An Unsustainable Path Why Maryland’s Manure Pollution Rules Are Failing to Protect the Chesapeake Bay An Unsustainable Path Why Maryland’s Manure Pollution Rules Are Failing to Protect the Chesapeake Bay Environment Maryland Research & Policy Center Elizabeth Ridlington, Frontier Group Tommy Landers, Environment Maryland Research & Policy Center Fall 2011 Acknowledgments Environment Maryland Research & Policy Center thanks Rebecca Sutton of Environ- mental Working Group and Ron Korcak of Water Stewardship for their insightful review of this document. Thanks also to Brad Heavner of Environment America Research & Policy Center, and to Tony Dutzik and Benjamin Davis of Frontier Group for their edito- rial assistance. Environment Maryland Research & Policy Center thanks the Town Creek Foundation, Keith Campbell Foundation, Abell Foundation, Krieger Foundation, Bancroft Foundation, and the Fund for Change for making this report possible. The authors bear responsibility for any factual errors. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders or those who provided review. Copyright 2011, Environment Maryland Research & Policy Center Environment Maryland Research & Policy Center is a 501(c)(3) organization. We are dedicated to protecting our air, water and open spaces. We investigate problems, craft solutions, educate the public and decision-makers, and help the public make their voices heard in local, state and national debates over the quality of our environment and our lives. For more information about Environment Maryland Research & Policy Center or for ad- ditional copies of this report, please visit www.environmentmaryland.org/center. Frontier Group conducts independent research and policy analysis to support a cleaner, healthier and more democratic society. Our mission is to inject accurate information and compelling ideas into public policy debates at the local, state and federal levels. For more information about Frontier Group, please visit www.frontiergroup.org. Design: Harriet Eckstein Graphic Design Cover image: Sediment plumes around Horn Point on the Choptank River, near Cambridge. Photo courtesy of Jane Thomas, IAN Image Library (ian.umces.edu/imagelibrary/). Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Introduction 4 Phosphorus Pollution Damages the Chesapeake Bay 5 The Ecosystems of the Bay Are Struggling 5 Phosphorus Pollution Comes from Activities in the Bay’s Watershed 7 Poultry Production Is a Major Source of Phosphorus in the Bay 8 Chicken Production on the Eastern Shore 8 How Phosphorus in Manure Enters the Bay 9 Phosphorus Saturation of Agricultural Land 10 Current Policies to Limit Phosphorus Pollution Are Inadequate 13 Maryland’s Current Phosphorus Management Guidelines 13 Several Authorities Agree that Maryland’s Current Approach Is Flawed 14 Policy Recommendations 19 Notes 22 The fact that Maryland’s manure management rules are flawed enjoys broad acceptance by independent scientists, regulators, and the very authors of the P-index themselves. Two different calculation methods “both indicate an over- whelming surplus of P from manure and fertilizer in all of the counties evaluated.” – from a report on Mid-Atlantic phosphorus surpluses co-authored by Tom Simpson, former chair of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Nutrient Subcommittee EPA believes that the P-index at this time is significantly flawed and that its use in many cases is likely to result in significant over-applications of P to cropland and result in P-laden runoff to the Chesapeake Bay. – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, on management of federal land in the Chesapeake Bay region In areas of intensive animal production, the long term goal must be to match manure [phosphorus] production with local crop [phosphorus] requirements, or to find alternative uses for the manures outside the farm boundary. – SERA-17, the Organization to Minimize Phosphorus Losses from Agriculture Executive Summary hosphorus from manure applied to algae blooms flourish briefly and then farmland is a major source of pollu- die, consuming vast amounts of oxy- Ption in the Chesapeake Bay. Inten- gen as they decay. As a result, levels sive chicken production, particularly on of dissolved oxygen in the water drop Maryland’s Eastern Shore, generates large below the concentration needed to volumes of manure. Growers and farmers support fish, crabs and oysters. often spread this manure on their fields as fertilizer, but when applied in excess, • Algae blooms block sunlight, killing the nutrients that make manure useful for underwater grasses and destroying fertilizing crops also contribute to dead valuable habitat. The bay has less than zones in the bay. half the acreage of underwater grass A number of experts and authori- needed for a healthy ecosystem. ties—including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the scientists who • Nutrient pollution, along with over- helped design Maryland’s phosphorus harvesting and disease, has hastened management rules—agree that Maryland’s the decline of major fisheries such as current