Maryland Reporter Proposed moratorium on Eastern Shore chicken houses rekindles debate on Conowingo Dam

View of the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Lee taken Sept. 12, 2011. Discharge at time of the photo was 220,000 cubic feet per second. Peak discharge for the flood was 778,000 cubic feet per second at 4 a.m.on Sept. 9, 2011. Photo by Wendy McPherson, U.S. Geological Survey.

By Dan Menefee

The Kent Guardian for MarylandReporter.com

The Clean Chesapeake Coalition, a group of seven Maryland counties formed in 2012 to challenge the priorities and science of the $14.4 billion cleanup mandate for the Bay, is again sparring with environmental groups it says continue to ignore the Susquehanna River as the single largest source of pollution that flows into the Bay.

In 2013 and 2014, the coalition challenged the “futility” of spending $3.7 billion over a decade to reduce 50,000 pounds of nitrogen from septic systems — while no dollars were appropriated to deal with pollution from the Susquehanna River. The Susquehana jettisons 131 million pounds of nitrogen through the floodgates of the Conowingo Dam annually, nearly 50 percent of the total nitrogen load into the Bay.

Septic systems by contrast account for just seven percent of Maryland’s nitrogen discharge into the Bay.

Argument moves to phosphorus

This year the argument has moved to phosphorus. Environmental groups have taken aim at the Eastern Shore’s chicken belt, floating an idea for an eight-year moratorium on new chicken houses until a Phosphorus Management Tool is fully implemented in 2024.

The PMT is a regulatory regime that was agreed to by the administration of Gov. Larry Hogan to limit the amount of chicken manure spread on farms. The PMT will measure how much phosphorus is already present in the soil. If saturation reaches certain levels, farmers must scale back or eliminate the use of chicken manure to stay within legal limits.

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