The passing of the 2025 deadline for the Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint has shifted the conversation from hitting a date to ensuring long-term accountability.

While the missed target highlights the immense challenge of restoring the watershed, the Blueprint’s unique two-year milestones continue to serve as a critical regulatory engine. As states move past the deadline, the mandate of the Clean Water Act remains, requiring a transition from meeting short-term goals to establishing permanent, accelerated systems for pollution reduction.

"It was always an important deadline, not the finish line for clean water, and all of these solutions needed to be durable," says Hilary Harp Falk of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

With the 2025 milestone in the rearview, the focus now turns to how the region can scale and sustain the effort needed to finally move the Chesapeake off the EPA’s impaired waters list.

Episode at https://bit.ly/ChesapeakeCheckUp

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