{"id":45014,"date":"2025-07-03T12:29:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=45014"},"modified":"2025-07-03T12:29:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:29:55","slug":"secretarys-message-were-moving-together-to-make-the-chesapeake-bay-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2025\/07\/03\/secretarys-message-were-moving-together-to-make-the-chesapeake-bay-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretary\u2019s Message: We\u2019re Moving Together to Make the Chesapeake Bay Better"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sunrise

Photo by Wendy Crowe, submitted to the 2017 Maryland DNR Photo Contest<\/p><\/div>\n

The long-term effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay has made steady progress, and there is still more work to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re on track to complete or have already completed more than half of the outcomes we set for ourselves in 2014, when all seven watershed jurisdictions (six states and DC), the federal government, and the Chesapeake Bay Commission signed the <\/span>Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement<\/span><\/a>. At the time we committed to achieving 31 varied and critical Bay restoration outcomes beyond meeting the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) by 2025.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Importantly, 2025 was a deadline, but not the finish line. At the end of last year, the Chesapeake Bay Program Executive Committee – chaired by Maryland Governor Wes Moore – determined to update these goals. After working for the first half of the year to make these revisions, a <\/span>draft of the revised Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement<\/span> <\/a>is available for the public to provide input on before the Executive Council finalizes the document.<\/span><\/p>\n

The draft Agreement revisions lay out the next steps, informed by where we are now and everything we\u2019ve learned in the past decade. This sets us up as a partnership to improve as we go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, we recognized the need for both interim and long-term targets to grade the partnership. And we should be ready to adapt and respond to new challenges, such as the damaging impact of invasive species and changes in water temperature, that may not have been prominent or priorities when the 2014 Agreement\u2019s goals were set.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the high-level changes include:<\/span><\/p>\n