Chesapeake Bay report cites environmental justice disparities

By BRIAN WITTE
Associated Press

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A report on the Chesapeake Bay has found strong disparities between communities in different parts of the bay’s watershed in terms of health, economics and social justice concerns. The report was released Tuesday by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. It’s the first time an integrated environmental justice index was included in the center’s evaluation of the health of the nation’s largest estuary. It presented the challenges of improving the health of the nation’s largest estuary in a larger context, specifically to include the health of people of communities in the watershed.