Our Pure Farms, Pure Waters campaign calls attention to the destructive pollution practices of industrialized meat production, ensures compliance with environmental laws, and supports the traditional family farms that industrial practices endanger.
It's an old saying on Maryland's Eastern Shore that the stink in the air from chicken houses is "the smell of money." But the problem here isn't stink. It is a documented and very real public health concern to all communities in lower Delaware, the lower Eastern Shore of Md and Accomack County, VA.
Growing chickens is no longer a 'family farm' enterprise. The lower Eastern Shore of Maryland has the highest concentration of poultry production in the United States. We also have some of the highest asthma and cancer rates in Maryland.
Poultry houses are now the length of three football fields, with up to a dozen or more squeezed on to small parcels with no land for other crop production. In many cases the owners of these facilities live elsewhere and hire managers to control the houses. These are not 'farms' - they are factories. These industrial scale operations are emitting as much as 40,000 tons of ammonia per year in to the air of Delmarva depositing nitrogen into our waterways, and they also emit bacteria laden particulates into our air. These are factories and should be zoned, regulated and issued water discharge and air emission Permits as industrial operations.
ACT has been working with communities on the lower Eastern Shore who are experiencing the impacts of industrial scale poultry production on their neighborhoods as suburban/rural sprawl and poor zoning laws collide. In 2017, frustrated by two years of being ignored by local politicians and health departments, and their Eastern Shore delegation to the Maryland General Assembly, residents and concerned community groups drafted and introduced The Community Healthy Air Act, a bill that would require the MD Dept. of Environment to conduct a study of air emissions from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and report back to the public what exactly is being exhausted in to the air these communities are breathing.
Due to heavy lobbying by the Farm Bureau, Delmarva Poultry Industry (the lobbying group for Perdue, Tyson, MountAire and others,) and no support by the Eastern Shore Delegation, the bill failed to be voted out of committee in the General Assembly in 2017 and 2018. Because of broad support by residents of the Eastern Shore for stronger regulation of factory farms, and support for the Community Healthy Air Act by many State lawmakers (except the Eastern Shore Delegation) it is being re-introduced in 2019.
Visit this page in February 2019 to see updates as we move the Community Healthy Air Act through Senate and House committees to the General Assembly for full debate.
Listen to this podcast of the Marc Steiner Show 'Sound Bites' from a November 2016 Town Hall meeting in Salisbury, MD (co-hosted by ACT) about Industrial CAFOs, Economics, and Public Health on Delmarva, where Dr. Jillian Fry discusses the scientific literature documenting air pollution and public health concerns from poultry CAFOs, and others talk about the economic impacts of factory farming in rural communities.
Read this April 2018 Opinion piece, in The Washington Post, by Carole Morison (a former Perdue grower) about the Community Healthy Air Act and the failure of the Eastern Shore's elected officials to protect the health of the communities they represent.
Read this March 2018 Opinion piece in the Baltimore Sun by our Assateague COASTKEEPER, calling for State and Federal air emissions regulation to protect public health and our waterways.
Growing chickens is no longer a 'family farm' enterprise. The lower Eastern Shore of Maryland has the highest concentration of poultry production in the United States. We also have some of the highest asthma and cancer rates in Maryland.
Poultry houses are now the length of three football fields, with up to a dozen or more squeezed on to small parcels with no land for other crop production. In many cases the owners of these facilities live elsewhere and hire managers to control the houses. These are not 'farms' - they are factories. These industrial scale operations are emitting as much as 40,000 tons of ammonia per year in to the air of Delmarva depositing nitrogen into our waterways, and they also emit bacteria laden particulates into our air. These are factories and should be zoned, regulated and issued water discharge and air emission Permits as industrial operations.
ACT has been working with communities on the lower Eastern Shore who are experiencing the impacts of industrial scale poultry production on their neighborhoods as suburban/rural sprawl and poor zoning laws collide. In 2017, frustrated by two years of being ignored by local politicians and health departments, and their Eastern Shore delegation to the Maryland General Assembly, residents and concerned community groups drafted and introduced The Community Healthy Air Act, a bill that would require the MD Dept. of Environment to conduct a study of air emissions from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and report back to the public what exactly is being exhausted in to the air these communities are breathing.
Due to heavy lobbying by the Farm Bureau, Delmarva Poultry Industry (the lobbying group for Perdue, Tyson, MountAire and others,) and no support by the Eastern Shore Delegation, the bill failed to be voted out of committee in the General Assembly in 2017 and 2018. Because of broad support by residents of the Eastern Shore for stronger regulation of factory farms, and support for the Community Healthy Air Act by many State lawmakers (except the Eastern Shore Delegation) it is being re-introduced in 2019.
Visit this page in February 2019 to see updates as we move the Community Healthy Air Act through Senate and House committees to the General Assembly for full debate.
