In the 45,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay, the country’s largest estuary, nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater treatment plants, and urban and agricultural run-off is continuously suffocating marine life.

“What happens in the Chesapeake Bay is not only important to our residents, but it also impacts seafood industries, recreation and commercial anglers all along the Atlantic Coast,” says Allison Colden, a senior fisheries scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an independent conservation organization.

Despite decades of clean up efforts, and evolving regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the bay remains in a critical state. To make matters worse, climate change is compounding the region’s problems. Increased rainfall, which flushes more nutrients into the bay, and warming water temperatures is making it harder to reverse the damage already done to the bay.