Save Chesapeake Bay – Inspirational Video

Impacting over 17 million people, and a $1 trillion economic engine, the Chesapeake Bay is the third largest estuary in the world and one of the most imperiled. Check out this inspirational video produced by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. It effectively captures the importance of the Bay and why we need to protect and preserve it.

 

Some quick facts about the Bay:

- Chesapeake Bay is approximately 200 miles long and runs north-south from the mouth of the Susquehanna River to the Atlantic Ocean. Chesapeake Bay’s headwaters begin at Cooperstown, N.Y., home to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

- The Chesapeake Bay watershed (the area of land that drains into the Bay) is 64,000 square miles and has 11,600 miles of tidal shoreline, including tidal wetlands and islands. The watershed encompasses parts of six states: Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as Washington D.C.

- The average depth of the Bay, including tributaries, is about 21 feet. The deepest part of the Bay, “the Hole,” is 174 feet deep and located off Bloody Point southeast of Annapolis, Md.

- The narrowest part of the Bay, near Aberdeen, MD, is about 3.5 miles. The widest point – from Smith Point, VA, to Virginia’s Eastern Shore – is 30 miles.

- ”Chesapeake” derives from the Native American “Tschiswapeki,” which loosely translates into “great shellfish bay.”

- There are more than 100,000 streams, creeks, or rivers in the watershed, including 150 major rivers. One can reach a Bay tributary in less than 15 minutes from nearly everywhere in the watershed.

- The Bay’s skipjack fleet represents the last commercial fishing fleet to use sail power in North America.

- Two of the five major North Atlantic ports–Baltimore and Hampton Roads–are on the Bay.

- More than 500 million pounds of seafood is harvested from the Bay every year.

- The Bay supports 3,600 species of plant and animal life, including more than 300 fish species and 2,700 plant types.

- According to the CBF‘s 2008 State of the Bay Report the Bay’s health rates a 28 out of 100 (a “pristine” Bay circa. 1600). At its worst in the early 1980s, the Bay would have scored a 23. A “saved Bay” would score a 70.