ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Water quality monitoring in the Chesapeake Bay showed continued better-than-average dissolved oxygen conditions through July, driven in part by persistent watershed drought that has reduced nutrient pollution flowing into the estuary.
Data collected by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Old Dominion University in early and late July showed lower volumes of hypoxia — defined as waters containing less than 2 milligrams of oxygen per liter — across the mainstem of the Bay in Maryland and Virginia.
Hypoxic water volume measured 1.48 cubic miles in early July and dropped to 1.08 cubic miles in late July. The late July figure represents the eighth-smallest hypoxic volume observed for that monitoring period since records began in 1985…