In April, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 3 assessed animal feeding operations on five farms in Lancaster County for water-quality issues potentially impacting Pennsylvania streams.
The farms, considered small- or medium- sized, and so not covered under the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) permitting program, were selected because of their potential to significantly pollute local streams and the Chesapeake Bay.
EPA declined to identify the farms to protect their privacy.
Cooperative efforts between EPA, county conservation districts and the Farm Bureau to bring all stakeholders to the table — not just farms mandated by the Clean Water Act to be permitted — ushers in a new era of cooperation to clean up the Bay, the capstone of which so far has been establishment of the Clean Stream Funds Conservation Assistance Program, involved agencies said.
Established through the 2022 state budget, the cost-share program dedicated $154 million over four years to reduce non-point source pollution in commonwealth streams, rivers and water bodies.
“It's a team approach,” said Pennsylvania Farm Bureau President Chris Hoffman, who himself operates two permitted CAFOs. “When you think about what we were able to do with legislation ... To be able to get a state to put together a $150 million, plus, to go out and help solve this problem really shows that there's a commitment and that people are working together.”
Around 90% of Pennsylvania’s farms could be considered small or medium, he said.
Hoffman, who was elected to his position in 2022, recalled that when federal and state regulators came knocking on farmers’ doors in 2010, they were met with less than a warm welcome.
“At that point, it was a whole different narrative,” he said. “But I believe that we've been able to bring everybody to the table to where we all have trust in one another, that we're all in this together.”
The end result, Hoffman said, will be a cleaned-up Chesapeake Bay and hopefully a model of cooperation for other communities.
With the statewide funding, Hoffman said, conservation districts will be able to work with farmers county by county to implement best-management practices such as dealing with animal mortalities, installing streambank fencing and assessing growing practices.
Adam Ortiz was appointed by the Biden administration in October 2021 to be regional administrator for EPA Region 3. The region consists of Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and seven federally recognized Tribal territories.
Ortiz said one of his first tasks was to meet with the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau in Harrisburg.
“The Chesapeake restoration effort has been a big deal and front-page stuff for decades now,” he said.
Stakeholders — including not just agriculture but other industries, municipalities and others — are under intense pressure to reduce upstream pollution into the Chesapeake Bay, he said.
“(We) in the Biden administration, we wanted to come in and make meaningful progress, but do it in a way that has been significantly different from efforts in the past,” Ortiz said. “EPA is well known and has a reputation for being a regulatory agency. And we have that authority. But that only gets you so far in trying to turn the curve on a lot of these tougher environmental issues.”
EPA under his leadership has favored meaningful engagement with stakeholders to work together to find solutions over iron-fisted tactics, he said.
Source: lancasterfarming.com
Photo Credit: Pennsylvania Farm Bureau
Categories: Pennsylvania, Government & Policy