Bay's health improves

The Chesapeake Bay’s health improved last year but it remains poor.

That’s according to a new Bay Barometer issued Wednesday in Annapolis by the Chesapeake Bay Program, the the regional partnership that has coordinated bay restoration efforts since 1983. The program rated the bay’s health at 45 on scale of 100, up 6 percent from the year before.

Highlights include improvements in water clarity, crab numbers and bay grass coverage.

However, program officials say the health of the nation’s largest estuary remains too closely tied to yearly weather that affects how much pollution washes into to the Chesapeake.

Continuing efforts are needed to put systems into place to allow soil in the bay watershed to better filter storm runoff.

-- Associated Press