Farmers in the states that comprise the Chesapeake Bay watershed are deeply concerned that the impending new era of bay restoration efforts will put an unfair and disproportionate regulatory burden on agriculture, a county conservation district manager and several bay state legislators and regulators said earlier this month. Their comments came during a quarterly meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a body of legislators and regulators from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia established to foster collaboration among state regulators and legislatures on management of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
The meeting took place about nine weeks before the Environmental Protection Agency and the states sharing the 64,000-square-mile watershed issue a bay-wide total maximum daily load (TMDL) that will require slashing the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment that flow into the bay and its tidal waters. And, it also came shortly after the six states submitted to EPA draft watershed implementation plans for achieving those reductions.
"Farmers are scared out of their wits" that they will bear the brunt of the cleanup burden and be driven out of business, said Maryland Sen. Max Middleton (D), the chairman of the commission.
"Farmers are paranoid" about the TMDL and watershed implementation plans because they have not been included in planning of the regulatory framework, said Don McNutt, manager of the Lancaster County Conservation District in Pennsylvania.
EPA Region 3 Administrator Shawn Garvin told the meeting that EPA sees agriculture as an important part of the region's economy and that he is determined to see that the burdens of the restoration are shared equitably.
