In case you aren’t familiar with it, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) performs an annual report that details the overall health and cleanliness of Chesapeake Bay.
On July 9th of this year, the 20024 ‘report card’ was published by the UMCES stating that the overall grade for the Chesapeake Bay is ‘C+’, the highest overall grade since 2002!
Does this mean the Chesapeake Bay is clean now?
Now, if you’re like us and think that a ‘C+’ doesn’t exactly sound very clean or healthy, according to the UMCES this means that the Chesapeake Bay is at ‘moderate health’ overall!
In other words, some parts of the Bay received cleanliness grades as high as ‘B’ while others scored as low as a ‘D’!
What are the cleanest parts of the Chesapeake Bay?
As you can see above, the cleanest areas of the bay are the Lower Bay with a ‘B’ (70%) and the Upper Bay with a ‘B-‘ (61%).
The dirtiest parts of the Bay are:
- Patapsco & Back Rivers – ‘D-‘
- Lower Western Shore (MD) – ‘D’
- York River – ‘D’
How clean is the Potomac River?
According to the report, the Potomac River has moderate ecosystem health and cleanliness with a grade of ‘C-‘ and a score of 44%.
Historically speaking, aside from a spike in cleanliness during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, during which the cleanliness score was 47%, the last time a Potomac was cleaner than it is now was 2002!