(Delmarva Now) -- Chesapeake Bay's underwater grass, the engine of an ecosystem that fuels Maryland's iconic blue crab industry and maintains sparkling water views, is continuing its historic rebound, a new state report suggests.
For the third consecutive year, the seagrass has expanded its record coverage, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources survey. Scientists mapped more than 62,000 acres of grasses in state tidal waters in 2017, a 5 percent increase over the previous year.
“The continued record growth of underwater grasses shows tremendous progress for Maryland and our partners in improving and restoring water quality throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” Maryland Natural Resources Secretary Mark Belton said.
Across the entire bay, the amount of seagrass coverage surpassed 100,000 acres for the first time, scientists said. That coverage represents 57 percent of the total that state and federal restoration managers are trying to reach by the campaign's 2025 deadline.
The grasses are a bright spot in a federally managed campaign to reverse decades of ecological collapse in America's largest estuary. By reaching 57,000 acres of seagrass in its share of the bay in 2015, Maryland met its restoration goal two years ahead of schedule.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an influential environmental group, applauded the progress but warned that the Trump administration's recent actions threaten those gains.
In its annual spending proposal in February, the administration proposed slashing 90 percent of the federal government's $73 million budget for the program.
Bay Foundation Director of Science and Agricultural Policy Beth McGee called on the Environmental Protection Agency to "stay the course," arguing that the bay grass improvement "should inspire the jurisdictions and local residents to accelerate efforts to reduce pollution and restore this national treasure.”
The state report follows last month's publication of a study linking the comeback of grasses to human-led efforts to reduce the amount of nutrients flowing into the Chesapeake.
A 23 percent cut in the bay's nitrogen level since 1984 has led to a 42,000-acre seagrass expansion, according to the study published in March's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Underwater grasses are widely viewed as a bellwether of bay restoration. The grasses provide habitat for crabs and many species of fish, pump oxygen into the bay, filter light-blocking sediments and remove excess nutrients, experts say.
That greenery's health is threatened by powerful storms that stir up sediment, casting the doomed plants in shadow. Nutrients can also thin out seagrass beds by giving life to widespread, sun-shielding algae blooms, scientists say.
Formal bay grass coverage estimates have been performed since 1984.
As of 2017, no lower Delmarva rivers had met the 50 percent restoration goal for underwater grass. A few river segments, however, did meet their targets, including the upper portions of the Big Annemessex and Manokin rivers in Somerset County and the mouth of the Choptank River in Dorchester County.
