Maryland's coastal bays - where many beach vacationers fish, boat and admire the sunsets - are in better shape than the Chesapeake Bay, but their health is slipping amid growing pollution, a new scientific report finds.
A first-ever report card issued Monday by the Maryland Coastal Bays Program and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science gives a C-plus to the string of fragile lagoons separating Ocean City from the mainland. Conditions range from good in the southern bays bordering Assateague National Seashore to poor in bays increasingly lined with summer and retirement homes.
"We're seeing some disturbing decreases in water quality," said Roman Jesien, science coordinator for the coastal bays program, a federally funded effort begun in 1995. Although the bays appeared to be on the upswing a decade ago, water quality has declined in recent years. Scientists aren't entirely sure why, but Jesien says the bays' problems must be coming from the land that drains into them.
Often deemed Maryland's "forgotten bays" in the shadow of the larger Chesapeake, the coastal lagoons teem with clams, crabs and fish, and provide food and shelter for more than 300 species of birds. They are still in moderate health - the Chesapeake rated a C-minus in its most recent checkup, by comparison. Underwater grasses in the bays rebounded by 17 percent last year, the scientific assessment found, and clam populations seem to be increasing.
Despite last year's gain, bay grasses are far less abundant than they were at the beginning of the decade, and water clarity is declining as algae proliferate, said William C. Dennison, vice president of the UM environmental science center.
The coastal bays suffer from the same ills as the Chesapeake: too many nutrients from development and farms. Many homes bordering the bays rely on septic systems, which feed nutrients into the bays, while farm fields are oversaturated with nutrients from chicken manure and other fertilizer, scientists say.
Even Sinepuxent and Chincoteague bays, once considered nearly pristine, appear to be losing ground, data show. The source of the problem may be the delayed effect of groundwater polluted years ago seeping into the bays.
The new report card comes as environmentalists and scientists criticize recent moves by Worcester County's government that they fear could allow more harmful development along the bays' shores.
