The Chesapeake Bay has a long history of serious challenges to its health and long-term sustainability as one of the most productive, vital, and largest ecosystems of its kind in the United States.
These challenges include discharges of untreated wastewater from wastewater treatment plants in Baltimore, runoff from farms, streets, parking lots, development, and sediment from Susquehanna River overflows at the Conowingo Dam.
A most serious challenge is ongoing observations by watermen, waterwomen, and marine biologists who continuously monitor the Bay’s ecosystem, that there are decreasing numbers of some native species and increasing numbers of invasive blue catfish…