Hot News

1.22.2008

By STEPHANIE JORDAN
Associate Editor

It began with inspections from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March of last year.
Then, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s speech at the Eastern Shore Poultry Summit, on behalf of the Waterkeeper Alliance, had poultry growers wondering when, not if, they would see more regulation of the industry.
The Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) and Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) have been working together for the past several months to develop more stringent regulations for poultry farms, defining an estimated 200 farms across the state as Maryland Animal Feeding Operations (MAFO).
Growers would have to pay $120 annually for a permit, and the additional cost of a Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP), which would be required under the new regulations.
“I think most people in the industry are resigned to the fact that we are going to have some additional regulation on poultry farms, but I am disappointed to see the costs involved with these new regulations,” said Kenny Bounds, government affairs officer for MidAtlantic Farm Credit.
“At a time when profits are thin on poultry farms, any additional costs are hurtful, and the cost of a Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan, combined with the permit fee, is prohibitive.”

Concerns about CNMPs
Bill Satterfield, executive director of the Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc. (DPI), said the plans will cost between $2,000 and $7,000.
MDA has no cost-share dollars available for CNMPs.
However, cost-share money is available, for the time being, under a program through USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). Carol Hollingsworth, a spokeswoman for the Maryland NRCS, said funding is available under the 2002 Farm Bill for growers interested in completing a CNMP.
Because the 2007 Farm Bill has not been passed yet, the NRCS is working under the 2002 bill, evaluating applications on a monthly basis.
“Get into the office as soon as possible and start the application process,” she said.
If the proposed regulations become law, CNMPs will be required of each grower. And if it is a mandate rather than a voluntary step, NRCS cannot provide cost-share money to the grower.
Currently, there is funding available for growers who want to start the application process and move toward getting a CNMP.
The deadline is March 15, unless the 2007 Farm Bill is passed before then.
Satterfield is urging growers to visit their NRCS office and sign up as soon as they can.
He said one of his concerns with this aspect of the proposed regulations is that CNMPs must be written by individuals who are certified by NRCS.
There are only five of those individuals in Maryland, and other states have limited numbers of writers as well.
Each CNMP can take between 40 hours and 120 hours to write, and assuming that the five individuals in Maryland dropped everything to write the plans, it would still take them years to accomplish that task, Satterfield said. In addition to that pitfall, it also takes several years for people to become certified to write the plans.
“I’m concerned there are not enough qualified people to write the plans,” he said. And “farms (would) have to be able to have these permits to legally operate.”

Will new state regulations make a difference?
“One thing that bothers me in all the comments about these regulations is the assertion by some that poultry litter is the major contributor of pollution to the Chesapeake Bay,” Bounds said.
“That is simply untrue, and those making those claims are using political science rather than physical science to make them.”
Between January 2007 and August 2007, there were 207 million gallons of waste water and sewage going into rivers, streams and the Chesapeake Bay, according to Satterfield.
“Where is the outrage?” he asked. “We’re still not convinced having an industrial-strength permit (for poultry farms) will improve water quality one iota.”
Satterfield added that the new regulations will create “more paperwork, more costs, more paperwork shuffling by state employees.” DPI will work to get answers to its questions, and will then communicate with the growers so they can submit comments during the public response period.
Sen. Richard Colburn, R-Dist. 37, who sits on the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, said he has some concern with the proposed regulations.
He said cover crops are crucial in reducing runoff and nutrients to the Bay.
Last year, the state slated $8 million to the program, and this year, between $8 million and $8.5 million will go to the program. But, Colburn said, that’s a long way from the $17 million that is needed for the program this year.
He said he also has voiced concerns that MDE, rather than MDA, would be responsible for upholding the regulations as they are proposed.
“I made it clear that MDA ought to be overseeing any regulations that affect the agricultural community,” Colburn said. “MDE doesn’t have personnel to monitor 200 more permits.”
There was puzzlement last week at a Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee meeting, he added, when several environmental agencies, departments and organizations made presentations regarding the regulations.
The one entity missing was agriculture.
The only person there to represent agriculture at the hearing was Maryland Secretary of Agriculture Roger Richardson.
“Agriculture has to be part of the team,” Colburn said. He added that he spoke to members of the committee who agreed that not inviting more of the agricultural community was an oversight, and that there will be a panel invited in to testify before the committee soon.
“Agriculture certainly needs to be a partner in any kind of Bay cleanup,” Colburn added.

EPA’s inspections
In addition to possible new regulations in Maryland, Maryland and Delaware have been dealing with inspections by the EPA, with the most recent one being Jan. 10 in Delaware.
That inspection makes No. 9 in Delaware, said Bill Rohrer, administrator of the Delaware Nutrient Management Program, and two more already have been scheduled.
The EPA gives the state two weeks notice about inspections, and 48 hours notice of which farm will be inspected.
He said that is an improvement of how the first inspections began, when they were sprung last minute on state officials.
“We don’t condone what the EPA is doing,” Rohrer said. “But we’re doing the best we can. We’re dealing with it in a pretty sound way, but we don’t in anyway condone what the EPA is doing.”
He said there are still issues with the EPA’s approach in Delaware: The agency’s “tone” is still aggressive, and other states are not being targeted as much.
The Delaware Nutrient Management Commission has been out in Delaware for the past few months trying to identify farms with issues before the EPA decides to inspect them.
There are about 800 contract farms in Delaware, Rohrer said, so he, along with a few other folks, took a Sussex County, Del., map and road around, pinpointing farms on the map when they discovered issues from their windshield inspections.
So far, 73 farms have been found to have issues with manure storage — 43 of those sites has problems in the production area, and the remaining 30 had troubles in the application areas. Contact has been made with the growers for them to begin dealing with their manure storage.
“It was time well-spent on the road,” he said. “We probably didn’t see everything, but we saw quite a bit.”
Rohrer said the EPA is under a lot of pressure from its headquarters, so they’re really going to be looking at agricultural runoff for the next year or so.
He said growers should take steps to address manure storage issues; get litter under a roof and don’t expose it. If growers address manure storage problems, then growers will be less likely to be inspected.