Bay Health declines after record rainfall

The long wet season from El Nino brought record rainfall, and washed more pollutants into the Chesapeake Bay.

The bay’s health fell to a D+ in a biennial report card released Monday — a decline from its previous C- grade.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation called its assessment “a grim reality” that stresses the importance of stopping the Trump administration from rolling back regulations it says have helped the bay recover in recent years.

The Chesapeake had earned the C- in 2016, in the last edition of the foundation’s bay report card. That was the bay’s best grade ever in an assessment the foundation launched in 1998.

But for 2018, its score declined for the first time in a decade.