 What kind of Bay do we want to leave to our children and grandchildren? If current trends continue, it won’t be anything like the one that we cherish today. The health of Buzzards Bay is declining and swift action is needed to prevent our Bay from losing its celebrated place as one of the healthiest estuaries on the East Coast. The State of the Bay has fallen three points in
the past four years alone to 45.
In 2003, The Coalition for Buzzards Bay released its first-ever State of the Bay report documenting the state of pollution, watershed health and living resources in the Bay. The result of that analysis revealed a Bay functioning at roughly half of its ecological capacity – a score of 48 out of 100. At that time, more than 1/2 of the bay’s harbors and coves were found to be degraded by excessive nitrogen pollution, and accelerating sprawl development was consuming the watershed’s forests and wetlands – the bay’s natural filters – at an unprecedented rate.
Four years later, we’ve found the situation worsening with significant declines in some of the most important indicators – particularly in those linked to nitrogen pollution. Simply put, the nitrogen pollution problem is expanding and getting away from us and is driving bay decline more than any other factor.
Click on the links to the left for more information on the 2007 report. You can also download PDF versions of both our 2007 and 2003 reports below.
 State of the Bay Report 2007 [540 KB PDF]
State of the Bay Report 2003 [6.9 MB PDF]
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