If Maryland can’t revive one Eastern Shore river, can it save the bay?

Gov. Robert Ehrlich stood on the banks of the Chesapeake one September day more than 20 years ago to unveil what he called “a grand experiment”: Maryland would revive the Corsica River, 6 miles of deeply sickened waters that empty into the bay.

His idea, which he described as an unprecedented environmental undertaking, was ambitious: If Maryland could show that attention and some money — in this case, five years and almost $20 million — could rewrite the future of the Eastern Shore tributary, it might prove a blueprint for cleaning up the nation’s largest estuary.

He hoped to curb degradation of the Corsica so much that the river would be removed from a federal inventory of endangered waterways.

But two decades later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the Corsica is still impaired. Pollution modeling suggests that the river has improved, but progress over much of the last 14 years has slowed to a crawl, according to a Baltimore Banner analysis of federal data.

Much like in the Chesapeake Bay itself, basic aspirations for clear, clean water remain elusive.

The money that flowed into the Corsica is a fraction of the billions in federal, state and local spending that has gone toward Chesapeake restoration since 1985. The watershed has made strides, but pollution from farmland remains a colossal problem, with only modest signs of abatement. Populations of important species like blue crab and striped bass are struggling, and longtime bay champions worry that their cause is losing steam.

Disappointment in the progress of the Corsica raises a bigger, more troubling question. If, in two decades, officials can’t revive one relatively small tributary, can they really save the bay?

Frank DiGialleonardo, who has lived along the Corsica since before Ehrlich’s announcement, holds out hope.

A retired executive in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, DiGialleonardo was in the audience for the governor’s 2005 news conference. Soon after, he founded the Corsica River Conservancy.

DiGialleonardo is quick to admit shortcomings in this mission, but he believes the work has made a difference. “If you’re able to tread water,” he says, “you’re almost making progress.”

‘It went to hell’

Such a small river might seem easy to fix.

The Corsica accounts for less than 1% of the Chesapeake Bay footprint. It’s fed by three trickling streams near the east end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Queen Anne’s County. Surrounded mostly by farms, the river flows out of Centreville, population 4,700 people.

Former County Commissioner Steve Wilson grew up swimming with friends in the Corsica and recalls once-clear water thick with underwater grasses. He came from a wealthy family and has sold about 800 waterfront acres to Queen Anne’s County for permanent protection. Even so, he doesn’t expect the river will ever return to the pristine condition of his youth.

“Never, ever, ever did I hear the word ‘polluted’ or, ‘If you drink it you’ll get sick,’” said Wilson, now 86. “From ’70 to ’95, it went to hell.”

At times, it has seemed that way. Even as Ehrlich spoke in 2005, a nutrient overdose sapped oxygen from the water. Days later, local newspapers would report that some 50,000 fish died in the river.

To this day, Wilson blames the bay’s sewage problems.

Centreville’s wastewater treatment plant became notorious in the 1990s for raw sewage releases, which contributed to nutrient pollution and algae blooms in the river. Things got so bad, said the town’s current public works director, Clifford “Kip” Matthews Jr., that just about everyone who works in Maryland wastewater today knows Centreville’s troubles.

Targeting the Corsica was a chance to “do this really cool thing,” Ehrlich recalled in a recent interview, to bring together farmers, watermen and scientists and “prove to the country that we can clean up a really dirty river.”

Ehrlich, a Republican, announced his plan for the Corsica while gearing up for reelection, and he said he wanted to show that environmentalism and business could go hand-in-hand. Along with wastewater improvements, his administration promised funds to seed oysters, build stream buffers, restore wetlands and pay farmers to plant cover crops, which enrich soil and shield waterways from nutrient pollution.

Centreville’s wastewater plant has come a long way. For most of the year, the town diverts wastewater to irrigate farmland rather than into the river. Models show the plant now accounts for less than 1% of nitrogen present in the river each year.

