Press Center

Today, Chesapeake Bay Program partners released information on the state of the 2021 Chesapeake Bay “dead zone”. While last year’s dead zone was the second smallest observed since 1985, this year’s assessment paints a more complex picture of the Bay’s health.

Throughout the year, researchers track Bay oxygen conditions using a variety of methods. Oxygen and nutrient levels are measured as part of the Chesapeake Bay Monitoring Program, a Bay-wide cooperative effort involving watershed jurisdictions, several federal agencies, 10 academic institutions and over 30 scientists. Among these institutions, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR), Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ) and Old Dominion University conduct nine cruises between May—October to track summer hypoxia in the Bay. Results from each monitoring cruise can be accessed through the Eyes on the Bay website for the Maryland portion of the Bay and the VECOS website for the Virginia portion. Scientists at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), in collaboration with Anchor QEA, use computer models combined with local weather information, to produce daily real-time estimates of dead zone size throughout the summer.

Based on the nine monitoring cruises conducted between May—October 2021, the MD DNR assessed that the dead zone was only slightly below average in 2021. On the other hand, the model simulations provided by the VIMS and Anchor QEA indicated that the dead zone was slightly more extensive than average, largely due to the duration of the dead zone in 2021. However, both estimates suggest a near-average sized dead zone for this year.

“Monitoring of hypoxia and other Chesapeake Bay water quality and habitat conditions provide valuable data to assess and improve the health of the Bay,” said Mark Trice, chief of the Water Quality Informatics Branch at MD DNR. “Maryland and its Chesapeake Bay Program partners are working towards achieving nutrient and sediment pollution reduction goals that will provide improved habitat for iconic species such as crabs, oysters and rockfish, while fostering a robust economy that those Bay resources support.”

This year’s assessment confirms the earlier forecast of a slightly smaller than average dead zone, due to reduced spring rainfall and less nutrient-rich runoff flowing into the Chesapeake from the watershed. Since 2007, a model developed by the University of Michigan has been used to forecast the volume of summer hypoxia for the mainstem of the Chesapeake based on the amount of nitrogen pollution flowing into the Bay from the Susquehanna River from the previous January-May. The model is informed by data provided by the Chesapeake Bay Program, MD DNR, VA DEQ and U.S. Geological Survey.

“The general agreement between the multiple methods used to assess the size of this summer’s dead zone is reassuring”, said Dr. Marjy Friedrichs, research professor at the VIMS. “The relatively average dead zone size, despite warming summer temperatures, is a testament to the success of management actions that have reduced nutrients entering the Bay.”

Weather conditions play a large role in the size and duration of the annual dead zone. Below average river flows, due to less springtime rainfall bringing nutrients and sediment into the Bay, is believed to have played a role in the smaller than average dead zone noted during monitoring cruises conducted from May—July. However, due to calm winds, increased precipitation and warm temperatures throughout the late summer of 2021, conditions were perfect for the dead zone to grow larger than it had during this time than in previous years. For example, temperatures in August and September were recorded as the fifth hottest on record for those months in Maryland, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Despite the short-lived high winds and cool temperatures associated with the passage of Hurricane Ida remnants, the September dead zone remained above average in size throughout the month and well into October. Overall, the 2021 dead zone lasted longer than 89% of those recorded over the past 36 years.

The primary way in which nutrients can enter the Bay is through its tributaries in the watershed. Higher river flows bring increased amounts of nutrient pollution into the Bay. Despite lower flows in spring 2021, the U.S. Geological Survey reported that the average for the water year (measured from October 1, 2020—September 30, 2021) was higher than normal, with flows entering the Bay at an average of 84,880 cubic feet per second, which is above the long-term average of 79,000 cubic feet per second. Estimates of river flow and nutrients entering the Bay can be accessed on the U.S. Geological Survey’s website.

The dead zone is an area of little to no oxygen that forms in deep Bay waters when excess nutrients, including both nitrogen and phosphorus, enter the water through polluted runoff and feed naturally-occurring algae. This drives the growth of algae blooms, which eventually die and decompose, removing oxygen from the surrounding waters faster than it can be replenished. This creates low-oxygen—or hypoxic—conditions at the bottom of the Bay. Plant and animal life are often unable to survive in this environment, which is why the area is referred to as a “dead zone”.

“This year’s estimate of the Chesapeake’s “dead zone” illustrates the challenge between Chesapeake Bay Program management actions and climate change that brings increased rainfall volume and river flows,” said Michelle Price-Fay, acting director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program Office.  “While the long-term trend is toward a reduction in hypoxia due to management actions taken throughout the watershed and airshed, warming from climate change is a headwind that may increase hypoxia’s duration and extent.”

