Manure
Chicken industry wins again, crippling Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts
In 2022, the industrialized Delmarva chicken industry produced 596 million chickens in 4,889 chicken houses—a record 4.4 billion pounds of chicken and $5 billion in wholesale value. This was a 38% broiler increase in a decade. These chickens produced 1.5 billion pounds of chicken excrement — equal to the weight of two Statues of Liberty! Corn and soybeans grown for feed are highly nitrogen intensive, adding more nitrogen to the bay.
Read MoreAgriculture is destroying the Chesapeake Bay
Between 1950 and 1982, the amount of nitrogen from manure and fertilizer applied to bay crop land nearly doubled, reaching 960 million pounds annually, as farmland decreased by nearly half. Alarmingly, the average annual rate of nutrient reductions from bay region farmland has actually decreased since 2009.
Read MoreChickens and the Bay
The simple solution is avoided: Make the giant chicken corporations take care of the manure in a sound environmental fashion!
Read MorePerdue: More oysters, not less fertilizer, are solution …
In a recent Baltimore Sun B’More Green blog, Mr. Jim Perdue was interviewed about his vision for the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay. http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/blog/bal-gr-perdue-more-oysters-not-less-fertilizer-are-solution-for-bay-cleanup-20160927-story.html ——————————————————————————————————————————————– OPINION/EDITORIAL Mr. Perdue is attempting to deflect attention away from the Eastern Shore but as long as agricultural pollution remains the number 1 source of pollution to our waterways in…
Read MoreAg Certainty: Making Certain that the Bay Remains Polluted
With Ag Certainty, we’ve just thrown a “critical” part of the TMDL out the window; the only real “certainty” that remains is that we’ll all be sitting down in 2025 again and try to come up with the next, great plan to clean up the Bay.
Read MoreThe Hudson/Perdue Chicken Waste Case — What We’ve Already Learned
A decision is expected soon in the highly publicized federal lawsuit Waterkeepers Alliance, Inc., vs. Alan and Kristen Hudson Farm and Perdue Farms, Inc. The outcome is anyone’s guess, but already testimony from the trial has made clear that Maryland’s effort to oversee and enforce nutrient management plans needs more muscle.
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