The fate of Maryland’s poultry industry seems to be lying in the hands of one man – Chuck Fox, a Senior Advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency.
While we all want a cleaner Chesapeake Bay, EPA’s pending regulations for Maryland are unrealistic and fail to consider both the economics and the environment of our State.
First the economics: Aside from being a $2 billion a year industry, the poultry industry employs 14,500 people on the Delmarva Peninsula alone. For every job in poultry processing, seven more jobs are created.
Next the environment: Five other states in our watershed will also be subject to poultry regulations from EPA, but Maryland’s regulations will be tougher. That would make sense if it meant we were going to get more bang for our buck, but the Delmarva Peninsula accounts for less than 8% of the land area in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. US Geological Survey reports that the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the James Rivers contributed 95% of the Nitrogen load and about 87% of the Phosphorus load each year. More importantly, if you force farmers to sell the family farm, you will lose that land to development. Think it won’t happen? Just ask the farmers who are trying to get financing for their businesses right now.
The truth of the matter is, tougher regulations for Maryland farmers will have little or no environmental impact on the Chesapeake Bay, but will have great impact on our economy. Governor O’Malley, the Maryland Farm Bureau and many elected officials have expressed their opposition to Maryland being singled out in this way. Unfortunately, things don’t usually work out very well when a fox is in charge of guarding a hen house. For Maryland’s sake, I hope things turn out differently this time.
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Delegate Haddaway,
I would be happy to talk with you about the various proposals. Just so you know, there are no “pending regulations” for Maryland. I find myself in Talbot County often, or we could meet in Annapolis during the session. Thank you.
Chuck