The Chesapeake Bay Program announced today that an estimated 33% of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries met water quality standards attainment during the 2017—2019 assessment period. This score is lower than the previous assessment period (2016—2018), when Bay water quality standards attainment was estimated to be 38%. Experts mainly attribute this decline to unusually wet weather in 2018 and 2019. The Chesapeake Bay Program strives to reach 100% attainment of water quality standards to support the survival, growth and reproduction of aquatic species important to a healthy Bay. Currently, 67% of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal waters are likely to be impaired.

The Chesapeake Bay Program evaluates water quality standards attainment using three parameters: dissolved oxygen, water clarity or underwater grass abundance, and chlorophyll a (a measure of algae growth). Over the period of 2017—2019, a decline in dissolved oxygen was noted in the deep water (depths between 15—50 feet) and deep channel habitats (depths between 50—175 feet) of the Bay, compared to the previous assessment period (2016-2018). It is believed these declines are directly caused by short-term fluctuations in weather and the river flows that occur as a result. Generally, when the watershed receives more rain, river flows increase, bringing more nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution into the Bay, leading to increased algae growth and a decline in dissolved oxygen.

Water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries is heavily influenced by nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution delivered from the watershed and can vary year-to-year due to a number of factors including land use, fertilizer and manure use, wastewater and septic discharges, and river flow. The seven watershed jurisdictions (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia), in coordination with local governments, businesses, non-governmental organizations and individuals have installed pollution-reducing practices to lower the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment entering waterways. However, management actions taken to decrease pollution from point sources (e.g., wastewater treatment plants) may immediately show detectable pollution changes, but in regard to the implementation of conservation practices for nonpoint sources, there is often a time lag (e.g., years to decades) in measuring their impact on improving water quality and the health of the Bay.

The conservation practices reported by the seven watershed jurisdictions, along with land use and manure and fertilizer information, are entered into a sophisticated suite of modeling tools to estimate the progress that each jurisdiction is making in meeting their individual nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollutant reduction goals as outlined in the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (Bay TMDL).

According to these computer simulations, pollution controls put into place between 2009 and 2020 are estimated to have lowered overall nitrogen by 13%, overall phosphorus by 14% and sediment by 4%. Over this time period, it is believed that nitrogen and phosphorus reductions came primarily from improvements to wastewater treatment facilities throughout the watershed and efforts from the agricultural sector have helped to lower sediment.

Through the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, the Chesapeake Bay Program has committed to having in place 100% of the conservation practices that would achieve all of the nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment reductions necessary to meet the goals outlined in the Bay TMDL by 2025. As of 2020, conservation practices are currently in place to achieve 47% of the nitrogen reductions, 64% of the phosphorus reductions and 100% of the sediment reductions.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the federal-state Chesapeake Bay Program partnership today announced more than $10 million in grants for projects that will protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay and its surrounding watershed. The 49 grants announced today will generate $12 million in matching contributions for a total conservation impact of more than $22 million.

“EPA is pleased to support projects that improve the quality of local waters and habitat and help restore the Chesapeake Bay,” said Diana Esher, EPA Mid-Atlantic acting regional administrator. “It is a priority for EPA to support local actions that move us closer to our restoration goals. We applaud the grantees for their commitment to cleaner water and healthier watersheds.”

These grants will support on-the-ground projects to improve waterways, restore habitat and strengthen iconic wildlife species. Collectively, the grants will implement water quality improvement practices on more than 45,000 acres, restore more than 45 miles of streamside forest habitat and prevent more than 6,300 tons of pollutants annually from entering the rivers and streams that feed the Chesapeake Bay.

“By focusing our resources on projects that provide multiple benefits, NFWF and its partners are demonstrating how watershed restoration projects strengthen the resilience of both communities and wildlife habitats, and how targeted investments can achieve multiple conservation goals,” said Jeff Trandahl, executive director and CEO of NFWF.

