Chesapeake Bay Update - Farmers Viewpoint

Chesapeake Bay TMDL Allocations Pose Big Task

Submitted by Editor on Fri, 07/09/2010, Lancaster Farming

Chris Torres
Staff Writer

The extent of agriculture’s role in the development of the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Chesapeake Bay remains unclear.

But it appears likely that farmers will have to do more than what they are currently doing to get the nation’s largest fresh water estuary cleaned up.

According to draft allocations released last week by the Environmental Protection Agency, nitrogen and phosphorus levels across the bay will have to be reduced to 187.4 million pounds and 12.5 million pounds a year, respectively, to maintain a healthy ecosystem.

That’s more than a 24 percent reduction from the approximately 247.5 million pounds of nitrogen and 16.62 million pounds of phosphorus that currently enter the bay each year.

Sediment allocations will be released in August.

According to the EPA’s news release, the “loadings were determined using the best peer-reviewed science and through extensive collaboration with the states and the District of Columbia.”

The allocations will be used as the basis for developing watershed implementation plans, which each state must complete, detailing what they will do to achieve their respective nutrient reductions.

The plans are due to the EPA by Sept. 1. A draft TMDL will be released Sept. 24, followed by a 45-day public comment period. Final watershed implementation plans are due Nov. 29 and the final TMDL, barring any setbacks, will be released Dec. 31.

Pennsylvania, in particular the Susquehanna River basin, is the largest contributor to nitrogen runoff in the bay as well as the second largest contributor to phosphorus runoff.

The Keystone State will have to reduce its share of nitrogen by another 38 million pounds per year to 76.77 million pounds and phosphorus by a little more than 1 million pounds to 2.74 million pounds.

Excess nitrogen and phosphorus feed algae blooms in the bay, which in turn take oxygen away from fish and other wildlife that need it to survive.

The ag sector, while it has reduced its share of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment going into the bay by roughly 50 percent in 25 years, is still the biggest source of nutrient pollution in the waterway.

When it comes to farms, Harry Campbell, science advocate for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the focus will not necessarily be on developing new conservation practices or technologies, but on getting those farms without conservation or nutrient management plans to their legal baseline first.

“Quite frankly, I think we’re going to be talking about getting at some of these smaller farms,” he said. “These are farms that have small acreage, that may have been skipped when the focus was on larger farms. We need to reach out and work with those folks.”

Getting to smaller farms is proving to be a challenge in some areas, especially Lancaster County, where many small farms are owned by Plain Sect farmers who do not take government assistance on religious grounds and often farm within a few feet of a small stream or tributary.

The EPA has made it known that the county, with its large number of dairy farms, is an area of focus for reducing nutrient runoff.

This week, meetings were held between the agency and the county’s conservation district staff and others to discuss farms in the Watson Run and Muddy Run areas.

A Wednesday night meeting at the Lancaster Farm and Home Center set deadlines for 88 farmers in the Muddy Run area of the county to get their required conservation and manure management plans up to snuff.

Farmers will have until Sept. 3 to let the district know whether or not they have the plans up to date.

Don McNutt, administrator of the Lancaster County Conservation District, said farmers that respond by that date will be placed on a low priority list for EPA on-farm evaluations.

Farmers who do not respond will be placed on a high priority list for inspection.

All farmers in the Muddy Run area have until Dec. 3 to get their plans together.

Failure to do so could result in some farms being designated as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), which would require more permitting by the federal government.

Based on visits the conservation district staff has done over the years, McNutt estimates around one in three farmers in the entire county does not have either a conservation or manure management plan or both.

State law, according to McNutt, requires all farmers to have a plan detailing how they handle soil and water movement on the farm (conservation plan) and if they handle manure, a manure management plan.

McNutt said the overall plan, while doable, will be challenging because his staff as well as staff at the county’s private consulting firms are overbooked as it is.

EPA conducted a series of inspections last September of farms in the Watson Run area, mostly Plain Sect, where they found most of the farmers lacked either plan.

McNutt said that while many farmers are doing a lot of good work in terms of farming practices, there are many barnyard issues that need to be addressed, along with solving the issue of getting livestock out of streams when there is already little acreage for them to graze on.

Persuading farmers to develop plans that detail how they are addressing their soil and water as well as how they are handling manure, he said, will be crucial to show that farmers are at least doing something about their issues.

“As little as five to 10 years ago, there were farmers saying some farms need to be regulated and some do not. That’s why there is sort of a re-education out there,” he said. “It’s sad that nobody was posting any environmental speed limit signs when they were put in place. Then, all of a sudden the signs went up and people were asking, ‘when did that go up?’ ”

John Hines, deputy secretary for water management at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), said the allocations are slightly more stringent than what the state developed as part of its Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy in the mid-2000s.

Hines said he is happy to get the allocations because it presents a clearer picture for how the state will develop its watershed implementation plan, which is due to the EPA by Sept. 1.

Three work groups are developing the implementation plan, including an ag work group. Hines said the ag group is coming up with ideas for better accounting of current conservation practices, how to use federal dollars to put in more practices, and how to better utilize nutrient trading as an incentive.

The watershed implementation plan will subdivide Pennsylvania’s overall nutrient allocation between the smaller watersheds as well as point-source polluters (wastewater treatment plants) and nonpoint-source polluters (farmers).

Hines said ag’s role will be key in getting best management practices (BMPs) on the ground.

“I think ag is going to play a key role in this process. I think ag is going to play a key role in the development of BMPs,” Hines said. “There is going to be expectations coming out of this process for all of us to do more.”