Restoring the Chesapeake Bay Watershed: Scaling up Biochar from Laboratory to Policy

Scaling biochar efforts for the vast Chesapeake Bay watershed is a challenging task that requires a clear roadmap, patience, and persistence. Despite decades of efforts and billions of dollars spent, the Chesapeake Bay still faces growing pollution issues, as indicated by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's D+ grade in 2022. The Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States with a drainage basin of 64,000 mi² (166,534 km²), was plagued by excess nutrient over-enrichment, toxic pollution, and dwindling underwater grasses in the early 1980's. In 1983, the first Bay agreement was established to create the Bay Program (amended in 1987 and 2000). In 2009, President Obama designated the Chesapeake Bay as a national treasure in need of restoration and protection (EO #13508). Yet after 40 years of effort and billions invested, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (2022) has observed that too much pollution still enters the waterways and states are not making sufficient progress in improving and sustaining water quality in the long term. The encouraging news is that biochar science, technologies, and methods are available and prepared to be scaled up to address the challenges of restoring the bay. While there is still much work to be done, this presentation will outline the policy changes and scaling up strategies implemented or being implemented over the past 10 years to contribute to the restoration of one of America's national treasures. 

Keywords: Biocharcredits, Policy, scaling, restoration