Maryland's coastal bays, the inland waterways that cradle the state's Atlantic beach resort, remain in better shape overall than the Chesapeake Bay, according to their latest ecological report card released Wednesday. But beneath that good news lurks a troubling trend.
The shallow estuaries behind Ocean City and Assateague Island rated a C+ overall in 2009, the same grade they received for 2008. There were some signs of improvement in the most degraded areas — the northern bays and western tributaries — offset by continuing declines in water quality in Chincoteague Bay, the largest and least developed of the entire inland bay system.
Assawoman Bay, in particular, went from a C to a C+ with gains in sea grasses, higher oxygen levels in the water and lower nitrogen, according to the report prepared by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Sea grass abundance throughout the bays last year increased 25 percent, but underwater vegetation is still down from what it was before a precipitous decline in 2005.
Shellfish in the bays were a mixed bag, with clam densities improved in Assawoman, Isle of Wight and Sinepuxent bays. But they were only half their long-term average in Newport and Chincoteague bays. Scallops haven't been seen in Chincoteague since 2005.
Experts say they aren't sure why Chincoteague Bay seems to be losing ground. It and Sinepuxent Bay both saw a marked decline in dissolved oxygen in the water from 2008 to 2009. Nutrients in Chincoteague come from a variety of sources, including household septic systems and runoff from farm fields and ditches. Yet Dave Wilson Jr., executive director of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program, says many farmers in the Maryland drainage of Chincoteague have taken steps to curb runoff.
One possibility might be that nutrients that soaked into the ground water years ago are finally making their way to the bay. Another source might lie to the south, as Maryland shares Chincoteague Bay with Virginia. Wilson notes that Chincoteague Island in Virginia lacks wastewater treatment.
"We just aren't sure," Wilson said in an e-mail, "and it can be very frustrating to figure out this decline, which has been occurring since 2001."
Another source of frustration for Wilson is the lack of resources to monitor and work on upgrading the coastal bays, relative to the much larger Chesapeake. His program receives about $11 million a year, he said.
"The bays behind Ocean City and Assateague continue to be underfunded and overlooked," Wilson said.