Examples of this year’s grant recipients include:

• American Forests ($49,900) will work with partners to improve tree canopy by building a tree equity tool for use across the greater Washington metropolitan region, which will focus urban forestry projects and resources on communities of highest need.
• Piedmont Environmental Council ($263,800) will pair riparian buffer restoration, livestock exclusion, and implementation of agricultural best management practices with land conservation measures to restore and sustain long-term water quality benefits.
• University of Maryland Environmental Finance Center ($50,000) will work with local governments in West Virginia to expand their capacity to address water quality improvements and mitigate hazards in a coordinated way that creates efficiencies and reduces implementation costs.
• Defensores de la Cuenca ($167,800) will pair workshops with hands-on experiences to train primarily Spanish-speaking participants in the Anacostia River watershed on watershed issues, culminating in the completion of locally led watershed restoration projects by program participants.

The grants were awarded through the Small Watershed Grants (SWG) program, a core program under NFWF’s Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund (CBSF). CBSF is a partnership between NFWF and the EPA to provide grant funding, technical assistance and networking and information sharing in support of local, on-the-ground conservation efforts to restore the bay and its tributary rivers and streams.

Additional support for the program comes from the Altria Group, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Since 1999, the SWG program has provided more than $83 million to 985 projects to promote on-the-ground community-based efforts, which result in measurable improvements to local stream health and habitat, and the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay. The SWG program includes two distinct funding opportunities: SWG Implementation (SWG-I) grants of $50,000-$500,000 awarded for projects that result in direct, on-the-ground actions to protect and restore water quality, species, and habitats in the Bay watershed; SWG Planning and Technical Assistance (SWG-PTA) grants up to $50,000 awarded for projects that enhance local capacity to more efficiently and effectively implement future on-the-ground actions through assessment, planning, design and other technical assistance-oriented activities.

A complete list of the 2021 Chesapeake Bay Small Watershed Grant recipients is available here. Click here for more information about the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund.

# # #

About the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation: works with the public and private sectors to sustain, restore and enhance the nation’s fish, wildlife, plants and habitats for current and future generations. Chartered by Congress in 1984, NFWF has grown to become the nation’s largest private conservation grant-maker, funding more than 19,700 projects and generating a total conservation impact of $6.8 billion. Learn more at www.nfwf.org.

About U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grants: Every year, EPA awards more than $4 billion in funding for grants and other assistance agreements. From small non-profit organizations to large state governments, EPA works to help many visionary organizations achieve their environmental goals. With countless success stories over the years, EPA grants remain a chief tool to protect human health and the environment. Learn more at www.epa.gov.

About the Chesapeake Bay Program: The Chesapeake Bay Program is a regional partnership consisting of federal, state and local governments, academic institutions and non-governmental organizations. Primarily funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Chesapeake Bay Program has set the guidance and policy for restoring the Chesapeake Bay since 1983. Learn more at www.chesapeakebay.net.

Representatives from the Chesapeake Bay watershed states, the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gathered today to discuss the impacts of climate change on the 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay watershed—stretching from Cooperstown, New York to their meeting location at the Brock Environmental Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

At the meeting, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and Chesapeake Bay Commission Chair David Bulova joined their colleagues in signing a directive that commits the Chesapeake Bay Program to address the increasing threats of climate change in all aspects of the partnership’s work. In particular, Bay Program partners will utilize their world-class scientific, modeling, monitoring and planning capabilities to prioritize the communities, working lands and habitats that are most vulnerable to the risks that a changing climate is bringing to the region.

"I strongly believe that by working together as a region in a bipartisan way, we can and we will continue to find real, commonsense solutions to address climate change and to protect the Chesapeake Bay,” said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. "These challenges are too important to lose this opportunity to take action now."

Prior to the public meeting where the directive was signed, members of the Council, designees and guests joined Pamela Northam, First Lady of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and educators, including Imani Black, the founder of Minorities in Aquaculture, Melissa Deas, acting chief resiliency officer from the District of Columbia and Mark Luckenbach, associate dean of research and advisory service at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) on-board a VIMS vessel for their own Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience—a term that is unique to the Chesapeake Bay Program in describing student environmental education about and in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

While on-board, participants were able to see first-hand an area that is considered to be ground-zero for climate change. The Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads region are experiencing one of the highest rates of sea-level rise and coastal flooding on the East Coast. The Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Planning Framework notes that sea levels in the region have experienced more than 18 inches of relative sea level rise in the past 100 years and are anticipated to continue to increase at an even faster rate in the future due to heavier rainfall and other extreme weather. Members, designees and guests also viewed potential solutions to addressing climate impacts, including tree canopies, a living shoreline and an oyster restoration site.

