Maryland
Chesapeake Bay is cleaner but will miss 2025 pollution targets, lawmakers say – Maryland Matters
By Mennatalla Ibrahim and Andrea Durán
WASHINGTON — The Chesapeake Bay is cleaner than it used to be but is falling short of 2025 targets for reducing pollution, state and federal officials – including most of Maryland’s congressional delegation – said Wednesday.
“The short version is that it’s going in the right direction. The longer story is that we’re still behind,” said Adam Ortiz, the Environmental Protection Agency’s mid-Atlantic administrator, said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
The bay failed to meet the main target of the 2025 plan, known as the total maximum daily load, which measures the total pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
“The point of the 10-year plan is to create a pollution diet to reduce the amount of phosphorous, nitrogen and other pollutants in the bay,” Van Hollen said. “That’s a measurable target. That’s how we know we’re not going to hit it this year, so we need to redouble our efforts.”
Despite missing the targets set in 2014 through 2025, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said he remained hopeful that the delegation can work together with experts at the EPA and other agencies to ensure the bay’s health continues to improve.
Maryland Democratic Reps. Steny Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersberger, Kweisi Mfume and Jamie Raskin joined Cardin, Van Hollen, representatives from the EPA and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources at the Wednesday event.
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science gave the Chesapeake Bay an overall grade of a C+ in July, the highest grade the bay has received since 2002.
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“I know that nobody would be thrilled with bringing home a grade of a C+, but the fact of the matter is, it is the highest grade we’ve seen in a long time,” Van Hollen said. “We all want to do better, but I do want to stress that without the collective effort we see today, the Bay would have died a long time ago.”
The Chesapeake Executive Council signed the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement in 2014 and established five strategies for the restoration and protection of the bay, its tributaries and surrounding lands.
Local, state and federal governments are required to enact the plan’s management strategies and work with academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations, watershed groups and businesses and individuals, according to the 2014 agreement.
“You need cooperation between the federal government and the states, among the states, among state governments and private industry,” Van Hollen said. “There are all sorts of sources of pollution today, and so we need to make sure everybody cooperates in producing pollution reduction.”
Ortiz said that groups committed to improving the bay were in disarray when President Joe Biden’s administration began almost four years ago.
“The states were suing the federal government, and states were pointing the fingers at each other for not making … progress,” he said.
But since then, he said, the EPA has been able to bring the states together and hold them accountable.
“The Chesapeake Bay isn’t just a bay,” Cardin said. “The Chesapeake Bay has been one of the highest priorities for our Maryland congressional delegation. We’ve been focused on not only preserving but expanding our role and partnership with states, local governments and stakeholders.”
Van Hollen emphasized the importance of identifying “measurable targets” of pollution reduction for long-term success, especially as climate change concerns surrounding the Bay grow.
“I think we’ll have to have a discussion about what the length of time for the next agreement should be. It may make sense to look at shorter time horizons,” the senator said. “But you have to have a measurable target to hold people down.”
Maryland schools made nation-leading strides in their recovery from students’ learning loss in the pandemic, data show.
Maryland schools made nation-leading strides in their recovery from students’ learning loss in the pandemic, according to new data.
They ranked third in the nation in their students’ reading recovery rates, and were fifth in math recovery, according to the 2025 Education Scorecard from Harvard and Stanford Universities and Dartmouth College.
D.C. led the U.S. in math and reading recovery.
The data was presented at the Maryland State Board of Education meeting Thursday.
Trish Brennan-Gac, executive director of literacy nonprofit Maryland READS, said the state board is correct to celebrate gains in reading, but proficiency is “nowhere near where we need to be.”
“It is not that we are No. 3-ranked in reading proficiency,” she told WTOP. “It’s a rate of change, and we are making a faster rate of change,” than most school districts nationally.
Brennan-Gac was at the meeting to ask that the state board consider ways to reduce the use of technology in classroom instruction and support a return to print and textbooks in schools.
“This is no longer a fringe concern. It is a growing movement, and it’s not about social media and phones,” she told the board.
Brennan-Gac said the board and Maryland schools superintendent Carey Wright can take a “visible meaningful leadership role.”
“You can develop transition guidance and funding pathways for districts that are ready to move now, and send a clear signal to the field that Maryland prioritizes developmentally appropriate instruction aligned to brain research that shows how books, not tech-based platforms, are effective in wiring kids’ brains for reading,” she said.
The Maryland State Department of Education has issued guidance to school districts on the use of cellphones in schools, and this year issued guidance on the use of artificial intelligence. In both instances, the state has made clear that it leaves implementation of policies to individual school districts.
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Gov. Wes Moore has requested a federal disaster declaration to help farmers recover from their losses after temperatures dipped into the 20s in April, devastating some of Maryland’s agriculture industry.
Temperatures dipped into the low to mid 20s for several hours, causing widespread damage to crops, wine grapes, berries, peaches and apples in some parts of the state.
“We had 6, 7 hours I believe here under 32 and that’s just a lot of stress on those small fruits and buds,” said Ben Butler, the farm manager of Butler’s Orchard in Germantown back in April.
Moore asked for the U.S. agriculture secretary to declare a federal disaster using Maryland Farm Service Agency data to back up the request. According to the agency, there were historic losses, including 94% of the apple crop, 99% of the peach crop and 98% of the barley in several jurisdictions.
The Maryland Wineries Association says 36% of grape acreage sustained total losses, with a $24.4 million projected deficit in wine sales for the 2026 vintage.
“For the majority of the varieties, the yield, the 2026 crop yield, will essentially be zero,” said Robert Butz, the owner of Windridge Vineyards.
The hours-long deep freeze in April left grapes at Windridge Vineyards in Germantown dead on the vine.
News4 visited Windridge Vineyards just a few days after the disaster. Butz said not only were there grape losses, some of the vines were damaged as well. He called the devastation “catastrophic.”
It’s challenging, but he said he’s pleased with the support being given to local farmers and the disaster declaration request.
“This announcement by the governor is further evidence of that, right,” Butz said. “Marylanders care about their farmers. That’s great.It’s incredibly gratifying for those who do this work.”
Moore is asking the agriculture secretary for a quick decision so emergency loans and relief programs are made available right away so farmers can prepare for the next growing season.
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