By Gerald Winegrad

A new report, “Blind Eye to Big Chicken,” documents a near complete abdication by Maryland agencies of their responsibilities to enforce critical pollution control regulations to rein in massive poultry industry pollution. The report by the watchdog group Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) details how chicken growers continue to violate state laws with impunity regarding the handling of raw chicken excrement and polluting nutrients.

The report found state oversight was minimal and ineffective at protecting water and air quality from the 608 million pounds of raw excrement produced annually by 301 million chickens and the disposal of 150,000 dead chickens. The excrement is equal in weight to 60,000 Ford F-150 trucks and is spread over an expanse of farmland that is two-thirds the size of Anne Arundel County.

In addition, tons of airborne ammonia gases were released from the 2,178 industrial-scale chicken houses, each longer than a football field. The 503 chicken growers under contract to the large poultry giants each grew an average of 600,000 broilers or 138,000 chickens per chicken house.

This industry is the major pollution source impairing water quality in Eastern Shore rivers, sending major flows of nitrogen and phosphorus into surface and groundwaters. And the intensity is increasing with millions more birds that are growing in size.

The investigation concluded that oversight by the departments of Environment and Agriculture is an “empty paperwork exercise” that fails to assure compliance with regulations. These regulations took decades to enact as the poultry industry successfully fought legislation to control pollution.

After years of prodding, former Gov. Martin O’Malley issued regulations at the end of his term limiting manure application on farmland already saturated with phosphorus. When Gov. Larry Hogan took office in January 2015, he immediately blocked these sensible regulations.

The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported that in the critical final weeks of Hogan’s campaign for governor in 2014, poultry giant Mountaire contributed $250,000 to the Republican Governors Association (RGA) after the RGA spent $450,000 in ad buys for Hogan’s campaign. Corporate donors use this loophole to give large sums to avoid contribution limits and disclosure requirements.  Mountaire has the most chicken operations in Maryland, accounting for more than one-third of chickens grown. It gave $2.6 million to the RGA in 2018, the third most of any donor.

On April 12, 2021, a Delaware court confirmed a settlement whereby Mountaire agreed to pay $65 million to plaintiffs who lived near Mountaire’s large chicken slaughtering plant in Millsboro, Delaware, one of 10 such plants on the Eastern Shore. Residents suffered illnesses from contaminated air and drinking water wells. Mountaire also agreed in a parallel federal case to spend $145 million to upgrade its slaughtering plant to meet regulatory requirements.

Perdue also contributes to the RGA and once threatened to move its corporate offices from Salisbury to Delaware when Maryland was considering tougher regulations. Delaware’s environmental agency fined Perdue twice for illegally discharging pollutants into a waterway from a chicken slaughtering facility and for violations at its now-closed AgriRecycle chicken waste composting facility.

Six months ago, I wrote the Maryland secretary of the environment seeking information on all cases in which poultry companies or poultry growers were fined for environmental violations. Despite repeated requests, I still await a response. The EIP report answers why — there is little if any enforcement thereby allowing the industry to escape consequences for violations. This includes enforcement of the weakened regulations with which Gov. Hogan replaced the O’Malley regulations after delaying their implementation.

The EIP report revealed that:

– Poultry farm inspections by MDE fell 40% since 2013. From 2017-2020, only 182 of 503 operations were inspected. Some operations went uninspected for 7 years;

– 84% (153 of 182) of poultry operations failed water pollution inspections — two-thirds due to improperly managed chicken excrement. Only 2% paid fines despite half failing follow-up inspections. Fines collected totaled only $8,250 over four years;

– 51% (29 of 57) of poultry operations reviewed by EIP in 2019 reported they had applied manure to their crop fields in amounts illegally above limits in their nutrient management plans. None was fined;

– Inspectors do not sample for nutrients in fields or streams to determine if over application of manure is occurring, instead trusting farmers and their contractors;

– The enforcement agencies are grossly understaffed — MDE has only three inspectors overseeing 503 poultry operations;

– MDE never samples for ammonia air pollution at chicken operations or nearby homes despite a Maryland court’s March 2021 order for MDE to start controlling these emissions. While appealing this order, MDE ignores the threat to public health and the addition of millions of pounds of nitrogen to our waters; and

– 90% of the chicken manure that is generated is shipped off-site to other farms on the Eastern Shore. There are no public records to indicate where the manure is spread or if it is spread in amounts within legal limits.

The state’s “hands off” treatment of the poultry industry leads to poor water quality. This is evidenced by monitoring data showing that nitrogen and phosphorus levels have been increasing in Eastern Shore rivers for decades despite Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts and the billions spent on them. This included millions in grants to farmers to reduce these nutrients, the major bay pollutants.

An analysis of 20 years of data on the Choptank River watershed, which is dominated by agriculture mostly related to poultry production, showed a substantial increase in nutrients despite decreases in air emissions and treated sewage. Federal researchers concluded that the Choptank had the greatest per-acre input of nitrogen of any watershed studied.

Residents living near poultry operations have developed serious health problems. Nitrate contamination of groundwater is common and ammonia emissions as well as particulate matter from chicken house fans can cause health problems. These include unusually high rates of cancer, gastrointestinal disease, Crohn’s disease, diarrhea, wheezing, and shortness of breath.

Without major changes in the way we regulate and enforce pollution controls at chicken operations, Eastern Shore rivers will never recover and Maryland will not meet its mandated clean water goals. Dead zones and flesh-eating bacteria will increase and human health problems will persist. The Environmental Protection Agency Bay Program found that Chesapeake water quality has worsened over the last few years with about two-thirds of tidal waters now impaired because of pollutants, especially nutrients. Agricultural operations are at the root of this decline.

Maryland should require the poultry corporations collecting billions off the chickens they own to assume responsibility for the proper disposal of their raw excrement. The current practice of trucking hundreds of millions of pounds of chicken litter from one Eastern Shore farm to another should end. Maryland should treat land application of manure the same way it treats wastewater biosolids application. The industry should be required to take measures to capture the ammonia chickens produce. Aggressive enforcement of existing regulations is urgently needed. A pollution control fee of only 1 cent per pound of chicken produced would raise $15 million annually to solve the problems and help growers.

But the multibillion poultry industry blocks such efforts.  Will the Hogan administration and the legislature continue to turn a Blind Eye to Big Chicken despite these findings?

Gerald Winegrad represented the greater Annapolis area in the Legislature for 16 years, where he championed efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay. He served on the tri-State Chesapeake Bay Commission and taught graduate courses in bay restoration and wildlife management he authored. Contact him at gwwabc@comcast.net.