OCT 18 CRC Roundtable to discuss expert analysis of Chesapeake Bay cleanup progress
The Chesapeake Research Consortium is offering a Sept 20 Roundtable to discuss the Comprehensive Evaluation of System Response (CESR) report. This report, by over 60 experts, takes a hard look at the status and future of Chesapeake Bay cleanup, after 40 years of efforts. Register for the second CRC Roundtable about the CESR report (October 18 at 12:00pm).
One suggestion published in the report is to change the collective focus away from water quality goals for the deep water in the Chesapeake Bay, to shallow bay waters and freshwater streams.
Brook trout are the only trout native to the Chesapeake Bay's 64,000 square mile watershed. According to EBTJV's 2015 assessment, wild brook trout patches cover 12,838 square miles of Bay headwaters in WV, NY, PA, and MD. That's quite a lot of brook trout water, and yet, it represents a substantial reduction in waters that were once home to wild brook trout.
The Chesapeake Bay watershed connects headwaters to the bay, with unique and important ecological and human communities throughout. Continued efforts to improve the Bay through the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement focus on 10 interrelated goals and 31 outcomes. One of these outcomes (and associated Brook Trout Outcome Management Strategy) is specifically for brook trout: restore and sustain naturally reproducing brook trout populations in Chesapeake Bay headwater streams, with an eight percent increase in occupied habitat by 2025. Other named outcomes, such as fish passage and forest buffers, are critically important for brook trout conservation. It's also understood that actions taken for brook trout, like riparian plantings and land protection, help export cleaner water downstream, and that brook trout is an indicator species whose presence helps showcase healthy, clean water and watersheds.
Above all else, headwater landscapes and streams, and brook trout, are intrinsically important for local communities.
Chesapeake Bay Program Brook Trout Outcome Management Strategy, 2015-2025, v.2
Vital Habitats Goal: Restore, enhance and protect a network of land and water habitats to support
fish and wildlife, and to afford other public benefits, including water quality,
recreational uses and scenic value across the watershed.
Brook Trout Outcome: Restore and sustain naturally reproducing brook trout populations in Chesapeake Bay headwater streams, with an eight percent increase in occupied habitat by 2025.
We look forward to continuing collaborations with the Chesapeake Bay Program and other partners to help set and track priorities for brook trout conservation in the watershed for multiple benefits.
More on the CESR report in plain language: Chesapeake Bay Foundation: What Should the Future of Chesapeake Bay Watershed Restoration Look Like?
The Baltimore Banner: Gov. Wes Moore outlines new approach to Chesapeake Bay cleanup
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