Good news about the Chesapeake Bay

Happy Monday, DMV! It’s Sept. 14.

Exciting news crossed my radar last week: Underwater grass in the Chesapeake Bay in 2025 increased by 7 percent, compared to the previous year, according to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS).

I am a nerd for subaquatic grasses and vegetation. They’re a key indicator of a waterway’s health, and it makes me happy to think of all that lush green providing a home for fish and crabs and whatnot.

VIMS has monitored the bay’s subaquatic vegetation since 1978. Their annual aerial survey found 89,385 acres of underwater grasses in the bay and its tidal tributaries in 2025 — an increase of 6,134 acres from 2024.

The 2025 total is just below the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement’s 2030 interim target of 90,000 acres. The long-term goal is 196,600 acres of underwater grasses bay-wide.

Much of the increase was in saltier waters near the mouth of the bay, VIMS reported: “Researchers attribute much of that growth, and the record-setting expansion of eelgrass, to sustained year-over-year increases in water clarity in the lower Bay.”

In Maryland’s portion of the bay, underwater grass coverage expanded by nearly 13 percent to 41,419 acres in 2025 from 36,799 acres in 2024, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources.

Historical evidence suggests the bay once supported up to 600,000 acres of underwater grasses. By the time systematic monitoring began in 1984, coverage had fallen to approximately 39,000 acres, VIMS reported.

Threats to the grasses include climate change and also sediment runoff due to deforestation and urban sprawl; excess nitrogen from farms, yards, wastewater treatment plants and car exhaust; and physical disturbance from boats and fishing gear.

According to VIMS, the Chesapeake Bay is home to 26 species of subaquatic vegetation, which help improve water quality, reduce shoreline erosion and add oxygen to the water. Beds of underwater grass provide food and refuge for blue crabs, young striped bass, bay scallops, waterfowl and other species.

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Jessica Warren, 39, of Cape Charles, Virginia, took this photo in the early morning hours of July 30.

A quick online search tells me — and the moth expert I recently profiled confirmed — that it’s an imperial moth.

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