More striking: A Banner analysis of the modeled data, tracked by the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program, shows that nitrogen loads in the Corsica dropped by about 18.5% between 2000 and 2010. Those declines were driven in part by the near erasure of wastewater pollution.

Lee Curry, director of the Maryland Department of the Environment’s Water and Science Administration, said these trends show the state is on the right track. EPA regulators touted the Corsica as a success story as early as 2013, and two decades of state environmental testing have shown steady declines in the nutrient problem in the Corsica’s tributaries.

But when it comes to basic standards for swimming, fishing and drinking water, the Corsica still falls short.

The farm issue

Billions of dollars invested in wastewater treatment upgrades across the Chesapeake Bay watershed have improved the estuary’s health since the early 2000s, but progress since has largely stalled. The same appears true for the Corsica: Modeling shows that at points in the last 15 years, nitrogen contamination has trended in the wrong direction.

For some scientists involved in the Corsica campaign, Ehrlich’s five-year plan always looked unrealistic.

Kenneth Staver, a research scientist with the University of Maryland’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, remembers officials’ disappointment when he said they wouldn’t see quick results.

Staver has spent decades studying the impact of farming on the bay and praised the Ehrlich administration’s work to fix up the Centerville treatment plant, but said sewage was never the Corsica’s biggest problem.

The river draws water from a region about 18 times its area, where nitrogen-rich fertilizers from croplands — mostly corn and soybean farms — are washed into it. Even harder to trace is the slow creep of groundwater, which Staver estimates can take well over a decade to travel from field to river.

“I think they thought they were gonna have a clear win,” Staver said.

But scientists hope that years of investment will someday lead to a breakthrough.

Veteran Chesapeake Bay scientist Walter Boynton predicted in 2010 that the Corsica might be near a “tipping point.” If the state could improve water clarity even a little, he said, it could foster underwater grasses that would begin to soak up nutrients, potentially reversing the tributary’s fortunes.

Boynton, now an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, wishes there were more appreciation for how far the whole bay has come. Even as population across the bay’s watershed grew by more than 4.3 million people between 1990 and 2020, bay-wide modeled nitrogen levels fell more than a fifth.

“We should be celebrating that,” he said, “and generally we don’t even mention it.”

Ehrlich shares this optimism. He called the Corsica’s condition “heartbreaking,” but doesn’t see his approach as a failure. Barely a year after starting the initiative, he lost reelection — and the work fell to a new administration.

A new threat

Carrie Decker was a newly minted planner for the Department of Natural Resources when she watched Ehrlich’s Corsica address. Now a veteran of the department, Decker spent almost 15 years as the state coordinator for the Corsica restoration.

The Corsica has since faded from the spotlight, and though some feel it’s time to move on, Decker believes the river offers much to emulate for other bay tributaries.

“I still think there’s things that can be done,” she said.

It’s unclear how much the state has spent on the Corsica in the last 20 years. WYPR reported in 2015 that the initial five-year, $20 million promise became $10 million over 10 years. But since then, Maryland’s departments of environment, agriculture and natural resources have surpassed that initial pledge, pumping millions into replacing old septic tanks, monitoring water quality and financing cover crops, in addition to 2000s investments in the Centreville treatment plant, according to the three agencies.

Even as there’s cause for optimism, there’s a new threat: demand for the Corsica’s bucolic lifestyle.

No Eastern Shore county has seen more growth since 2020 than Queen Anne’s. County officials imposed a yearlong development moratorium last year, but Centreville could see more strain. The town is looking to double capacity at its once-infamous sewage treatment plant — a measure meant to accommodate an influx of housing.

A proposal to add spans to the Bay Bridge, meanwhile, threatens to lure even more people across the water.

“The Eastern Shore has been rediscovered,” said Annie Richards, a watchdog for the Chester River and its tributaries.

Routine testing in the Corsica’s waters has found recent increases in nutrient levels, Richards said. Of all the tributaries Richards monitors, the Corsica consistently shows the poorest health, and she worries that warming waters and runoff from new development could make things worse.

“This is a story that’s gonna start repeating itself,” she said.