Susquehanna River improvements help Chesapeake Bay reach highest grade yet

It s taken more than 40 years of data collecting and advocacy, but organizers behind the Chesapeake Bay Report Card say the newly-released 2026 report card achieves a milestone—the highest overall grade for bay health ever, at a C+. Improved water quality in the Susquehanna River, as the bay s largest tributary, is partly to thank. Still, researchers are quick to put the milestone into context, as a stepping stone into continued improvement. It s a 56 out of 100. We have never achieved that before, but it does highlight how far we have to go. We are nowhere close to where we want to be, says Dr. Heath Kelsey of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). We re hoping we can keep strong scores going in future years, and maybe we ll get up into the B range. The report card s water quality index rates water samples taken from 120 sites over the previous year in seven categories: dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll a, benthic community, aquatic grasses, total phospho