Listen to this podcast of the Marc Steiner Show 'Sound Bites' from a November 2016 Town Hall meeting in Salisbury, MD (co-hosted by ACT) about Industrial CAFOs, Economics, and Public Health on Delmarva, where Dr. Jillian Fry discusses the scientific literature documenting air pollution and public health concerns from poultry CAFOs, and others talk about the economic impacts of factory farming in rural communities.
Read this April 2018 Opinion piece, in The Washington Post, by Carole Morison (a former Perdue grower) about the Community Healthy Air Act and the failure of the Eastern Shore's elected officials to protect the health of the communities they represent.
Read this March 2018 Opinion piece in the Baltimore Sun by our Assateague COASTKEEPER, calling for State and Federal air emissions regulation to protect public health and our waterways.
Florence Exposes Vulnerabilities & Punctuates The Environmental Dangers Of CAFO's
As we watched overflowing rivers in North Carolina flood hog & chicken Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), Maryland state and county permitting agencies continue to allow new huge industrial scale poultry CAFOs to be built in or adjacent to Delmarva flood plains, streams, and rivers.
Sea level is expected to rise between 2.1 and 5.7 feet along the Maryland coast by 2100. Increases in sea level are also exacerbated by storm surges and these more frequent storms are forecasted to be increasingly severe. On Delmarva, where much of the region exists at or below 35 feet above current sea levels, rising seas are particularly critical. But even at current sea levels we have a ticking time bomb on lower Delmarva.
To read more, click HERE.
Sea level is expected to rise between 2.1 and 5.7 feet along the Maryland coast by 2100. Increases in sea level are also exacerbated by storm surges and these more frequent storms are forecasted to be increasingly severe. On Delmarva, where much of the region exists at or below 35 feet above current sea levels, rising seas are particularly critical. But even at current sea levels we have a ticking time bomb on lower Delmarva.
To read more, click HERE.
JUDGE AGREES WITH ACT, SAYS MDE APPROVED PERMIT IS NOT PROTECTIVE OF CLEAN WATER.
In late 2017, ACT and our legal partner Environmental Action Center, filed a request with the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings for a Contested Case Hearing in the matter of a CAFO General Permit application approved by the MD Department of Environment (MDE) even though the applicant could not provide adequate manure storage, or adequate composting storage of dead chickens, thereby not meeting the clean water protections of the General Permit and posing a threat to the Pocomoke River.
In May 2018 an Administrative Law Judge agreed with ACT and reversed the CAFO Permit. Read the full press release here. Read the ALJ Proposed Decision here.
In May 2018 an Administrative Law Judge agreed with ACT and reversed the CAFO Permit. Read the full press release here. Read the ALJ Proposed Decision here.
FAIR FARMS MARYLAND
A movement of environmental and public health groups, businesses, consumers, and farmers committed to a sustainable food system.
Fair Farms Maryland seeks to create awareness about the relationship between agriculture, water, food and public health; galvanize Marylanders to reduce agricultural pollution; and support farmers, businesses and public policies that promote healthy, sustainable agricultural practices.
ACT and Assateague COASTKEEPER joins Waterkeepers Chesapeake's Fair Farms Maryland campaign in helping to create a more diverse and healthy system of agriculture on the Lower Eastern Shore.
Learn more about Fair Farms Maryland here.
Fair Farms Maryland seeks to create awareness about the relationship between agriculture, water, food and public health; galvanize Marylanders to reduce agricultural pollution; and support farmers, businesses and public policies that promote healthy, sustainable agricultural practices.
ACT and Assateague COASTKEEPER joins Waterkeepers Chesapeake's Fair Farms Maryland campaign in helping to create a more diverse and healthy system of agriculture on the Lower Eastern Shore.
Learn more about Fair Farms Maryland here.
THE COMMUNITY HEALTHY AIR ACT #cleanairstudy
OTHER ACTIONS TO PROTECT COMMUNITIES AND WATER QUALITY
Learn more about communities standing up to pollution from Industrial scale poultry production by joining their Facebook group pages: Concerned Citizens Against Industrial CAFOs, Protectors of Our Indian River, and Protectors of the St. Martin River
In 2014, with partner Food and Water Watch, ACT and our COASTKEEPER challenged Maryland's Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) General Permit for Discharges because the many deficiencies in the Permit did not protect water quality. As a result, we brought the Permit into compliance with Federal clean water laws, and now through a court Appeal on March 5 we will attempt requiring in-stream water quality monitoring in the permit to assure the discharges are not polluting.
In 2014, with partner Food and Water Watch, ACT and our COASTKEEPER challenged Maryland's Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) General Permit for Discharges because the many deficiencies in the Permit did not protect water quality. As a result, we brought the Permit into compliance with Federal clean water laws, and now through a court Appeal on March 5 we will attempt requiring in-stream water quality monitoring in the permit to assure the discharges are not polluting.
