As the costs of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay continue to rise, it has become increasingly important for the public to know where the money comes from, how much more is needed and how it has been allocated.

In 2003 the Chesapeake Bay Commission estimated that it would cost nearly $19 billion to restore the Bay by the end of the decade. With about $6 billion committed by various governments at that time, the commission projected a financial shortfall of $12.8 billion that would have to be raised.

The estimates, contained in a 2003 report titled “The Cost of a Clean Bay,”  were based on the projected amount needed to achieve the 100-plus goals that Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia and the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to when they signed the Chesapeake 2000 agreement, which spelled out goals to be met by 2010.

According to the most recent Government Accountability Office report on the Chesapeake Bay, released in 2008, $3.7 billion in direct funding and $1.9 billion in indirect funding was provided to restoring the bay between 1995 and 2004.

In 2005, the Chesapeake Bay Commission published another report outlining ways to restore the bay with limited funding. However, the commission did not specify a new amount needed to restore the Bay.

In short, the states have allocated nowhere near the amount estimated to be needed to restore the Bay.

Funding for bay clean-up efforts has come from a variety of sources. The Chesapeake Bay Program specifically is funded by eleven federal agencies, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. The federal agencies are the Army, Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, Farm Services Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Park Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Navy/Marine Corps, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Chesapeake Bay Commission notes that funds are allocated into five categories– water quality protection and restoration; sound land use; vital habitat protection and restoration; stewardship and community engagement; living resource protection and restoration. Programs in each include:

• Water quality protection and restoration covers areas such as nutrients and sediment and other pollutants. Most of the funding spent so far has gone to water quality protection.
• Sound land use encompasses items such as development, transportation, and land conservation.
• Stewardship and community engagement includes partnerships, education and outreach.
• Living resource protection and restoration deals mainly with species management such as oysters, fish and crabs.
• Lastly, vital habitat protection and restoration covers items such as aquatic vegetation, watershed, wetlands and forests.