The 2017 Coastal Bay Report Card has given its high grade ever from Ocean City down to Chincoteague.
It is the first time that the inland bays received an overall grade in the B range.
The Salisbury Daily Times reports that the grade for the inland bays over the last four years has remained a C-plus.
But this year it inched up to a B-minus.
Bill Dennison, a professor of Marine Science at University of Maryland, told the Salisbury Daily Times that this was the first time in 32 years that the report has gotten over the hump.
Chincoteague Bay got good marks for nitrogen, phosphorus and chlorophyll.