12/24/02
By MARK POWELL
Just in time for the coming budget battles in the 2003 Maryland legislative session, the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic has written a report calling for the Maryland Department of the Environment be given the responsibility for ensuring farmers are following nutrient management plans. And, MDE should be given more money and employees to make sure farmers are toeing the line, the report suggests.
The report was done at the request of State Sen. Brian Frosh, D-Montgomery County.
Six student attorneys interviewed 40 “stakeholders”: environmentalists, government officials, farmers and others to develop the report on a variety of environmental issues.
“The report shows that we have a done a great deal in Maryland to protect our state’s natural resources,” Frosh said. “And, it shows that we still have a great deal to do. Despite a huge investment in stemming the flow of nutrients from land, sewage treatment and industry, the Chesapeake Bay continues to face serious problems. Significant portions of the state’s non-tidal rivers and streams are oxygen-starved dead zones that can’t support aquatic life.”
In its “bad news” section, the report states: “MDA has been unable to implement the ambitious program to encourage farmers to reduce the use of fertilizers, the single largest source of nutrient loading in the Chesapeake Bay. Government officials knowledgeable about the program privately admit that it is a fiasco, costing money and alienating the farm community without producing results demonstrably different than the failed programs that preceded it.”
The report quotes MDA figures which estimate that half of Maryland’s approximately 12,000 farmers are in compliance with the Water Quality Improvement Act.
The law student authors write: “Of the 1.26 million acres that are owned by farmers who are in compliance, approximately half of those acres are covered by a plan and half are covered by a delay form. In short, four years after the Water Quality Improvement Act, 1,038 million acres, or 61 percent of total acreage, are not yet covered by a plan.”
The report also points out that MDA has six staff members responsible for ensuring that nutrient management plans are implemented.
“Even at the level of 32 percent compliance, each staff person will be responsible for ensuring that approximately 637 plans are implemented.” And, the reports authors say that regulations assign enforcement responsibility to MDE under a “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” scheme.
“Consequently, the state’s primary environmental enforcement agency, MDE, is relatively far removed from implementing the program in the field, but in theory, will be brought in to punish wrong-doers.
“It is unclear which state agency will be held ultimately responsible for making sure that non-point source pollution is actually reduced.”
Besides suggesting that MDE take over the nutrient management program, recommendations from the report are these:
• Increase cover crop funding as the most cost-effective way to reduce nutrient loadings from farm runoff;
• Streamline and simplify the program by coordinating plan submission dates with farming schedules;
• Phase in regulatory efforts by focusing first on the largest farming operations.