O'Malley Approves Eastern Shore Chicken Shit Burning Power Plant

Maryland Moves Forward with Controversial Chicken-Waste Electricity Project

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) announced his approval of a project to turn chicken waste into electricity, but the idea still faces opposition from consumer advocates and some environmentalists...

“Converting poultry litter into energy helps Maryland prevent nitrogen from the polluting the [Chesapeake] Bay and fills an important need for power generation on the Eastern Shore,” Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler said in press statement. “This plant built as a result of this commitment will benefit Eastern Shore farmers, our economy, and the Bay.” Farmers currently use chicken waste to fertilize crops organically. Rainfall washes some of the residue into the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which elevates nitrogen levels there.

Environmental activists, however, warn turning chicken waste into electricity may transform a modest water pollution problem into a larger air pollution problem. Environmental activist groups such as Food & Water Watch, Green Planet, and the Sierra Club have expressed concern or outright opposition to the proposal.

A new study on the potential environmental impact of chicken-droppings electricity adds weight to environmental activists’ concerns. Environmental scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University conducted a 15 month study of a similar proposal in Virginia, finding chicken-waste electricity would produce substantial pollution and any chicken-waste electricity plant would have to be located in an area currently devoid of much air pollution in order to avoid creating a serious air pollution problem.

That pretty much describes most of the Eastern Shore, which is relatively low population and high agriculture compared to the rest of Maryland, which also explains why they happen to have enough chicken shit lying around that it is practical to consider a chicken shit power plant.  Besides, if you're going to produce the shit, you might as well suffer what environmental consequences of it locally, instead of trickling it out into the Bay, and making it all of out problem.

I'm coming down in favor of this one; it's not perfect, but I think it's an improvement.  Hopefully they'll learn something from this, and the next one will be better.