Environmentalists are urging legislators to spend a new $50 million fund for Chesapeake Bay restoration targeting nutrient runoff from fertilizers and manure on Maryland farms.
Bay advocates testified before a House of Delegates committee tasked with allocating the fund for Bay cleanup, encouraging focus on nitrogen and phosphorus reduction by adjusting animals? diets and planting cover crops. About 38 percent of nutrients in the Bay come from farms, they said, making them the biggest bang for taxpayers? buck.
“This money is a fraction of what we need,” said Kim Coble, Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “But we believe that if every dollar of this $50 million is focused on nonpoint source pollution reduction, we will see improvements in they Bay?s health.”
The recommendations come two weeks after Gov. Martin O?Malley?s administration proposed a permit system for Maryland?s poultry farms that would allow the state to inspect for pollution and impose $10,000-per-day fines for violations.
Some legislators from Maryland?s rural parts said farmers are feeling “assaulted” by the focus on agricultural runoff.
“It puts a burden on a community that built this state,” said Del. Anthony O?Donnell, a Calvert County Republican. “There were a few of us who thought the beatings had stopped. It looks like these beatings are about to commence again.”
The presence of nitrogen in the Bay is down 56 percent and phosphorus down 72 percent since 1985, said Robert Summers, deputy secretary of the Department of the Environment.
He projected a $231 million shortfall in the Chesapeake Bay Fund ? which draws from a $2.50 monthly fee from each home served by a wastewater treatment plant ? by 2018.
The federal farm bill could generate between $150 and $165 million over five years to help farmers control pollution, Summers said.