approach to protecting the bay oysters and crabs. from phosphorus pollution is inadequate. Reducing phosphorus pollution is es- Pollution from agriculture accounts sential to restoring the health of the bay. for 41 percent of the phosphorus that A key step toward this goal is ending the enters the bay from Maryland. Manure practice of spreading chicken manure on contains high levels of nitrogen and phos- farmland that is likely to pollute water with phorus, making it useful as a fertilizer, but phosphorus. the ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus is such Pollution has taken a heavy toll on that if manure is applied to meet the nitro- the bay. gen requirements of a crop, phosphorus is over-applied. This excess phosphorus • A “dead zone” covers a large portion escapes from farm fields and into nearby of the bay each summer. Nutrient-fed waterways. Executive Summary Large-scale chicken growing on underestimates the extent to which Maryland’s Eastern Shore generates phosphorus may escape from a field high volumes of manure that contain into nearby water bodies through far more phosphorus than can be used subsurface water flows in some regions by crops nearby. of Maryland, especially in the marshy Eastern Shore. • The 296 million broiler chickens raised in Maryland in 2007 generated • Phosphorus may also escape from approximately 550,000 tons of “chick- fields that have seemingly safe levels of en litter,” manure mixed with bedding phosphorus—fields below the P-index and feathers. threshold—but Maryland’s current rules do little to control this source of • This chicken litter contained far more pollution. phosphorus than is required by crops in major chicken-producing counties • Application of the P-index appears in Maryland. not to be solving the problem of phosphorus pollution into the bay • Soil test data from 2002 show that from agriculture. In at least one major more than 60 percent of soil samples chicken-producing region, water from four Maryland counties—where quality has not improved since Mary- tens of millions of chickens are raised land adopted its current rules. In the annually—were saturated with phos- Choptank River, phosphorus levels phorus. At such high saturation levels, have risen by an average of 1.9 per- phosphorus is more prone to dissolve cent per year from 2000 to 2008. The in water and pollute the bay. Choptank drains parts of Caroline, Dorchester, Queen Anne’s and Talbot Maryland’s current rules allow farm- counties, where large-scale chicken ers to spread manure on fields where production generates hundreds of phosphorus is likely to run off and pol- thousands of tons of excess manure lute the bay. and there is relatively little residential development. • Maryland requires farmers to use a test called the phosphorus site index Maryland produces far more phos- (P-index) if soil is found to be over- phorus-laden manure than crops in the loaded with phosphorus. The P-index region can use. The state needs to keep was meant to be a tool that would phosphorus out of the bay, and it needs a allow farmers to evaluate the water long-term solution for ending phosphorus pollution risk of applying manure to build-up in soil. the field. • Maryland should end land applications • The P-index approach does not ad- of chicken litter that endanger the dress the state’s long-term phosphorus health of the bay by replacing the cur- problem, since it allows farmers to use rent inadequate rules for phosphorus some fields as dumping grounds for application with more effective ones. excess manure, even if they are already Maryland should phase in standards loaded with phosphorus. that prevent more phosphorus from being applied to cropland than crops • Maryland’s current P-index need. 2 An Unsustainable Path • The volume of manure in Maryland • Any alternative plan for disposing of that needs to be disposed of through chicken manure should require poul- land application must be brought into try producers such as Perdue to take balance with the amount of nutrients responsibility for the pollution that that crops need. Options include their activities produce. processing more manure into pellet- ized fertilizer and transporting more manure out of the region. Executive Summary Introduction hroughout its history, Marylanders our leaders took steps to protect the Chesa- and residents of the Chesapeake Bay peake, banning PCBs and setting stronger Tregion have had two very distinct and standards for sewage treatment plants, septic opposing relationships with the bay. systems, and industrial sources. These steps For centuries, the bay has been central have helped reduce pollution in the bay. to the economy and culture of Maryland. And yet Maryland has not seriously It has been a key transportation corridor, addressed another type of waste that is supporting economic activity and devel- polluting and degrading the bay: chicken opment. Thousands of families earned manure. Industrial-scale chicken produc- a living harvesting the bay’s bounty and tion, particularly in Maryland’s lower selling it to citizens living in the region.