In response to the release of Environmental Working Group’s new report, Bay out of Balance, Environment Maryland Policy Advocate Tommy Landers issued this statement:
“Our approach to Chesapeake Bay restoration is fatally flawed, and it’s past time for us to get it right. Today’s report by the Environmental Working Group shines a bright light on the problem: we are seriously undercounting the pollution entering the bay from animal manure, and we will never heal our waters until we appropriately limit how much manure farmers apply to our lands.
“In the clean-up plan Maryland recently submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Gov. O’Malley has given Maryland an opportunity to take the lead in solving this problem of excess manure application to farm fields.
“One of the primary sources of the bay’s annual dead zones is phosphorus from animal manure and sludge. After years of applying too much manure and sludge to our land, this report shows that about one in five bay area counties’ lands have excessive phosphorus. In these cases the soil gets soaked up with nutrients, like a wet sponge, and phosphorus from any more applied manure easily finds its way into nearby waters and eventually into the bay.
“The critical question is how to design the tests farmers use to determine whether or not to apply more manure or sludge. States now use inconsistent methods, and Maryland’s approach, the ‘phosphorus site index’ or ‘P-Index,’ is broken. The P-Index doesn’t adequately address existing phosphorus in the soil and therefore too often advises farmers to apply more manure.
“In Maryland’s clean-up plan, Gov. O’Malley proposed revising the P-Index to better address existing soil saturation levels. The bay would benefit the most from replacing, not simply revising, the P-Index with a simple test based on crops’ nutrient needs. Today’s plan moves in the right direction, however, and sets the stage for Maryland to lead the way in correcting this inherent problem.
“I thank and applaud the Environmental Working Group for issuing this timely report about such an urgent problem affecting the entire Chesapeake Bay region.”
3 comments:
The Ogovernator and Tommy Landers are jack stick morons.
He makes this statement
“One of the primary sources of the bay’s annual dead zones is phosphorus from
animal manure and sludge."
There is no proof of this. This is the problem with the Democrats running this state, they WANT something to be true, so they make up facts to suit their agenda.
These political appointed hacks look to their friends in academia who are salivating for the next grant and they get filled with opinions without factual basis.
The exact origins and amounts of the phosphorus and nitrogen is STILL unproven.
Read Paerl's study. He said that 10 % to 25 % of nitrogen in coastal waters is coming from the atmoshpere!!!!
These government office drones that live in sluburburbia can't accept the fact that the cities and wwtp's are a bigger problem than ag!!!!!!
Read page 716 of North America Coastal Ecology.
I will say it again, these tax money devouring democratic vampires can't PROVE that these pollutants are from agriculture.
How many millions of gallons have been spilled into the bay from water treatment facilities like our own WWTP? How much runoff is from the cities and towns as well as septic systems.
Golf courses, perfect manicured lawns, on and on and on.....how are we going to fix the problem if we don't see it for what it is?
Ag accounts for a tiny fraction of the overall problem.
Hey Tommy Landers, the elephant in the room isn't your wife, it's the problem in your own backyard.
It's not the farmers it's the city's and corporations who dump into the bay on the western shore.
9:21, Had to stop reading your comment following you're "there is no proof of this" statement. How about you try becoming apart of an "informed opposition" instead of going after everything that doesn't salute the Republican flag. There is over a decade of data showing that sewage and farm runoff cause dead zones in the bay as well as tons of evidence of the impact of nutrient runoff on estuaries around the world. I feel dumber for trying to point out what should be the obvious to anyone who takes 5 mins. to even look at the issue.
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