Chesapeake Bay Diet Spooks Midwest Farmers

Chesapeake Bay ag authorities and farmers alert Illinois Soybean Association farmers of EPA's regulatory implications for the Midwest

Last Thursday, five Illinois Soybean Association growers returned home spooked by their three-day fact-finding mission to Eastern Shore Maryland and Delaware. The most cogent take-home message was: U.S. EPA's Chesapeake Bay [water cleanup] model may be headed into the Midwest. And it would impact all farmland, not just concentrated animal feeding operations.

The biggest question was: How soon? No bets were placed on that one since it hinges more on political science than sound science.
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They learned the regulatory details of Maryland's mandatory nutrient management program and Delaware's voluntary nutrient management plan from State Ag Secretaries Joe Bartenfelder of Maryland and Ed Kee of Delaware, along with the lead managers of both states nutrient management programs. And they visited farms to learn first-hand how crop and broiler chicken producers were coping by the Chesapeake Bay model.

Waterkeeper environmental groups on the lower Mississippi River already have threatened to bring suit against EPA and Army Corp of Engineers, reports Richard Wilkins, first vice president of the American Soybean Association. The latest threat came in March when the Des Moines [Iowa] Water Works filed a lawsuit against three northern Iowa drainage districts for nitrate pollution of the Raccoon River watershed.

Ah yes, the famous, "Sue and Settle" tactic favored and encouraged by EPA.

The Iowa lawsuit may be a likely Bay model precursor . . . just as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's initial lawsuit against EPA was the trigger for the Chesapeake Bay's pollution diet, suggests Wilkins, a Greenwood, Del., farmer.

The Chesapeake Bay Model, if imposed on the Mississippi River Basin, could mandate that all 13 states develop watershed implementation plans covering all croplands, not just CAFOs. The Illinois farmers were really spooked by the extensive required nutrient management records on all fields, the equally extensive best management practices needed, and the education and regulatory oversight required. High nitrates in the Kankakee River and Lake Springfield are already well-known problems.

The enviro-weenies at the EPA won't be satisfied until the cost of food is so high that you'll need a government grant to enjoy the mandated soy-burger. That may even be the objective.

It would be nice if food miraculously appeared out of grails and didn't require the conversion of wild land to cultivation, fertilization of that land to get adequate yields to feed the nation, and the consequent environmental changes. But that is not the world we live in, and we must find a middle path between total disregard for the environmental consequences of obtaining food and regulation so harsh as to hinder most agriculture unnecessarily, decrease the amount of food available and increase prices. I don't trust the EPA in it's current form to try to walk that middle path.