Bay Program partners continue to slow pollution flow into rivers and streams

Over the last four years, pollution controls put in place by Chesapeake Bay Program partners have lowered the amount of nutrients and sediment entering the Chesapeake Bay. This is a critical step toward improving water quality and environmental health.

Each year, the seven jurisdictions in the watershed—which include Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia—report the steps they have taken to lower the nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment entering rivers and streams. Bay Program experts analyze this information using a suite of computer simulations, and the resulting estimates tell us how far these jurisdictions have come toward reducing pollution to levels that would lead to a healthy Bay.

Between 2009 and 2013, our estimates show that nitrogen loads to the Bay decreased 7 percent, phosphorous loads decreased 11 percent and sediment loads decreased 6 percent. As a whole, reductions in phosphorous and sediment are on track, but efforts to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution from urban streets, farm fields and onsite septic systems are lagging behind.

Excess nitrogen and phosphorous can fuel the growth of algae blooms that create low-oxygen “dead zones” that suffocate marine life. Excess sediment can block sunlight from reaching underwater grasses and suffocate shellfish.

But land-based actions—from upgrading wastewater treatment plants to managing nutrients on farmland—can reduce nutrient and sediment pollution. Jurisdictions will continue to put such actions in place in an effort to meet the pollution-reducing requirements set forth in the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), or “pollution diet.”

In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to release an assessment of jurisdictions’ progress toward this diet’s milestones. By 2017, partners should have practices in place to achieve at least 60 percent of the pollution reduction targets necessary to meet water quality standards in the Bay. Jurisdictions’ strategies to achieve these goals are outlined in their Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs).

Learn more about reducing nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment pollution to the Chesapeake Bay.