January 7, 2008

Maryland to tighten pollution watch on poultry farms

Officials in Maryland US are proposing for the state's environmental agency to control pollution from the eastern shore's huge poultry industry.

Large chicken farms are to procure state permits and follow a list of pollution control requirements or pay up to US$10,000 per day, the draft rules show.

The permits would be required for about 200 farms and would allow the Maryland Department of the Environment to inspect chicken houses and take water samples in streams nearby.

Lately, it has been found that chicken manure runoff is one of the largest sources of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.

State officials said the impositions would aid in the restoration of bay's health. Other local effort would be geared to improve sewage treatment plants and fix leaky urban storm water pipes.

However, a chicken industry spokesman said new regulations are unnecessary and would be difficult to enforce.

Bill Satterfield, executive director of Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., said that the permits should be required for factories, and not on family farms.

Maryland has for years required industrial-style pollution control permits for large dairy and hog farms. Poultry was exempted, even though it makes up for the largest enterprise in the state, with 272 million chickens a year producing about a billion pounds of manure.