Waterkeeper Alliance's Blog
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In Maryland, Focus on Poultry Industry Pollution
- Posted on 12.02.08
Written by Ian Urbina
Standing before a two-story-tall pile of chicken manure, Lee Richardson pondered how times had changed.
How to handle the 650 million pounds of chicken manure produced in the state each year has sparked a fierce debate between environmentalists and the state’s powerful poultry industry. State
officials hope to bring Maryland in line with most other states next month by enacting new rules for where, how and how long chicken farmers can spread the manure on their fields or store it in outdoor piles.
“We don’t let hog or dairy farms spread their waste unregulated, and we wouldn’t let a town of 25,000 people dump human manure untreated on open lands,” said Gerald W. Winegrad, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland who is a former state senator. “So why should we allow a farm with 150,000 chickens do it?”
Under the state’s proposed rules, 75 to 100 of the 800 largest poultry farmers in Maryland would have to apply for permits to handle manure. State officials would also begin inspecting these farms unannounced and levying heavy fines if violations are not eventually corrected. The rules would not affect smaller farms.
Michele Merkel, a lawyer with the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental advocacy group, said the permits did not go far enough. Too few farms would be required to have them, Ms. Merkel said, and they allow farmers to pile the waste in their fields open to the rain for 90 days, while most other states permit it to be uncovered for only 14 days.
Maryland is most famous for its blue crabs, oysters and watermen, so it has a lot to lose from polluting these waters, Ms. Merkel said.
“That’s exactly why it’s never made sense to me,” she said, “that the state is so unwilling to really regulate one of the bay’s biggest polluters.”
The economic might of the poultry industry is certainly part of the reason.
Photo credit: Rick Dove
Related causes: Environment
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