With a little more than a week left before the opening of the trial in the civil suit against a Berlin farm family over alleged pollution violations dating back to 2009, the federal judge presiding over the case late last week ruled out a pre-trial visit to the site where the infractions allegedly occurred.
In March 2010, the Waterkeeper Alliance, along with the Assateague Coastal Trust and the Assateague Coastkeeper, filed suit in U.S. District Court against Perdue and Berlin’s Hudson Farm, a contract factory farm operation of about 80,000 birds. The suit was filed after sampling in ditches adjacent to the property allegedly revealed high levels of harmful fecal coliform and E. Coli in concentrations that exceed state limits. The Waterkeeper Alliance filed suit in federal court accusing the farm of violating the state’s Clean Water Act.
More
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
9 comments:
80,000 chickens on just one farm! Where is all this manure going? We need to quit feeding the world and stop importing to china and russia. they won't allow their land turned into a toxic waste dump so why should we.
Manure is not toxic, in fact it is one of the few organic fertilizers. According to my MD nutrient management plan it takes about 100,000 chickens to supply half of the fertilizer requirement for my 200 acre farm.
You imply that by using manure to fertilize my crops through a highly regulated process to minimize runoff, and by removing the applied nutrients at crop harvest, that I am making a toxic waste dump. Yet no one sees a problem with 100,000 gallons of your raw sewage being dumped into the Wicomico due to incompetence.
There is a reason people have to pay for sewer service, it is a liability. I currently pay $450 a truck load for chicken manure because it has value, i.e. an asset. Please stop calling manure waste, it is an asset to the agricultural industry.
10:25
And where do you think the millions of geese, ducks and other wildlife go to do their business? A direct deposit into the bay has been happening for millennia yet controlled and contained production system is the problem?
"Boycott those polluting farmers, stop eating"
1:01 I personally know of some chicken farmers who will give you the manure at no cost if you haul so your argument that it is valuable holds no water. I think you know that yourself already.
Heck even Mr Richardson from the Wic Farm Bureau said in a NY Times article a few years ago-
" “When I left school and started working the land, this stuff was seen as farmer’s gold,” said Mr. Richardson, 38, a fifth-generation chicken grower, explaining that the waste was an ideal fertilizer for the region’s sandy soil. “Now, it’s too much of a good thing.”
I only eat free range chickens. That stuff they sell in the grocery stores is crap. I prefer not to eat chemically enhanced foods. You cook that grocery store chicken and it's swimming in some liquid anymore. It's really gross. Farm to table is the only way.
I'm glad you like free range chicken. You should be glad everyone doesn't eat them because the supply would not be able to keep up with demand and they would cost about $300 each. It's nice to be environmentally conscious but you can't feed America, much less the world, on organic or free range food.
Resident Canada geese only poop on golf courses, and away from running streams. Migratory geese, Canada and Snows alike, have their own designated "rest stops" at land fills and sewage treatment plants along the route. Didn't everybody know that?
1:24
Sure, there are farmers that used to give manure if you haul, but hauling isn't free. Skid steer + operator + 2 or more dump trucks + drivers definately isn't free.
I have no problems with you eating organic or free range chicken, but please do not distort that facts to paint a skull and crossbones on every commercial chicken farm.
If everyone were to eat free range, it would still take the same number of chickens and thus the same manure generation, but with much greater land requirement. Unfortunately, with free range there is no mechanism to control where the chickens deficate, or relocate the manure from over fertilized farms to manure deficit areas.
Neither system is perfect by any means, but spinning falsehoods doors nothing to improve either system.
I have some friends who do something like heat up the manure in their chicken houses. I'm not sure what it really is but it's a way to get rid of it.
They really need to concentrate on turning it into energy somehow. Years ago they were talking about this. Instead of the fed govt giving money to a fly by night company like Solyndra they should be giving it to companies like Perdue and Mountaire and let them figure out how to produce energy.
Post a Comment