Chesapeake Watershed Forum (Virtual)

The year 2025 marks a historic milestone for the Chesapeake Bay watershed restoration movement. The 2010 Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) set forth necessary nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment reduction targets in a pollution diet that will achieve a level of bay health meeting the survival, growth, and reproduction needs of its living resources. The TMDL aims to have the seven jurisdictions put in place by 2025 all the best management practices necessary to provide, over time, the reductions in nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment that will improve bay water quality so that it meets all its applicable dissolved oxygen, water clarity and chlorophyll related water quality standards. We have made notable progress in implementing the necessary actions that will result in pollution reductions leading to a healthy bay – however, there is still much work to be done in the next four years.

Through our theme, we consider the dualistic priorities of our time. Many of the best practices and approaches in agriculture, stormwater, and forestry that will get us to our 2025 goals are already out there. The challenge is how do we disseminate and implement these practices and approaches efficiently, rapidly, and at scale by 2025, and how do we sustain the effectiveness of those efforts beyond 2025.