Posted under Chesapeake Bay
Yesterday, Gov. Martin O’Malley and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack agreed to increase payments to farmers that plant trees rather than crops along streams or construct fences to keep livestock away from water. These measures help reduce that amount of fertilizer and pesticides that washes into the Bay.
The Baltimore Sun has the details:
The funds are meant to enhance participation in a 12-year-old federal-state conservation program that has enticed Maryland farmers to set aside 74,000 acres of cropland and pasture for environmental purposes. Officials hope the added incentives will increase the set-aside to 100,000 acres. Under the program, about 8 million trees have been planted statewide along streams. Of the federal funds, $165 million is to go toward paying farmers rent for leaving cropland fallow for as much as 15 years. Another $33 million is earmarked to help farmers pay for conservation practices such as fencing and watering troughs for livestock to keep them out of streams.
This is no doubt a positive development as agriculture remains the #1 source of nutrient pollution in the Bay. But it’s also a continuation of the voluntary, incentives based approach to controlling agriculture pollution that has been employed for decades with little success. It’s the kind of thing, unfortunately, that has made it seem like we are doing a lot to improve the Bay, even as things get worse.
At some point we will have to do more or the health of the Bay will continue to deteriorate.
One Response to “O’Malley Announces More Voluntary Measures To Reduce Pollution In Bay”
justdafacts on 27 Apr 2009 at 4:06 pm #
The term, “agriculture,” encompasses much more than commercial farming in most measures:
:justdafacts on August 2nd, 2007:
When we hear “agriculture” we think farming–production of food or other plant materials for consumption (cotton, tobacco, seed oils, hemp, other fibers, for example), but in most aggregate pollution assessments, including the just-released NOAA report, “agriculture” includes fertilizers and pesticides dumped on common land prevelant at new condo, townhouse, and single-family home developments. It also includes commercial and institutional landscape care.
That beautifully manicured new doctor park, office plaza, or strip mall is likely to have a maintenance crew going overboard with pesticides and fertilizers to keep it looking that way; that’s also tallied as “agricultural” pollution. Golf courses? Although low on my long list of reasons to vote against Gov Ehrlich, one was the hope that he would have less time to play golf if he had to earn a living in the private sector (little did I know about Womble Carlyle). Keeping his golfing greens green, believe it or not, is an “agricultural” use of fertilizers and pesticides.
Developers with the best intentions (I’m not being sarcastic) hire landscape architects and other experts to minimize runoff and reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides–”think global, plant local”–but that message can’t help but getting lost on the mini-mansion community sales manager desperate to complete sales at Phase II of Spinnaker Greens at Woodland Farm. So he directs the maintenance staff to keep everything picture pefect green and lush…spray away… and, remember to put out those little warning signs on push-sticks. “Buyers and fee-paying existing owners like that. Show ‘em we were out here working.” Ditto for the office park manager afraid she’ll lose tenants to that new office park with the on-site fitness center.