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Maryland delegates speak up for ag community
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The largest used equipment inventory in the Mid-Atlantic is only a click away. Visit our website by clicking here or visit us at one of our 11 locations throughout MD, DE, VA and PA.
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Maryland delegates speak up for ag community
1.29.2008
By KEVIN GEORGE
Editor
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Maryland House Environmental Matters Committee heard several interpretations of the state of the Chesapeake Bay on Jan. 24. One was a four-headed presentation by officials from the departments of agriculture, environment, planning and natural resources.
Kim Coble and Ann Pesiri Swanson, executive directors of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Chesapeake Bay Commission, respectively, also issued a report.
All agreed continued nitrogen runoff into the Bay and its tributaries are stunting efforts to clean the estuary, and all seemed to accept the current state of water quality is poor to very poor.
But a vocal portion of the delegates who listened to each of the presentations — specifically Richard Sossi, R-Dist. 36; Anthony J. O’Donnell, R-Dist. 29C; and Paul Stull, R-Dist. 4A — cautioned how much the agricultural sector should be blamed, pointing to the preponderance of growing housing developments and the outpouring of its 420,000 collective septic systems.
“I don’t understand why we keep pounding on the agriculture community when we have all these septic systems along the Bay,” Stull said.
“I’m getting a sense there’s a renewed assault on agriculture,” Sossi said. “Farmland has not increased. ... The worst areas to the Bay seem to be on the Western Shore. I guess my concern is if we think it’s cheaper to try to squeeze another drop out of agriculture, (farmers) won’t think it’s viable to continue farming. What happens when farmland isn’t used for farming? They build houses.”
“At the Department of Ag, we’re always trying to make sure farmers are doing all they can do with the most updated research that we have,” said Buddy Hance, deputy secretary of agriculture. “These programs always weigh the economic cost to the farmer — what we do not want to do is drive the farmers out of business.
“There’s always a balance that goes on that can help keep bringing the farmers back with buffers and cover crops,” Hance added. “It all intermingles together.”
Deputy Secretary of the Environment Bob Summers refused to blame a single entity.
“The problem we have is a Bay-wide problem of all sources,” he said. “We are very aggressively dealing with sewage treatment plants and storm water management and air pollution. I don’t think there’s any source that’s going untouched.”
O’Donnell warned against repeating history. “There’s a precedent, and I witnessed this personally,” he said. “From 1995 through 2002, we saw a severe vilification (wrongly) of the agricultural community ... and the farmers paid the price. What you are hearing there and here is, ‘Don’t go there again.’ It puts a burden on the community that built this state, and we’re going to make sure we protect those farmers, and some of us feel very, very strongly about that.”
“There was a rest for a while and it looked like the beating had stopped,” O’Donnell added. “But it also feels like — not just with this administration; I hear it coming out of the attorney general’s office, the community and radio interviews — but it looks like those beatings are probably going to commence again.”
Coble noted the Bay has been given a failing grade, with a health scale of 28 on a scale of 1 (worst) to 100 (optimum).
Swanson insisted agriculture can help impact Bay cleanup the greatest.
“This shows you very quickly why agriculture is so important to address,” she said during a slide of an audio-visual display to the committee. “When you (multiply) the acres by the load (of manure) you see the urban landscape is much smaller.
She noted two pie graphs in her presentation that show it is necessary for agriculture to reduce its current nitrogen load by 64 percent statewide at a 13-percent total annualized cost. Conversely, urban runoff needs to reduce nitrogen load by 13 percent at a 64-percent cost.
“No wonder there’s so much focus on agriculture,” she said. “But this caused a communication problem. It looked like we were pointing a finger at ag — we weren’t at all. We were saying that they are the best investment in taxpayer dollars.”