The Bay Journal

The Rappahannock Tribe has rematriated more than 2,000 acres of its ancestral land at Fones Cliffs as of 2026. (Jeffrey Allenby/Chesapeake Conservancy) The Rappahannock Tribe on June 12 reclaimed 704 acres of its ancestral lands at Fones Cliff along on its namesake river in Virginia. The land is along what is known as Fones Cliffs, a stretch of nearly vertical banks that rise high above the north side of the river about 50 miles upstream from the Chesapeake Bay.

Jennifer Campagne of Virginia holds up a glass of water drawn from her kitchen faucet. She learned recently that her well contains PFAS or “forever chemicals.” “Forever chemicals” are extremely long-lived in the environment, and they are a growing concern among residents and lawmakers across the Chesapeake Bay region. Some jurisdictions have begun testing for them and trying to address the problem in public water systems.

A small wetland is hemmed in by new houses in a subdivision in Delmar, DE. For Delaware’s wetland advocates, the seventh time was the charm. Six previous legislative attempts to enact state-level freshwater wetland protections had come up short. But on July 1, the General Assembly passed the Wetlands Stewardship Act, creating the state’s first nontidal wetlands regulatory program.

This rendering depicts the new RFK Stadium planned for a site along the Anacostia River in the District of Columbia. Trey Sherard pushed his Carolina skiff around the tip of Kingman Island, leaving the Anacostia River behind and entering Kingman Lake. It’s a lake in name only because it’s connected to the river’s mainstem on both sides of the island. And Kingman Island itself isn’t a naturally created island.

Daniel R. Webster Sr. exits the Somerset County District Court on Maryland’s Eastern Shore after his trial slated for June 4, 2026, was postponed. The manager of an oyster-farming operation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore was found guilty July 6 of tampering with evidence amid a state investigation into allegations of widespread dumping of illegal oyster bed material into the Chesapeake Bay. Daniel R.

Steve Storck of Garrett County, MD, describes the proposed route for a transmission line through state-designated wildlands. The line would largely serve data centers in Northern Virginia. Through acts of the Maryland General Assembly, thousands of acres of forests in Western Maryland have been preserved as “wildlands.” State law requires those lands to be managed in a way that “will leave them unimpaired” for future generations.

Trucks leave warehouses at the Key Logistics Park in Cumberland County, PA. Over the past few decades, Cumberland Valley communities in southcentral Pennsylvania — home to the Interstate 81 corridor through Franklin and Cumberland counties — have seen rapid growth in the number and size of warehouses. The industry, which includes fulfillment and distribution centers, has been a major economic boon. In those two counties, roughly 10% of workers are in the warehouse industry.

Jace Thompson-Luckett, 9, holds a sign at a protest in Charles County, MD, on June 1, 2026, decrying a data center proposal in the Southern Maryland county. For nearly four hours, residents living near the site of a proposed data center in Charles County, MD, approached a microphone inside a mostly full auditorium. One by one, they lectured, thundered, exhorted and pleaded against an ordinance that would pave the way for data centers to be built in the Southern Maryland county.

The Virginia House of Delegates vote on the governor’s 2026 budget amendments in Richmond, two days before the deadline to pass a budget. Risking a government shutdown, Virginia lawmakers debated for weeks about how to make data centers “pay for their fair share” before finally passing a budget that counts on $1.2 billion in tax revenue from the industry.

An osprey takes off from a snag along Maryland’s Choptank River, carrying what appears to be the half of a menhaden. Colonial Beach, VA: It was a glorious spring here on the lower Potomac River in 2023 for ospreys and for the townsfolk like Joanie and Barry Millward who applaud their annual return from the tropics and thrill to watch them dive for fish.