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The Chesapeake Bay Foundation this week issued a report recommending new funding for programs designed to reduce nutrient pollution in the Bay by changing the formula for livestock feeds to address what it considers to be the most significant cause of nutrient pollution in the Bay -- manure.
Nutrient pollution is the single largest threat to water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Sources of nutrient pollution include urban runoff, industry, automobiles, and human sewage, but the largest source is agriculture and, increasingly, from the manure produced by livestock, which now outnumber the watershed's human population by 11 to 1.
Agriculture is the source of approximately 50 percent of the nitrogen and 60 percent of the phosphorus that Pennsylvania contributes to the Chesapeake Bay. In contrast, industrial discharges, wastewater treatment plants and other point sources combined contribute approximately 11 percent of the nitrogen and 19 percent of the phosphorus.
Animal manure is one of the largest sources of the nitrogen and phosphorus deposited on the Bay watershed's 64,000-square-mile land area. According to data compiled by the Chesapeake Bay Program, animal manure accounted for 40 percent of the total nitrogen and 54 percent of the total phosphorus deposited on the land - which has a limited capacity to absorb and retain it, and in many places has already exceeded that capacity. That pollution has seriously damaged the health of local rivers, streams and the Chesapeake Bay.
The Chesapeake Bay region has three of the nation's biggest manure "hot spots," according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: Sussex Co., DE (on the Delmarva Peninsula) ; Rockingham Co., VA (in the Shenandoah Valley); and Lancaster Co., PA (in the lower Susquehanna River Basin).
Lancaster County has the second-highest agricultural production of any county east of the Mississippi River and ranks fifth in livestock production nationally. The county, which represents only 1.5 percent of the area in the watershed, produces more nitrogen from manure than any other county in the Bay's drainage area - 72 million pounds a year, about 12 percent of the total nitrogen from all manure sources in the watershed.
Pennsylvania's cows, chickens, hogs and other livestock produce approximately 30 million tons of manure per year, containing approximately 171,000 tons of nitrogen and 81,000 tons of phosphates. This manure is an asset for crop production, if applied at the time, location and rate needed by crops. When nitrogen and phosphorus are not effectively used by crops, their role in the environment changes from productive nutrients to pollutants of groundwater and surface water.
Lancaster County has 140,705 beef cattle; 105,155 dairy cows; 323,998 swine; 12,909,691 layers; 8,027,873 broilers; and 119,607 turkeys.
The CBF report makes several recommendations—
1. The most achievable pollution reductions from agriculture right now are through more efficient feed management that prevents the pollution from being in the manure in the first place. Research has shown that improved dairy feed management could achieve pollution reductions of up to 40 percent while saving the struggling dairy industry $18 million per year. Pennsylvania contains 64 percent of the dairy cows in the Chesapeake watershed.
2. The Pennsylvania General Assembly should include $10 million in funding for a dairy feed efficiency program. This funding will be part of a greater need for agricultural funding in Pennsylvania's next legislative session Pennsylvania should establish a dairy feed efficiency pilot program in Lancaster County to develop and refine the mechanisms for the program.
3. CBF will sponsor a dairy feed efficiency summit in October of this year to bring together dairy farmers, milk cooperatives, feed mills, government agencies, and university researchers to craft the structure of the program.
Animal feed makers have been researching the impact of feed formula changes in nutrient content of manure for several years. In 1999 Wenger Feeds was given a Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award for its production of an enzyme that reduced phosphorus in manure by 24 percent.
For more information on the report, see the Manure Report on the CBF webpage or contact Kelly O’Neill, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, The Old Water Works Building, 614 N. Front Street, Suite G, Harrisburg, PA 17101, (717) 234-5550; email: koneill@cbf.org .
NewsClip: Chesapeake Bay Needs Protection From Manure
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