What's New
During the special legislative session last November, the
General Assembly created the Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund to help improve
water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. During this year’s
session, legislation passed to direct the spending from that fund.
The bill creates a system called BayStat to allocate funding
according to measurable standards guided by science. The money will be split
between programs that help farmers reduce their pollution and programs that
retrofit developed areas to minimize runoff pollution there.
Unfortunately, the legislature cut half of the funding for
the first year. Environment Maryland
will be working to make sure this is a phase-in as the programs get underway
and not an annual trend.
How You Can Help
Send and e-mail to Gov. O'Malley thanking him for strongly supporting the Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund and urging him to fully fund it next year.
Brief Summary
Excess
nutrients are widely considered to be the biggest problem facing
Maryland waterways,
creating a dead zone in which nearly all life perishes. The dead zone
in the Chesapeake Bay now includes more than a third of the bay
each summer.
In
1987, states in the bay watershed committed to a goal of 40 percent reduction
in nutrient pollution, but after nearly two decades we are still far short of
our goals. 270 million pounds of nitrogen now wash into the Chesapeake
Bay every year, 57 percent more than the bay can safely handle.
Farming
is a leading source of this runoff, producing about a third of the nitrogen and
phosphorous that runs into the bay each year. Most farmers want to minimize
their runoff, and know which best management practices can work on their farms.
Planting cover crops, creating grass or forest buffers, building manure storage
sheds, and fencing off stream crossings are all simple ways to make a big difference
in a farm’s runoff. But implementing these practices is expensive and farmers
can’t afford them on their own.
The
Maryland Agricultural Cost-Share (MACS) Program provides funding to help
farmers reduce their runoff and maintain the quality of their soils. Maryland’s
ten tributary teams, overseen by the Department of Natural Resources, have
determined the best way to reduce farmland runoff is through funding the
practices covered by the MACS program. Funding these strategies is the most
cost-effective way to help protect the bay. But the tributary teams estimate
that it will take $100 million a year for at least eight years.
Maryland is losing farmland to development at a
staggering rate. Since developers make a premium selling oversized
homes on what was rolling farmland, they should use some of those
profits to help fund practices that keep farmers on the land.
Environment Maryland is exploring this and other options to help create
a dedicated funding source to keep farming and the bay healthy.
