Last year, grass beds returned to 10,618 acres. It had been going down every year since 1993. That's a long string of declines. It's pretty encouraging that it started going up again. Besides being a good indicator of water quality, grass beds also provide crucial habitat for many Bay species.
Grasses are also important food for waterfowl.
Water clouded by sediment and algae has reduced sunlight in the water, causing dramatic declines in recent decades. The Bay Program's new Chesapeake 2000 Agreement calls for improving water clarity in the Bay by the end of the decade to allow for the return of grasses to levels that existed in 1930s. An analysis of that amount is now under way, using historic aerial photographs. The exact amount of grasses in the Bay last year is unclear because poor weather delayed completion of the annual aerial survey, conducted for the Bay Program by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. By the time some areas were surveyed, the seasonal die-back of freshwater grass species had already begun, leaving the picture for 4,000 acres unclear.