New Rules to Be Enforced On Poultry Farms' Manure

Maryland will soon begin enforcing new limits on the amount of manure that is allowed to wash off Eastern Shore poultry farms, cracking down on what had been a lightly regulated Chesapeake Bay pollutant.

Last week, the state formally published new rules that will affect about 200 of the state's 800 chicken and turkey farms. These are Maryland's largest poultry operations, officials said, which together produce about half of the state's "litter" -- a malodorous mixture of bird excrement and sawdust bedding.

These farms had previously been exempt from several regulations that apply to dairy and hog farms. But, starting Jan. 12, they will face new rules about where, how and when their litter can be stored, as well as unannounced environmental inspections.

"It's a major step forward," said Robert Summers, assistant secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment. But Summers said the agency wasn't sure how much of a real-world environmental benefit the regulations would provide.

"We don't know exactly how many of the [farmers] are already following all the good practices," he said. "Any estimate would be speculative."

Poultry litter is a problem for the bay because it washes out of manure piles in heavy rains, or runs off farm fields where it has been spread as fertilizer. Scientists estimate that poultry farms account for 5 to 7 percent of the pollution that feeds unnatural algal blooms in the Chesapeake, which create "dead zones" where fish and crabs can't breathe.

Under the rules, the 200 farms will be required to divert rainwater away from outdoor manure piles. They will be prohibited from storing litter outdoors for more than 15 or 30 days, depending on the farm's size. And they will be subject to inspections by the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Kim Coble of the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation said yesterday that her group applauded the new rules -- but wished they went further. About 100 of the farms would be required to obtain only a "certification" of compliance, not a more elaborate state permit. Coble said she worried that this would allow for less scrutiny of their operations.

"We don't have any assurance" that these farms -- the smallest of the 200, with between 75,000 and 100,000 square feet of space for birds -- are complying, Coble said.

But a spokeswoman for the Maryland Farm Bureau, which represents farmers, said that the rules will be a new bureaucratic burden. Valerie Connelly said that many poultry growers are following good environmental practices, like planting forested buffer zones to serve as filters near streams, or building large sheds to keep rain off their litter.

"It may not change a whole lot of what's going on on farms, but it may put a whole lot of new hurdles and hoops in the way" for farmers, Connelly said.

Yesterday, Perdue -- which buys birds raised on the Eastern Shore -- said it would begin doing more to educate poultry farmers in several states about good environmental practices. The move was not triggered by the Maryland rules, a Perdue spokeswoman said, but she said the program would help farmers comply with them.