BERLIN — Farmers across the Eastern Shore this month joined a growing coalition of farmers and developers in lobbying the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling that allows the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to micromanage land-use decisions along the Chesapeake Bay.
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) last week added its name to a challenge of the EPA’s proposed Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint, which encourages Eastern Shore counties and other counties in Maryland and throughout the watershed to closely follow guidelines to set pollution limits that would restore water quality in local rivers, streams and other tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay.
While environmental advocacy groups call the blueprint a pathway to a restored Chesapeake, farmers, developers and some local jurisdictions view it as an attempt by the federal government, through the EPA, to micromanage local land use and development decisions under the guise of the Clean Water Act. The AFBF, a coalition of local farming advocacy groups in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, along with the National Association of Homebuilders, has challenged the EPA’s blueprint for the Chesapeake Bay and has been denied at different levels of the federal court system. Last week, the coalition petitioned the Supreme Court to review the lower court’s decision on the blueprint, which it believes “opens the door for dramatic expansion of federal power and must be overturned.”
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At least the EPA is looking after our air and waterways. If Wicomico County had their way, there would be chicken houses on every corner. Over 200 chicken houses have been approved to start being built by the end of the year!
ReplyDeleteLarge democrat donor developers don't seem to have any problem building along the water just look at all the new development in Kent Island.
ReplyDelete758 & 845, you have definitely not read the legislation. It will make you puke and understand why these businesses that feed you are opposed to it.
ReplyDeleteRead it and weep, mfr...
so when is the ep going to go after washington, baltimore and salisbury for all the crap the dump into the bay?
ReplyDelete7:58.
ReplyDeleteYou are mistaken. There are about 15 to be completed by the end of the year and as many as 60 in the initial planning stages. A lot, yes, but nowhere near the number you claim.
I was told yesterday by Wicomico County zoning that 200 had been approved. 10 alone have been approved outside of Delmar.
DeleteThese poultry companies are not feeding us. Most of their chicken are exported to other countries. Wicomico, Worcestor, and Somerset Counties are becoming a pool of chicken manure. Creating only a few new jobs in the poultry business. We are not bringing in any new business to the shore. Every month we are loosing businesses or jobs are being cut. It's time for the lower shore to wake up and say we want more for our kids than just chicken farming! Look at the cancer rates for the Eastern Shore.
ReplyDelete