The scenic rivers around Annapolis, where generations of Marylanders have crabbed and fished, are among the most polluted in the state, researchers said yesterday.
The second annual Chesapeake Bay Report Card gave its lowest grades to the collection of rivers that flow through Anne Arundel County - the Severn, the South, the Magothy, the Rhode and the West - as well as to Southern Maryland's Patuxent River. Researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, who gather data on the rivers, gave each a D-minus.
Adding to the dismal news yesterday was the annual Health and Restoration Assessment published by the Chesapeake Bay Program, a multistate government agency charged with cleaning up the bay. It found that the water in nearly 88 percent of the bay and its tributaries does not have enough oxygen in summer to sustain marine life.
"There are some positive signs, and much good work that has been done, but what our reports tell us is that the bay is degraded and in a vulnerable state," said Jeffrey Lape, director of the Chesapeake Bay Program. On the Chesapeake Bay Report Card, the bay's overall grade improved slightly, from a D-plus in 2006 to a C-minus for 2007 - improvement attributed largely to weather. Drought last summer reduced pollution from runoff. The only real success stories were north of Baltimore - the Bush, Gunpowder and Middle rivers each received a B, up from D-plus - and the Choptank, which was second-worst on the list in 2006 but was in the middle of the pack for 2007.
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