The scene of cattle lounging in a stream on a hot summer day may not be so idyllic after all. A new report from the Chesapeake Bay Commission finds that allowing livestock in streams harms both the animal and the water.

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Law includes a provision providing a stream fencing requirement.  Section 702 says, “No administrative agency of the Commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof shall require any person to erect a fence along a stream in a pasture or other field used for grazing of farm livestock for the purpose of keeping farm livestock out of the stream.”

In Healthy Livestock, Healthy Streams: Policy Actions to Promote Livestock Stream Exclusion, the tri-state legislative Commission examines stream fencing efforts across its member states of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

These three states contain more than 3.5 million hoofed farm animals, including cows, horses, and sheep.

Livestock with unimpeded access to streams trample both the banks and bottoms, releasing sediment and associated nutrients to flow downstream.  Livestock feces and urine are also a direct source of nutrients and bacteria contamination. 

 “Fencing livestock out of streams is one of those truly win-win practices,” said Commission Chairman and Virginia Delegate Scott Lingamfelter. “It’s good for the environment, it’s good for the farm and it works. We encourage farmers to adopt this essential practice so we can make real headway in cleaning up the Bay and its tributaries.”

In Virginia, 280 streams have bacteria levels high enough to be a human health concern, due primarily to livestock in streams.

The health risks to livestock that loiter in streams are well-known to both farmers and veterinarians.  Infectious animal diseases are easily transmitted in a shared stream, but farmers often lack the resources or technical assistance to provide alternative sources of water and many are reluctant to change a practice “that has always been that way.”

With states facing requirements to reduce millions of pounds of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from the Chesapeake Bay to meet a regulatory Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) pollution limits plan, even the most traditional of agricultural practices is getting a second look.

“Our Bay restoration efforts should focus on those practices that don’t just improve water quality, but also make sense for the farm.  Livestock stream exclusion is one of those practices,” says Russell Redding, Acting Secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland all rely heavily on a Federal program known as the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) to help finance stream exclusion efforts.  But funding remains inadequate, and stringent requirements of Federal programs discourage many farmers from participating.

Other challenges to widespread implementation of stream fencing include the Plain Sect communities’ reluctance to accept government funding, tradition, confusing options and not enough flexibility. 

Virginia saw stream exclusion skyrocket when it offered to cover 100 percent of the cost through a farmer-friendly state program.  Under the program, farmers need to commit to ten years of maintenance and implementation of a grazing plan, but they say it is worth it. 

“I don’t have many vet bills.  I have very little scours (diarrhea) in the calves,” says Charlie Drumheller, a cattleman in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley who fenced his 40 cow-calf pairs out of the stream a few years ago.  Resistance to drought was also a factor.  With off-stream watering “I know they’ve got water, and that they’ve got clean water.” 

“Overall, our cows are cleaner, and it takes less work to prepare them for milking,” says dairy farmer Matt Espenshade who milks 80 cows in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  “My veterinarian has commented on how much better the farm just looks.”

In the report, the Commission announced five policy actions it will take to help producers reach a long-term goal of getting all livestock out of the Chesapeake Bay’s tributary streams:

1) Better address farmers’ concerns and win their trust.

2) A more thorough understanding of the gaps that currently exist in our regulatory and voluntary programs.

3) Better verification of installed practices and concurrent better accounting as we track state by state progress in achieving the Bay TMDL pollution reduction goals.

4) Providing BMP options that reduce unnecessary requirements and over-engineering concerns.

5) Increasing engagement of stakeholders to promote livestock stream exclusion and protect riparian buffers.

“Farmers live on the land.  They are some of our best environmental stewards.  As legislators, we need to make sure the public policies and programs are in place to help them in their efforts to reduce farm runoff to Chesapeake Bay,” says Commission member Thomas “Mac” Middleton, a Maryland state senator and farmer in Charles County.

A copy of the new report is available online. 

For more information on activities and other reports, visit the Chesapeake Bay Commission website.

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5/18/2015