Chesapeake Bay

For most people living within its watershed, the Chesapeake Bay generates a range of thoughts, memories, and images – some good and, sadly, some disappointing.

To generations of Americans who lived around the 200-mile long Bay, or who vacationed and visited it regularly, the Chesapeake Bay was seen as a source of economic production, delightful recreational opportunities, and seemingly endless supplies of delectable fish, oysters and crabs. As we have learned more recently however, the Bay’s swelling popularity has come with steep costs and serious repercussions, ones that will require a sustained commitment if we are to restore its environmental integrity.

More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan declared the Chesapeake Bay, our nation’s largest estuary, as a “special national resource ” and committed millions of dollars to address problems associated with its steady decline, the job remains far from completed. The continued flood of sediments and nutrient pollution from sewage treatment plants, farms, urban runoff, and air deposition, combined with the continued growth in population (now estimated at 16 million persons living in the Bay’s watershed region) and development have largely offset any gains that have been made since President Reagan’s initial clean-up efforts.

I have been working to restore the Chesapeake Bay’s health since first being elected to the Senate in 1979. The Chesapeake Bay Program was begun by Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the early 1980s and has continued in following legislation. The most recent efforts culminated in the signing of the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement - an agreement which continues the coordinated federal and state partnership between Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency.

As the 110th Congress continues, please be assured that I will continue to work for legislation that will protect the Chesapeake Bay, particularly as Congress seeks to reauthorize the 2002 Farm Bill (P.L107-17).