Chesapeake Bay Watershed Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Freshwater Mussel Habitat To Get Federal Grant For Protection

The West Virginia Land Trust will receive $500,000 to help the endangered James spinymussel. It has been listed as endangered since 1988.

West Virginia will receive a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for restoration of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The West Virginia Land Trust will receive $500,000 to help the endangered James spinymussel. It has been listed as endangered since 1988.

The grant will help protect its habitat on Potts Creek near the Virginia border.

Mike Slattery, landscape partnership coordinator with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Northeast Region, said the spinymussel is a critical indicator of the health of the watershed.

“Native freshwater mussels, over the course of several decades, have been canaries in an aquatic coal mine,” he said.

The West Virginia project, which has nearly $300,000 in matching funds, will protect 40 acres of the mussels’ habitat. Though it is remote and far upstream from the bay, Slattery said the spinymussel helps maintain the balance of nutrients and sediments in the water that flows there.

West Virginia Land Trust is an underwriter of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Report Finds Improvements in Chesapeake Bay Health

A new report finds water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay is the best it’s been in decades, and native rockfish, oyster and blue crab populations are rebounding as the overall health of the nation’s largest estuary improves.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed spans 64,000 square miles in parts of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. It supports fishing, farming, shipping and tourism.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s biennial State of the Bay report gave the estuary a C-minus grade, an improvement from a D-plus two years ago. It’s the highest score since the first report in 1998.

Still, the report notes the bay is “far from saved” and progress has been uneven. It says Pennsylvania in particular has lagged in pollution control efforts.

Air Cleanup Boosts Chesapeake Water Quality

Researchers with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science have found a surprising explanation for the improved water quality in the Chesapeake Bay: cleaner air.

Professor Keith Eshleman in the center’s Frostburg office said in a statement Tuesday that his team found nearly universal improvement in water quality since 1986 across the Upper Potomac River Basin. The area includes parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Eshleman says the improvement is mainly due to reduced levels of atmospheric nitrogen dioxides following implementation of the Clean Air Act in 1990. The law limited emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Eshleman says the reductions lowered the amount of excess nitrogen falling across the region and causing algae blooms in waterways.