EPA Targeting Chesapeake Bay Farmers

Bay cleanup could cost farmers


Act would step up protections for bay, cause stricter regulations

By AMY TRENT

Published: October 04, 2010

Cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay could cost local farmers more than just money.

“If you’re a farmer now, and you’re barely making it, and this regulation comes along, you’ll have to get out,” said Bill Nance, a farmer in Bedford. “There’s a good number of (local) farmers who may have to get out of farming because of this legislation.”

U.S Senate Bill 1816, The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2010, steps up the protections for the bay by applying new, stricter regulations and extending the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency. The bill will go to the full Senate in the coming days.

The entire Chesapeake Bay watershed is overburdened

by nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment. The nitrogen and phosphorous kill the grasses below the surface and suck oxygen from the water, creating dead zones. Oysters and other wildlife that used to thrive now struggle to survive.

This pollution comes from agriculture as well as air pollution, storm-water runoff, sewage and other factors.

Last week, the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation delivered 18,000 letters from farmers protesting the bill to Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb.

“Even without the letters, your Farm Bureau leadership has been crystal clear on how you feel about the bill,” Warner told farmers in a Senate conference room Thursday, according to a news release about the event.

Read More

I’ve recently been highlighting some of the things that the EPA is doing that will severely impact the ability of family farmers and ranchers to grow food.  Their only goal seems to be increased regulations regardless of what it does to the people in this country.  In order for our country to remain great, an abundant, reliable food supply must be grown right here.  Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be a concern of this federal agency. 

Farmers Fight Bay Polluter Image

Farmers fight bay polluter image
'Everyone's in this ballgame, not just farmers'
By PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writer
Published 06/21/10

More than 200 farmers have penned a letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley, urging him to work with them - and not against them - when it comes to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.

"We want everyone to realize everyone's in this ballgame, not just farmers," said Maryland Farm Bureau President Patricia Langenfelder of Kent County.

The farm bureau organized the petition effort, which grew from farmers' frustration at constantly being blamed for the bay's unhealthy state. The petition was delivered on Wednesday.

Shaun Adamec, an O'Malley spokesman, said the governor acknowledges the contributions farmers have made toward reducing pollution.

"There's nobody more appreciative of farmers than the governor when it comes to cleaning up the bay," Adamec said.

The petition was intended mainly to counteract negative attention that has been cast on farmers, Langenfelder said.

Farmers have built manure storage structures, planted buffers along streams, grown winter cover crops and instituted other "best management practices" to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution, Langenfelder said.

She noted that nutrient and sediment pollution from farms has decreased over the years due to such practices. Meanwhile, other sources of pollution - particularly urban and suburban stormwater runoff - are increasing.

Farming contributes just 7 percent of nitrogen in the Lower Western Shore. The top polluter locally is stormwater runoff - rainwater that rushes across roofs, parking lots and streets, carrying pollution into waterways. That contributes nearly 44 percent. Read More

It’s undeserved, but agriculture gets the blame for many things that they shouldn’t when it comes to pollution. The main reason is that they are the easiest target. Even though ag is the foundation of our entire society, since so few people are involved it makes it easy for the majority to attack. The top polluter for the bay is runoff from urban areas. If they really want to make a difference, they should start there.

Chesapeake Bay Cleanup

Chicken Litter: The Aerial Hunt for Poultry Manure
By LAUREN ETTER
Ocean City, Md.

Retired Marine officer Rick Dove boarded the four-seat Cessna armed with cameras, binoculars and global positioning devices for his latest mission: chicken farmers. Or, more precisely, aerial reconnaissance of poultry droppings.

"Oh, man, that looks like a hot site," Mr. Dove said as the plane soared 1,000 feet over farms near the Chesapeake Bay. Peering through binoculars, he said, "That pile is at least two stories high." He whipped out his camera and started snapping pictures.

Mr. Dove, 70 years old, suspected the brown mound was chicken manure -- a potential pollutant of the Chesapeake Bay, the huge estuary nestled between the shores of Maryland and Virginia. Mr. Dove, a former military judge whose subsequent fishing business he believes was ruined by pollution, is among the activists who, along with federal regulators, are ratcheting up pressure on poultry farmers to clean up their litter.

Around the Chesapeake area, where poultry farming is big business, chicken farmers think they have been unfairly singled out. "The EPA seems to think that poultry farmers are Public Enemy No. 1," says Bill Satterfield, executive director of the Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., which represents the area's poultry industry. Citing EPA data, he notes that bay pollution also comes from numerous nonfarm sources linked to the area's population growth, including human sewage and lawn fertilizer. Even animals such as deer and Canada geese can contaminate water, Mr. Satterfield says. But, he adds, "It appears you're guilty until you prove yourself innocent."

The EPA says agriculture, including chemical fertilizers and animal waste, is the single biggest source of pollution in the bay. Manure alone makes up about 19% of the bay's overall nitrogen pollution and 26% of the bay's phosphorus pollution. Municipal and wastewater facilities generate the same amount of nitrogen pollution, but less -- 21% -- phosphorous pollution.

Read More

Certainly everyone is interested in having the bay be as clean as possible. The interesting thing from this article though is that pollution from human waste is very similar to the estimates coming from food production. Why don’t we ever see the Waterkeeper’s Alliance brings lawsuits against cities for their pollution? The fact of the matter is that they are mostly an anti-agriculture group as much as anything. They aren’t interested in finding better ways to handle organic fertilizer, they just want to shut these farms down. Clean water is very important to everyone, but the strategies to accomplish it need to be science based rather than agenda based.