ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay has improved and oysters and underwater grasses have made gains, but declines in blue crabs and rockfish have marred progress overall for the health of the nation’s largest estuary, according to a report released Monday.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s biennial State of the Bay report gave the bay a D-plus grade, unchanged from 2012.
Scientists at the foundation compile and examine historical and up-to-date information for 13 indicators in three categories: pollution, habitat and fisheries. They then assign each indicator an index score between 1 and 100. The overall 2014 score is 32. The group says a score of 70 would represent a saved bay.
“We can celebrate the water-quality improvements. However, the bay and its rivers and streams still constitute a system dangerously out of balance,” foundation President William Baker wrote in the report. “We continue to have polluted water, risks to human health, and lost jobs — at huge societal costs.”
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