Back in December, the EPA put states that lie in the Chesapeake Bay’s watershed on a “pollution diet” meant to curb farm runoff that has polluted the Bay’s water.
Farming plays a crucial economic role in the Chesapeake community where it provides jobs and is considered to be a great unifying factor. Farm land also serves as a buffer between land and water. In recent years, however, the nitrogen and phosphorus used in fertilizers has been draining from land into the bay and polluting the waters.
The EPA’s diet specifically calls for a reduction in nitrogen runoff by 25 percent, phosphorus by 24 percent and sediment by 20 percent by 2025.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation praise the plan, while others like Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, criticized it.
The American Farm Bureau Federation represents more than 6.2 million families who intend to file suit against the EPA over the pollution diet. Stallman calls the EPA’s restrictions “burdensome” and “illegal” and believes that the role of the EPA is not one in which farmer’s should be told how to operate.
The lawsuit to be filed by the bureau will argue that the EPA’s 2025 restrictions on runoff exceed its statutory authority. They will also argue that the organization did not allow for public comment and used flawed science to determine their reduction goals.
A scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Beth McGee, says the American Farm Bureau does not represent all the farmers working in the watershed and that those the EPA has spoken with fully support efforts to protect the bay by means of restricting fertilizers. McGee said many individual farmers are already in compliance with the pollution diet.
In a late December statement, the EPA’s Lisa P. Jackson said that the EPA will continue to “provide strong oversight and transparency to ensure accountability and ensure progress continues.”
With reporting from the New York Times
