The Maryland Clean Agriculture Coalition and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation released a joint statement today about Governor Hogan’s revised Phosphorus Management Tool (PMT) regulations:
We are pleased the Hogan Administration has agreed to close a loophole in its proposed phosphorus regulations that could have allowed for delay after delay. Getting rid of this loophole will be a major accomplishment.
Environmental leaders worked with Senator Pinsky, Senator Middleton, Delegate Lafferty, the Hogan Administration and the agricultural industry to improve the regulations.
Our organizations would have liked to have begun using the Phosphorus Management Tool four years ago, as Maryland promised, and as the science dictated. Nevertheless, these revised regulations represent progress toward reducing pollution from agriculture – which we absolutely must do to protect the Chesapeake Bay and local waterways, as well as public health.
We thank the Hogan Administration for listening to our concerns and trying to address them. And we are enormously thankful to Senator Pinsky for his leadership to achieve stronger manure rules, as well as to Delegate Lafferty and the Chesapeake Bay Commission for their help. This has been a tough issue over many years, and we are fortunate to have Senator Pinsky and Delegate Lafferty as clean water champions.
The revised regulations are to include a 2022 implementation date. They still would allow the possibility of two one-year extensions, which could extend implementation until 2024
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The regulations would also create an advisory committee to evaluate whether any such extension is needed. It is a much more balanced committee that was originally proposed and includes two environmental organizations and other state agencies. Organizations working to protect the Chesapeake Bay and Eastern Shore waterways will strive to ensure that Governor Hogan’s regulations do what we hope they will and that they don’t get weakened or delayed in the months or years to come.
We will also be watching over the next seven years to ensure this long-overdue tool gets implemented as it is supposed to do. With levels of phosphorus pollution worsening on the Eastern Shore, this tool to better manage manure is needed more than ever before.
The Phosphorus Management Tool would reduce pollution by halting the excessive uses of manure on farm fields already contaminated with too much phosphorus. Phosphorus pollution causes algae blooms that threaten public health; kill underwater grasses; harm aquatic life like blue crabs, oysters. and fish; and create an enormous “dead zone” in the Bay. Read a fact sheet about the tool here.
The U.S. Geological Survey recently released a report showing that Eastern Shore waterways have levels of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution that are among the “highest in the nation” due to agricultural operations.
Julie Lowe says
7-9 years until implementation, really? And we are supposed to celebrate this? We need action NOW, and we need the farmers have regulations they can support, and to participate willingly to the process. If the Bay dies, we all suffer enormous consequences. Let’s take the almighty dollar out of the equation and do the right thing for our future. OK, so a loophole is closed. That doesn’t mean much to a watershed that is already in dire trouble from Phosphorous pollution now. Manure should not be applied on soil that is already high in P. Why wait to test soil? What’s the benefit there? We all need to work together–agriculture, aquaculture, residents with their pristine lawns on the water… I realize this is not popular concept with everyone, but it is common sense for our continued enjoyment of the Bay and its resources. PLANT NATIVES!