Conversations also centered around climate inequity, reaffirming the Council’s actions from the previous year, when they signed a statement prioritizing diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in all of the Bay Program’s work. In the newly implemented, Directive No. 21-1 Collective Action for Climate Change, the Bay Program specifically commits to prioritizing marginalized communities in providing necessary resources, including a focus on wetlands, tree canopy and environmental literacy, to adapt to the impacts from a changing climate.

"The Climate Directive we are signing today is the latest example of why this partnership is so important,” said Chesapeake Bay Commission Chair David Bulova. “Collective action allows us to apply the best science possible so that we can understand and mitigate the impacts of a changing climate and prioritize resources toward our most vulnerable communities. We need to do to this if we want a more resilient landscape and watershed.”

In June 2014, the Executive Council signed the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, with the vision of fostering an environmentally and economically sustainable watershed with clean water, abundant life, conserved lands and access to the water, a vibrant cultural heritage, and a diversity of engaged citizens and stakeholders.

Established over 37 years ago, the Chesapeake Executive Council is responsible for guiding the policy agenda and setting conservation and restoration goals for the regional, watershed partnership, the Chesapeake Bay Program. 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 EPA on behalf of the federal government. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam currently chairs the Chesapeake Executive Council which will next meet in Richmond, Virginia in December 2021.

"A healthier Chesapeake Bay depends on a targeted, science-based approach that accounts for climate change,” said Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. “It will take bold, urgent actions to reach our goal of a Bay that is fully restored by 2025. Virginia commits to working diligently with our watershed partners to meet this commitment in a resilient, practical, cost effective manner that benefits our vast waterways, our environment, and our economy."

In 2020, the preliminary figure of 62,169 acres of underwater grasses was mapped in the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries, achieving 48% of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s 2025 restoration target of 130,000 acres and 34% of the ultimate restoration goal of 185,000 acres.

Although the 62,169 acres of underwater grasses observed in 2020 have increased from the 38,958 acres noted during the first survey in 1984, it is a 20% decrease from the current 10-year average of 78,168 acres. The preliminary acreage observed in 2020 is a 42% decline from 2018 when it was estimated that the Bay may have supported up to 108,078 acres of underwater grasses. While this is a staggering decrease, the loss from 2019 to 2020 was only 7%, suggesting that overall, underwater grass beds are beginning to stabilize after a difficult past few years.

In 2020, the largest decline in terms of total area—an estimated 5,684 acres—was again observed in moderately salty waters, particularly in the Tangier Sound, but also in the Eastern Bay, the mouth of the Choptank River and in the Little Choptank River. These losses are largely attributed to the continued decline in widgeon grass, which fluctuates from year-to-year as the species responds rapidly to impacts from extreme weather and changes in water quality.

Underwater grass abundance can vary from species to species and river to river. In 2020, local highlights included:

• Upper Eastern Shore (Maryland): In 2020, the Sassafras River lost most of the new grasses that it had gained in 2019, decreasing from 406 acres to 169 acres. Similarly, the Chester River lost nearly 900 acres of grasses from 2019 to 2020, dropping from 1,616 acres to 734 acres.
• Middle Chesapeake Bay: Although underwater grass acreage in Virginia’s portion of Tangier Sound decreased substantially from the previous year, the abundance of grass beds in Maryland’s portion of Tangier Sound actually increased from 4,315 acres in 2019 to 4,725 acres in 2020. In the nearby Manokin River, underwater grass acreage increased from 583 acres in 2019 to 696 acres in 2020. The Little Choptank River, also in the middle of the Bay, decreased from 1,503 acres in 2019 to 550 acres in 2020 due to the loss of most of its widgeon grass.
• Northern Maryland: Underwater grass abundance in and around the Susquehanna Flats region increased from 8,497 acres in 2019 to 9,194 acres in 2020. Additionally, the Northeast River increased from 87 acres in 2019 to 109 acres in 2020.
• Washington, D.C.: Underwater grass abundance in the Anacostia River continued its resurgence and increased from 48 acres in 2019 to 53 acres in 2020.
• Mid-to-Lower Chesapeake Bay: In the Virginia portion of the mid-to-lower Bay, underwater grass abundance did particularly well in the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, as well as in Mobjack Bay. The Potomac River increased from 6,631 acres in 2019 to 7,534 in 2020, while the Rappahannock, including the Corrotoman River, increased from 1,789 acres in 2019 to 2,204 acres in 2020. In Mobjack Bay, underwater grass acreage increased from 5,027 acres in 2019 to 7,080 in 2020

To learn more about our progress toward achieving and sustaining 185,000 acres of underwater grasses Bay-wide, visit ChesapeakeProgress.