From the desk of...

Martin O'Malley, Governor of Maryland 

The effects of Hurricane Sandy hits Crisfield, Maryland. Inset: Governor Martin O'Malley leads the effort at MEMA during the storm.

Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay were very fortunate to have avoided the brunt of Superstorm Sandy; we fared much better than our neighbors to our north. The Potomac River watershed and areas of the Eastern Shore experienced some effects, but due to Sandy's autumn arrival, the ecological impacts were less than those of a summer storm.

Just over one year ago, Tropical Storm Lee flooded the Susquehanna River watershed and sent tens of thousands of tons of nutrients and sediment into the Chesapeake Bay. Storms such as Lee are rare, but can have major impacts on rivers and the Bay. To better prepare our waterways for the impacts of a major storm, we need to control and reduce pollution. As we clean up the watershed and improve practices to control stormwater throughout the watershed, over time, storm events like Lee will have less and less impact on a healthier and more resilient Bay.

Maryland's Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan includes strategies to control erosion using cover crops and other agricultural best management practices, reduce urban stormwater impacts, restore and stabilize streams and shorelines, and upgrade sewage treatment plants and septic systems. These actions reduce pollution flowing into our groundwater, rivers and the Bay every day so that when another major storm hits Maryland there is less damaging pollution for the storm to deliver, allowing the Bay and its inhabitants to recover more quickly.

Our determined, day-to-day implementation of these pollution reduction strategies becomes all the more important when we consider that climate change is occurring and the science tells us that the frequency of these types of storms is likely to increase.

Thanks for your continued partnership.

Sincerely,