Environmental groups cry foul on Md. poultry permits

Assateague Coastal Trust and Food & Water Watch announced June 1 that they have filed opening arguments in a case against the Maryland Department of the Environment.

The groups are requesting judicial review of Maryland's General Discharge Permit for Animal Feeding Operations, which includes chicken houses, a frequent sight in rural areas of the Eastern Shore. The permit went into effect Nov. 30, 2014, and will remain in effect for five years, allowing animal feeding operations to discharge animal waste, including manure, poultry litter and process wastewater into the waters of the state.

The suit alleges a lack of oversight on the department's behalf because the permit does not require regular water-quality monitoring.

"There are no daily inspections, no weekly inspections," Assateague Coastkeeper Kathy Phillips said. "That's why we're going to keep challenging these permits every time they're renewed."

In a response to comments on the permit, the department explained why water quality monitoring isn't required.

"Unlike water quality-based (national discharge) permits, the (general discharge) permit relies primarily on technology, in this case best management practices (BMPs), to adequately protect water quality at (animal feeding operations)," the response read.

Without monitoring though, Food & Water Watch said the permits are "little more than symbolic gestures." The permit requires farmers to submit plans for how they will store manure and process wastewater, divert clean water from the production area and ensure that chemicals and contaminants are not discharged.

The permit also requires farmers to identify conservation practices for their site to control runoff of nitrogen and phosphorous. And it requires them to establish protocols for appropriate testing of manure, litter, process wastewater and soil - but it doesn't require those tests across the board, though it does have the discretion to make individual farmers sample and monitor for pollutants.

The department also has the right to enter a farmer's property to collect samples and take photographs to make sure their conservation practices are effective.

In reference to the lawsuit, the department's comments were limited.

"MDE will respond as appropriate," spokesman Jay Apperson said.

Their response is due at the end of the month.

Alan Hudson, president of the Worcester County Farm Bureau, said in his opinion the department does the best they can with the resources they have. The best management practices vary from farm to farm, depending on individual needs, and the department visits the sites to make sure farmers are in compliance, Hudson said.

There are more best management practices than Hudson could list, but a common example is a vegetative buffer between a poultry house and a ditch or stream.

"Assateague Coastal Trust and Food & Water Watch want to eliminate poultry farms," he said. "They don't think anything is strong enough. They want more regulations on farmers all the time."

Hudson is not named in or involved with this suit. However, he and Phillips have been involved in litigation before, when the Waterkeeper Alliance, which oversees Assateague Coastal Trust, sued Hudson and MDE saying that he was polluting a nearby waterway in 2010.

The case garnered national attention, and a federal court ruled against the Waterkeeper Alliance in December of 2012. In revisiting the case Judge William M. Nickerson wrote that "while alarmingly high levels of fecal coliform, E. coli, nitrogen and phosphorus had been discharged from Hudson's farm and that at least some of those contaminants would reach the Pocomoke River, (the Waterkeeper Alliance) had not met its burden of establishing that the poultry operation contributed to these discharges."

rpacella@gannett.com

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