Greenwire: The amount of nitrogen entering the environment from animal manure has increased at least 60 percent since the 1970s, a torrent of excess waste that is causing systemic problems in the country’s rivers and coastlines.
Unlike other types of pollution, such as human or industrial waste, manure waste has not been strictly regulated by U.S. EPA. But as scientists have begun to highlight the impact of the nutrient, including 230 oxygen-free “dead zones” that have arisen in U.S. ocean waters, regulators have begun to take notice.
Last week, EPA announced that manure runoff will be one of its six “national enforcement initiatives.” Rules have recently gone into effect to tighten manure restrictions at the largest animal farms, and in the Senate, Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has proposed a bill that would impose a cap-and-trade system for nitrogen pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, home to one of the country’s largest dead zones.
“We now know that we have more nutrient pollution from animals in the Chesapeake Bay watershed” than from human sewage, said J. Charles Fox, EPA’s new Chesapeake chief.
The agriculture community has fought back against any new regulations. Such rules could cripple small farmers, according to Don Parrish of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“It’s clearly going to put a squeeze on people that they’ve always said they didn’t want to squeeze,” including family-run farms, he said (David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post, March 1). – PV