Engaging with the local agricultural community

Catalyzed by the poor grades and degrading water quality trends on the Delmarva Peninsula that the Chesapeake Bay and Watershed report card identified, Bill Dennison and Vanessa Vargas-Nguyen have been working with the Delmarva Land and Litter Collaborative (DLLC) to investigate the Eastern Shore water quality issues. On June 23rd, a scientific workshop was held in Easton, MD and results of that workshop were presented and discussed at the “Understanding nutrient dynamics and water quality on Delmarva” workshop on the following day (June 24th). This workshop included farmers, riverkeepers, research scientists, and agency and NGO staff, and was funded by the Campbell Foundation. The scientists recommended a data integration effort to synthesize data from the riverkeepers, citizen scientists, and data collected by Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, and the Chesapeake Bay Program. The science team also created various potential drivers for the enigmatic water quality trends.

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