About The Chester River

The Chester is a pipe-shaped river with its narrow stem in Delaware and its wide bowl opening into the Bay between Eastern Neck Island and the north end of Kent Island.  The Chester is shared by both Kent County and Queen Anne’s County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Ducks, geese, bald eagles, and other water-loving birds make their homes along the 60-mile course of the river.  Hunters flock to the Chester in the fall because the river is on a major migration route for Canada geese.

The waters of the Chester are spawning and nursery areas for many fish species, including alewife, shad, blueback, and perch.  Striped bass is the most prized anadromous (freshwater spawning) fish found in the Chester.  Known locally as “rockfish”, the striped bass is very valuable commercially.  For thousands of years, abundant wildlife, waters filled with fin and shellfish, and the transportation provided by the river made it home to Native Americans, most recently of the Late Woodland period.  In farm fields along the river, oyster middens and arrow points continue to mark their settlements.

European settlers were attracted by the same welcoming conditions.  Between 1730 and 1775, Chestertown, the county seat of Kent County, was the center of a shipping economy that flourished because of the relatively great depth of the river’s channel.  To this day, residents of the Chester River watershed enjoy commercial and recreational opportunities that are a part of a rich cultural heritage, one that is derived from the abundance of a healthy river.

The Chester River has been the subject of ongoing examination by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in response to both the Clean Water Act and the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program initiatives. The Upper, Middle, and Lower Chester are on MDE’s list of “impaired waters” as determined by TMDL, or Total Maximum Daily Load of nutrients. Being on the “list of impaired waters” is one of seventeen factors that determined whether the Chester is “in need of restoration”, a characterization in Maryland’s Clean Water Action Plan/Unified Watershed Assessment. These assessments provide CRA with a starting point – a way to begin the complex task of focusing our efforts in the Chester on a subwatershed basis, and engaging the public in that work. Removing the Chester from Maryland’s list of impaired waterways is the primary goal of CRA’s Riverkeeper Program.

Chronic Problems Upstream

A recent assessment of freshwater streams in Maryland's major tributaries was published by Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), with support of the Atlantic Ecology Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  The report confirms the importance of CRA’s goals within the Chester’s subwatersheds. It identifies five areas that pose a threat to water quality throughout the basin: nutrient enrichment, inadequate riparian buffer, unstable banks, channelization, and overall physical habitat.

The Chester River was rated severely stressed in four areas and moderately stressed in channelization. These conditions include:

• Low dissolved oxygen: 49% of the Chester’s stream miles measure dissolved oxygen less than 5mg/L; (worst case in Maryland)

• Threatened riparian buffer: Less than 50% has a width of 50 meters or more. This is above the state average, but with encroaching development, it is essential that the buffer be maintained or increased.

• Channelization: The Chester River has a high ranking in the state for channelization, especially in urban areas under increasing development pressure.

• Unstable banks: Less than 25% of the banks are considered good, with almost 50% considered to be in poor condition. The river edge is under increasing pressure as many property owners change their shorelines for personal use or implement stabilization measures that compromise wildlife habitat.