CBF Gives Bay D+, Slightly Improved

Bay shows slight improvement in annual ritual

The Chesapeake Bay Federation (CBF) again gave the bay low marks this year for pollution levels, but said some of the fruits of federal guidelines are beginning to show.

"While the Bay is still dangerously out of balance, I am cautiously optimistic for the future. The federal/state Clean Water Blueprint for the Chesapeake Bay is in place and beginning to work," said CBF President William C. Baker in a press release.

The CBF regularly evaluates 13 levels of the bay's health and grades them accordingly. This year, the Chesapeake Bay's overall score was 32 percent, which the CBF labeled a D+. That's up one point from the last State of the Bay report in 2010, and four points since the report in 2008.

"While hopeful, a Bay health index of 32 on a scale of 1 to 100 should be a sobering reminder that there is a great deal left to do," Baker said.

32 is a D+ because the Bay is never expected to achieve the 100 that represents the theoretical pristine bay before the arrival of white men (I guess the depredations of red men, Indians, uh, Native Americans don't count). Since no one alive has ever seen it, we can only guess at what that state was actually like.

The largest decline in this year's evaluation was due to deterioration of underwater grasses. The largest increases were in dissolved oxygen and the number of crabs, which according to the report are at the highest winter population in more than a decade.

We know the crabs did extraordinarily well this year, and it wouldn't be a shock to see that decline back to numbers like recent years.

I take these ratings with an enormous grains of salt.  Most of the goal here is to get publicity for CBF, not the Bay.