What the latest Chesapeake Bay subpar grade means

The Chesapeake Bay may be a complex ecosystem affected by temperatures, winds, salinity and tides, but it’s also not difficult to summarize its overall health. Recently, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the nonprofit that has been advocating for the nation’s largest estuary since 1967, encapsulated it into a report card with this overall grade: D+. In other words, if the 64,000-square-mile watershed reaching into six states and Washington, D.C., was a child in school, it’s well past time for a parent-teacher conference and some serious intervention.