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Shirly
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 1999 - 08:55 am: | |
from the Coastal Dispatch Ocean City, Maryland.
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We don’t need another environmental organization adding their two cents.
WORCESTER COUNTY FARM DIRECTOR BILL CARMEAN
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There’s only a tiny fraction of the 150 page plan that deals with farm
MARYLAND COASTAL BAYS PROGRAM’S DAVE WILSON
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BERLIN (JHC) - Farmers enraged over
the Maryland Coastal Bays Program’s proposed
comprehensive conservation management plan have
lashed out.
After last week’s review of the proposed plan,
which seeks to salvage the coastal bays watershed
from further deterioration, the Worcester County Farm Bureau delivered its recommendations in the form of a letter to the program. Overall, farmers feel the Coastal Bays Program should butt out when
it comes to appropriating regulations on the farming community.
There is absolutely no reason for the Coastal Bays to impose more laws and regulations, nor engage in a profession that they neither understand, nor have any knowledge in how it operates, the letter said.
Worcester County Farm Bureau Director Bill
Carmean feels the draft management plan unfairly and excessively regulates the farming community.
My main concern is the Maryland Department
of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency already have a nutrient management plan to regulate and control agriculture. We don’t heed another environmental organization adding their two cents, Carmean said.
The bureau attached to the letter three pages of amendments addressing actions the program has included to protect the water quality of the coastal bays.
According to the draft, the main culprits in polluting the northern bays are agricultural nutrient runoff and atmospheric deposition. It also reports excessive nutrient inputs stem
from urban runoff and madequate or failing septic systems as well as other groundwater sources.
However, since most damage occurs in the
northern bays, and the southern bays remain pristine, the bureau argues pollution stems from north end development, rather than south end farming.
The thrust of the bureau’s amendments are directed at clarifying and editing language in the plan relating to agricultural effects on the bays.
According to Dave Wilson, Maryland Coastal
Bays Program’s public outreach coordinator, the program has received the bureau’s comments and has already adopted some requested changes.
Wilson said recent legislative strains applied to farmers have upset the industry but emphasized the draft doesn’t seek to regulate
a~gñeu1türe. Wilson said the nature of section applicable to agriculture
are meant to benefit farmers. with financial incentives. Wilson added
the Maryland Department of Environment and the Maryland Department of Agriculture helped develop all requirements the draft addresses.
The letter expresses the bureau’s offense taken at having the finger finger being pointed in the farmers’ direction for causing aypollution.
As long as development is allowed to continue on wetlands, and as long as tourists flock to Ocean City by the hundreds of thousands, no rules and regulations by any environmentalists
will relieve the pollution threat, the letter said.
Wilson admitted development is indeed a main contributor to northern bay degradation and said the plan was written to mainly address development. Of the roughly 150 page document, only seven specific sections deal with agriculture.
There’s only a tiny, tiny fraction of the
150-page plan that deals with farming, Wilson said.
According to Carmean, another concern for the bureau deals with the program’s desire to make the county set standards for the rest of the state to follow.
According to their-wording, they want Worcester County to be a model for the state, and Worcester County does not have to be a model
for the state, Carmean said. The rules and regulations for Worcester County have to be the same as the rule and regulations for every other’
county in the state of Maryland in order not to put us at a competitive disadvantage.
Carmean said if further restrictions are implemented, local farmers might be forced out of business.
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