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Chesapeake
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The Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is a large body of water
located on the Atlantic coast of the United States. The
States of
Maryland and Virginia border the Chesapeake Bay and the bay has a major
economic impact on both of those states.
The Chesapeake Bay is 200 miles long with its widest point being 35
miles and its narrowest being 3.5 miles. The average depth of
the
Chesapeake Bay is 21 feet with a few points being as much as 174 feet
deep. It's estimated that the Bay holds 18 trillion gallons
of
water.
Many streams and rivers flow directly or indirectly into the Chesapeake
Bay. These streams and rivers make up part of the large
Chesapeake Bay watershed. A watershed is an area of land
where
all of the water drains off into the same place. Parts of six
states, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, New
York and all of the District of Columbia is part of the Chesapeake
Bay's 64,299 square mile watershed with Sixteen Million people live
within it.
There are 130 estuaries in the Unites States and the Chesapeake Bay is
the largest. An estuary is a place where the salt water of an
ocean meets fresh water of streams and rivers.
The 444 mile long Susquehanna River is the largest of the rivers and
streams of the Chesapeake Bay. Half of the fresh water that
flows
into the Chesapeake Bay comes from the Susquehanna. The
Susquehanna Rivers begins in New York and empties into the northern
Chesapeake Bay.
The Potomac River, which has historically been the border between
Maryland and Virginia, is another large river that flows into the
Chesapeake Bay. The Potomac is 383 miles long beginning in
West
Virginia. |
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