EPA acting regional administrator. “These 44 projects are a smart investment in solid partnerships with states and local organizations that will return lasting benefits by improving stormwater infrastructure, and ensuring healthy waterways and safe drinking water.”

"Maryland appreciates the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s support for environmental progress through these Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund grant awards,” said Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles.  “Now more than ever, we need innovation and collaboration to restore the Bay, with seed money for growing partnerships and sharing talents locally and regionally.”

Since 2006, the INSR Program has provided more than $65 million to 153 projects that reduce the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Since 1999, the SWG Program has provided more than $52 million to support 804 projects in the region and has further leveraged $143 million in local matching funds for a total conservation investment in on-the-ground restoration of nearly $200 million.

For more information about the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund or to download the 2017 Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund Grant Slate, visit www.nfwf.org/chesapeake.

About the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

Chartered by Congress in 1984, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) protects and restores the nation's fish, wildlife, plants and habitats. Working with federal, corporate and individual partners, NFWF has funded more than 4,500 organizations and committed more than $3.8 billion to conservation projects. Learn more at www.nfwf.org.

In a report released today, the Chesapeake Bay Program encouraged the jurisdictions that manage the Bay’s blue crab fisheries to maintain a risk-averse approach as they set regulations in 2017. The report confirmed that while the 2017 estimated population of adult female blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay was higher than the target, the overall population of blue crabs declined. The annual Blue Crab Advisory Report, developed by the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee and approved by the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team, provides Bay resource managers with scientific data and advice to inform their decisions regarding blue crab fishing regulations.

“The annual Blue Crab Advisory Report provides valuable data analysis and recommendations to the agencies that manage crabs here in the Bay to help them make scientifically informed decisions regarding our beloved—and valuable—blue crabs,” said Sean Corson, acting director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Chesapeake Bay Office and Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team Chair. “The science it features enables us to enjoy crabs at crab feasts and on our dinner tables, today and in future years.”

The Blue Crab Advisory Report includes expert analyses of data from the annual Bay-wide Winter Dredge Survey, released earlier this year, as well as harvest estimates from recent years. According to the Blue Crab Advisory Report and the scientific reference points that resource managers follow for “target” levels—which are considered healthy—and “threshold” levels, which mark the border between healthy and unhealthy levels, the Chesapeake Bay blue crab stock is currently not depleted and overfishing is not occurring.

The estimated 2017 population of 254 million adult females was higher than the target of 215 million set by the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. In 2016, 16 percent of all female crabs were harvested—below both the target (25.5 percent) and threshold (34 percent) levels. The report indicates that while numbers of adult female crabs in the Bay increased by 30 percent in 2017, the overall crab population decreased by almost 18 percent from 553 million in 2016 to 455 million in 2017. Notably, the number of juvenile crabs decreased by 54 percent from 2016 to 2017.

“The highly variable nature of blue crabs was on full display this past year,” said Glenn Davis, Chair, Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee and Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “The largest abundance of spawning females from the Winter Dredge Survey time series was great news, and demonstrated what can happen when jurisdictions adhere to science-based management. The low recruitment served as a reminder that large inter-annual fluctuations can be part of the norm and that managing blue crabs is a continuous challenge.”

During the 2016 crabbing season, approximately 60 million pounds of blue crabs were harvested from the Bay and its tributaries by commercial fishermen—roughly 20 percent more than in 2015. Recreational crabbers harvested just over four million pounds.

The Blue Crab Advisory Report recommends:

• Jurisdictions should maintain a cautious, risk-averse approach in 2017, and consider scaling back the fall fishery from last year’s more liberal regulations. This would protect a greater number of juvenile crabs and give them the opportunity to grow old enough to spawn next year, which would produce more crabs in the future.
• The accuracy and quality of tracking both commercial and recreational harvests should continue to be improved. Current efforts to collaborate with industry groups on electronic and online reporting systems and other new reporting technologies should continue.
• Jurisdictions and scientists should work to address specific research questions and discuss timing, rationale and resources for future stock assessments that would provide in-depth analysis of the blue crab population, fishery and management.

Blue crab populations can naturally vary widely from year to year, based on weather, water temperature and other conditions, as well as fishing pressure. The Chesapeake Bay Program’s Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team is funding research evaluating ecosystem effects on the blue crab population to enable
more accurate quantification of these effects in the future. Commercial fishermen rely on a steady supply of crabs in the Bay, and recreational crabbers enjoy being able to catch crabs. Using science such as that included in the Blue Crab Advisory Report enables resource managers to set regulations that help support a sustainable blue crab population and promote coordination across the jurisdictions.

The blue crab fishery in the Chesapeake Bay is managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Virginia Marine Resources Commission and Potomac River Fisheries Commission.

This multiagency report supports the blue crab abundance and blue crab management outcomes outlined in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, which seeks to maintain a sustainable blue crab population, supporting healthy commercial and recreational harvest. Development of the Blue Crab Advisory Report is made possible through the efforts of experts from state and federal agencies and academic institutions who serve on the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee.

Today, at the annual meeting of the Chesapeake Executive Council, representatives from the six Chesapeake Bay watershed states, the District of Columbia and the Chesapeake Bay Commission, signed a resolution in support of the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership. The Chesapeake Executive Council, established in 1983, is responsible for guiding the Chesapeake Bay Program’s policy agenda and setting conservation and restoration goals. Members include the governors of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, the Mayor of the District of Columbia, the Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on behalf of the federal government. Federal law and practice prohibited EPA from signing this resolution due to the advocacy statements contained within.

