Copyright 1998 Charleston Newspapers
Charleston Daily Mail
January 02, 1998, Friday
SECTION: News; Pg. P6A
LENGTH: 350 words
HEADLINE: Fish problems focus of meeting Farmers fear rules will
limit fertilizer use
BODY:
SALISBURY, Md. - Legislators on Maryland's Eastern Shore plan
to meet next week to discuss what the General Assembly might do
to control the microorganism blamed for fish kills and human health
problems.
"What we're afraid of is we're going to see mandatory
nutrient management plans that will not allow us to use fertilizer
on about 80 percent of the land down here," said state Sen.
J. Lowell Stoltzfus.
The hearing will be held Monday night to hear from cabinet
secretaries about the Pfiesteria situation.
"There has been a lot of misinformation" about Pfiesteria
piscicida, said Wicomico County Councilman Rusty Molnar, who
organized the meeting.
Molnar, who also is a farmer, has complained in the past that
environmentalists and the media have unfairly singled out agriculture
as the culprit.
Scientists suggested that nutrient runoff from farms and animal
manure may promote the growth of Pfiesteria.
A gubernatorial commission has recommended that every farm
in Maryland have a nutrient control plan in place by 2002.
Poultry industry officials, citing a University of Maryland
study, said last month that even a 4 percent decline in chicken
production would cost 880 jobs and $ 29 million in personal income
and business profits.
The microorganism is not only threatening the poultry industry.
Seafood sales declined sharply after Maryland officials closed
portions of three waterways to fishing and swimming over concerns
about Pfiesteria. But the uproar faded with the coming of cold
weather, when the organisms typically become dormant.
An environmental coalition led by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation
is pushing for a more drastic measure: taxing the poultry industry
1 cent per pound of chicken and putting the money into a fund
to truck chicken manure off the eastern shore.
Stoltzfus said prohibiting the spreading fertilizer on farmland
that already has a high phosphorus level would eliminate most
Lower Shore farmland.
"That's scary," he said.
"What do we do with all the manure?"
LOAD-DATE: January 06, 1998