News
The Bay Is Not Improving
(Posted by Tom Horton.)
In recent weeks there’s been a two-pronged push by agricultural interests to credit farmers with already doing most of what’s needed to reduce pollution; also to discredit federal computer modeling that says farmers need to do a lot more to meet the Chesapeake Bay restoration goals.
The extra credit comes courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service; the challenge to EPA’s modeling effort comes in a lawsuit filed by the American Farm Bureau.
Read MoreComing Soon to a Bay Near You: Liquid Poop
(Posted by Jeanne McCann.)
No, the brown stuff isn’t mud. It’s runoff from liquid manure going directly into Harnish Run, which is a tributary of the Cocalico Creek in Northern Lancaster County. Which ends up guess where (hint: Chesapeake Bay). Photos were taken two to three days after application on top of snow-covered hard-frozen ground.
Read MoreD.C. Environmental Film Festival Features Chesapeake Bay Films
(Posted by Jeanne McCann.)
The D.C. Environmental Film Festival is showing four timely films on Wednesday, March 23, from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m., at the Carnegie Institution for Science (Elihu Root Auditorium, 1530 P St., NW; Metro: Dupont Circle, 19th St. exit. Red line, Metrobuses: S1, S2, S4, S9, G2) Elizabeth Buckman, Vice President, Communications, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, will moderate the program, and introduce the filmmakers.
Read MoreAgribusiness Lobby Resorts to Warfare Against Chesapeake Bay
(Posted by Gerald Winegrad.)
Despite repeated scientific analyses and data documenting agriculture as the Chesapeake Bay’s #1 polluter, the giant agribusiness lobby continues to resist better practices to stem the bay-killing nutrients and sediment flowing from farm land.
Read MoreHouse Ag Committee’s Assault on Science
(Posted by Bill Thompson.)
The assault against science and facts hit a new low when opponents of mandatory efforts to regulate clean water in the Chesapeake Bay used a March 16 House Agriculture subcommittee hearing to further their attempts to undercut the U.S. EPA’s Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) requirements.
Read MoreDon’t Confuse Agri-Business With Family Farms
(Posted by Fred Tutman.)
I am deeply upset about what appears to be an unavoidable collision course brewing between Chesapeake Bay advocates and a relatively small segment of the agricultural community that has a big footprint in Maryland and in the Chesapeake Bay. It is a confrontation that is causing huge rifts between champions for water quality and advocates for the future of “true” agriculture in the state. It is a fight that is fast making enemies of those who really should be allies.
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