The resolution calls upon the President and the United States Congress to continue the current level of federal support for the Chesapeake Bay Program and the participating partners for the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, including the active, coordinating role of the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program Office. It also calls for science, monitoring, modeling and restoration to be continued with the full participation of local, state and federal agencies and private sector entities as appropriate.

The Executive Council also elected Maryland Governor Larry Hogan as their new Chair, succeeding Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, who became chair on January 1, 2015. Under Governor McAuliffe’s leadership, the Executive Council oversaw the release of 25 management strategies that outline the plans the Chesapeake Bay Program will take to achieve the goals and outcomes of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, as well as the landmark funding agreement between EPA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to commit an additional $28 million dollars to enhance federal and state investments in Pennsylvania to accelerate nutrient reductions.

“It has been my honor to serve as Chairman of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Executive Council for the last two and a half years” said Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. “We are seeing real, measurable progress in water quality and habitat in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries which bodes well for the future of the ecology of the bay and the significant economic activity it supports. It is time to forcefully build on our success and continue to make the necessary state and federal investments in restoration, science and public engagement that have been the hallmark of this partnership.”

The Executive Council also heard from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s three Advisory Committees, who also voiced their support for the partnership. These committees represent citizens, local governments and scientific and technical interests from across the watershed.

"Now more than ever, we must work together to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay”, said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. “Our administration has invested more than $3 billion in Bay restoration efforts, fully funded the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund and Program Open Space, and expanded innovative partnerships to preserve this priceless resource and national treasure we call home. As the newly elected chair of the Executive Council, I pledge to be a fierce advocate for greater environmental progress and deeper collaboration upstream and throughout the Bay watershed."

The Chesapeake Bay Program is pleased to announce that in 2016, our partners opened 24 boat ramps, fishing piers and other sites that grant the public access to creeks, streams and rivers in the region. Virginia opened 14 sites along nine waterways; Pennsylvania opened four sites along three waterways; Maryland opened four sites along three waterways; and West Virginia opened two sites along two rivers. There are now 1,271 public access sites in the watershed for boating, fishing, swimming and other recreational activities.

The varied ownership of the region’s public access sites demonstrates the importance of establishing strong partnerships and public access initiatives at all levels of government and with nongovernmental organizations: 13 of the new sites are owned by local governments, 10 are owned by state governments and one is jointly owned by state and local government.  Funding for these public access sites is also varied, coming from numerous sources, including local and state governments, nonprofit organizations and federal funding, such as the National Park Service’s Gateways and Trails Program.  Typical projects leverage multiple sources of funding.

Increasing public access to open space and waterways creates a shared sense of responsibility to protect these important natural environments. Through the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, our partners have committed to increasing public access as part of a larger effort to engage communities in our conservation work. The number of public access sites in the Chesapeake Bay watershed is on track to reach 1,439 by 2025. Since tracking began in 2010, our partners have opened 132 sites, meeting 44 percent of our goal to open 300 sites over the next decade.

In 2016, an estimated 97,433 acres of underwater grasses were mapped in the Chesapeake Bay: the highest amount ever recorded by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS).

This total is 7,433 acres greater than the Chesapeake Bay Program’s 2017 restoration target and 53 percent of the 185,000-acre 2025 goal adopted in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. Moreover, it is likely that more submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) grew in the region than this estimate suggests: weather conditions and security restrictions prevented researchers from collecting aerial imagery over a portion of the Potomac River. This portion of the Potomac supported almost 2,000 acres of grasses in 2015, and trends suggest this area would have put the Bay-wide total at 99,409 acres—or 54 percent of the goal—had it been mapped.

Experts attribute this rise in underwater grass abundance to a strong increase in the tidal freshwater and moderately salty regions of the Bay. Widgeon grass, in particular, expanded in the latter region, but because it is a “boom and bust” species whose abundance can rise and fall from year to year, a widgeon-dominant spike is not guaranteed to persist in future seasons.

In addition to its annual financial support of the aerial surveys that are used to monitor underwater grasses across the region, the Chesapeake Bay Program has funded a citizen science project in which local riverkeepers, watershed organizations and volunteers will collect data on underwater grass abundance and species diversity during the 2017 growing season. As part of this project, Chesapeake Commons is expanding its Water Reporter app to include bay grass monitoring features. By downloading the app and joining the Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers group, anyone with a smartphone can help monitor underwater grasses whenever and wherever they are on the water.

Underwater grass abundance can vary from species to species and river to river. In 2016, local highlights included:

• The Susquehanna Flats. The iconic grass beds at the mouth of the Susquehanna River provide critical habitat to fish and shellfish, and food to migrating waterfowl. In 2011, Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee reduced underwater grass abundance in the Susquehanna Flats by more than one-third, from 13,273 acres to 8,479 acres. These grass beds fell to 6,024 acres in 2012 before they began to expand again in 2013. Over the past four years, grasses in the region have steadily recovered. In 2016, the beds reached 8,617 acres, with the biggest bed in the system reaching 5,993 acres. Researchers observed more than 11 grass species growing there, including wild celery, water stargrass, coontail and several naiads and pondweeds. Species diversity is critical to bed resilience and habitat quality.
• Smith and Tangier Islands. At over 10,000 acres, the grasses that stretch from Smith Island to Tangier Island make up the biggest contiguous grass bed in the Bay. Widgeon grass dominates the area, but eelgrass can also be found. Large grass beds like this one are more resilient than smaller, fringe beds, which are more susceptible to stressors like limited light or direct physical damage. 
• The Chester River. Between 2015 and 2016, there was a threefold increase in underwater grasses in the middle and upper portions of the Chester River, from 108 to 460 acres. Wild celery dominates the grass beds, and local efforts by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Anne Arundel Community College to restore wild celery from seed have shown promising success.