The Chesapeake Bay is the healthiest it's been in a long time, according to the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The center's 2024 Report Card gave the bay a C+, a grade it hasn’t received since 2002.
But conservationists and advocates told the News4 I-Team they’ve never experienced anything like the chaos and proposed cuts of the past five months. According to those experts, it is already putting decades of environmental progress in jeopardy.
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WATCH HERE“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Hilary Harp Falk, the president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told the I-Team. “I have been in this field for 40 years.”
Cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay has been a decades-long fight. It's been successful, the I-Team is told, because of cooperation among the federal government, six states, the District of Columbia and a host of nonprofits committed to restoring the bay.
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SIGN UP You can see, touch and swim in the progress that has been made, Falk told the I-Team, and she worries proposed budget cuts by President Donald Trump could undo the changes.
“It doesn’t make sense to me. It’s crab feasts and oysters. It is swimming in your local river — all of that,” Falk told the I-Team on a pier above the bay. “It’s getting better and the idea that we would stop or take a step back really is hard to get your head around.”
Looming cuts' impact on Bay
Falk said she’s worried about the impact of thousands of job losses in federal environmental agencies, frozen grants and those proposed budget cuts.
“The chaos is that every hour on the hour, there’s a new announcement, a new rollback. There’s a phone call from a federal colleague who’s just lost their job,” Falk said.
While the federal government won’t release precise numbers, Falk said thousands of people have left agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey (USPG) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture — all of which do important work on the bay.
There’s an incredible amount of talent right now that’s flooding out of the federal government.
Hilary Harp Falk, president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation
On top of the job losses, conservationists are tracking more than $7 billion in cuts to federal agencies proposed in President Trump’s recent budget outline. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation says it is money the USGS uses to monitor fish and stream health in the bay, and it says money the U.S. Department of Agriculture granted to farmers to adopt environmentally friendly farming techniques is frozen.
Kristin Reilly, the director of the Choose Clean Water Coalition, said that’s hurt years of trust-building with farmers.
“I don’t think farmers are going to be alone in their hesitation on federal funding,” she said
Part of those massive proposed cuts, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, include $5 billion from the EPA budget — slightly more than half the agency’s budget last year. The EPA devotes $92 million annually to the Bay restoration alone, according to the foundation.
Terminated grants
Reilly said these days are full of anxiety for her and her team, too.
“I would be lying to say if we weren’t extremely worried about what’s going on," Reilly said.
Her coalition is tracking dozens of grants that bay restoration groups count on, which they say have been canceled. Reilly said some were canceled after work had already begun — on resiliency projects such as flood walls, urban tree planting to increase shade and fight climate change, and environmental justice grants. Reilly said even grants that are still funded have been frozen and unfrozen at least once in the past four months, causing unease and confusion.
The future of the Bay
Facing intense questioning at a recent Senate committee, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin seemed to back the bay.
“The Chesapeake Bay Program is an amazing program,” Zeldin told Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland. “Our team takes great pride in running it with a lot of success stories that span multiple states, including yours. We will make sure you also have a smile on your face ... when the full budget is released and you see the numbers for the Chesapeake Bay.”
It is promising, but not a guarantee in budget writing or law. Not yet.
Federal money spent on the bay, both Falk and Reilly say, cannot be replaced by states or by private donors. Falk says it is taking them away from the job at hand.
“We are playing defense on pretty much every single level, and it’s really taking away from the work we should be doing,” Falk said.
Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.
