Offshore drilling has been banned for years off the Atlantic Coast, but now that is going to change. Earlier this week President Obama announced that he will allow oil and gas drilling near Virginia and other southern states.

This new development could greatly impact the Chesapeake Bay and has raised concerns with environmental groups in the area. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has come out in opposition of the move. In CBF’s Bay Daily, Tom Pelton wrote that, “Drilling would punch a huge hole in the Obama Administration’s Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan. And drilling would leave beautiful and fragile coastlines, such as those along Virginia Beach and Assateague Island, vulnerable to a future as black as oil.”

This move could undermine Obama’s promise to clean up the nation’s largest estuary. And the president of CBF, Will Baker, says that a spill from this new drilling “could destroy an entire year of newborn crabs, threatening the livelihoods of watermen and others.” With crab and oyster populations already at all-time lows, environmentalists fear the move to allow offshore drilling may be detrimental to their survival.