Help get climate change included in the new Chesapeake Bay agreement! The Chesapeake Bay agreement specifies the restoration goals committed to by the partners that make up the Chesapeake Bay Program. Current drafts of the agreement exclude climate change language. On January 29, 2014 we can change this. On that day, the second phase of the public comment period begins. We will be calling on our Sierra Club volunteers and leaders to help submit comments calling on the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership to include climate change in the new Chesapeake Bay agreement.
Climate impacts have already been affecting the Chesapeake Bay for a while. We have been seeing sea level rise, higher water temperatures possibly causing declines in eel grass, and more intense and frequent storms with greater precipitation resulting in greater pollutant runoff. These effects are going to continue and become worse over time.
Despite that, climate change projections and data have not been taken into consideration in recent Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts. But this will now change. EPA has directed the Chesapeake Bay Program, which is a broad-based partnership charged with advancing the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, to include climate change considerations at the 2017 mid-point assessment.
Since climate change will be included in planning for restoration in 2017, one would assume that it is mentioned in drafts of the new Chesapeake Bay agreement, which contains the restoration goals of the partners. Not so. For reasons only clear to deniers, current drafts of the Chesapeake Bay agreement do not include as much as a mention of climate change as one of the big stressors impacting the health of the Bay.
We now have a chance to have climate change be mentioned in the Chesapeake Bay agreement. On January 29th, 2014, the second phase of the public comment period for the new Chesapeake Bay agreement begins. The Maryland Sierra Club, having already submitted comments during the 1st phase of the public comment process, will do so again and call on our volunteers to also submit comments in support of the inclusion of climate change in the agreement.
See the letter from the Sierra Club: 
bay_agreement_August_2013.pdf