From the Chickens to the Crabs - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 65

which blot out sunlight and suck up oxygen in the water, killing all other aquatic life.
This excessive plant growth is called eutrophication, and it is a growing concern world-
wide. It leaves behind vast swaths of lifeless water, commonly referred to as dead zones.
“We've come to realize that eutrophication is one of the most important questions facing
the hydrologic community today,” Hirsch mused in a deep baritone. “Scientists have
studied it for fifty years and have a pretty good handle on its causes and effects. Typic-
ally, it's caused by some combination of excessive nitrogen and phosphorus in the water.
But even with this knowledge, it remains a difficult problem to solve.”
But clearly, the problems of big, conspicuous places such as Chesapeake Bay begin in
small, seemingly innocuous places such as Muddy Creek.
THE INTEGRATORS AND THE REGULATORS
Since the 1990s, the quality of Muddy Creek has significantly improved, thanks to a con-
certed effort by farmers, and state and federal assistance. While its fecal coliform count
has decreased by 44 percent, Muddy Creek is still listed as “slightly impaired” and is
likely to remain that way.
One likely source of the creek's contamination was staring me in the face. On the op-
posite bank, a cluster of horses whisked their tails and eyed us curiously from behind
a fence. Up the hill a herd of black cows wallowed in a cool mudhole; as they relieved
themselves into a ditch, the runoff carried their manure straight downhill into the creek.
Across the road, a herd of goats scampered across a field, scattering manure bomblets
as they went. A tractor snorted in the distance.
Almost every vista in the Shenandoah Valley includes a farmhouse, and appended to
virtually every one was at least one—but more often two, three, or a half dozen—long,
low, windowless sheds. Undistinguished beige structures, they housed chickens or tur-
keys.
he Shenandoah Valley has nine hundred poultry farms , and in 2000 they held 265
million broiler chickens, 25.5 million turkeys, and 824 million eggs. A giant bronze tur-
key statue, mounted on a stone base, declares Rockingham County, a two-hour drive
from downtown Washington, DC, to be Virginia's “turkey capital.” At the same time,
Rockingham's farmland is increasingly being plowed under for new highways, develop-
ments, and big-box stores. Each of these is equipped with hard roads, roofs, and parking
lots, which hasten storm-water runoff.
In the 1800s, farmers in Rockingham County kept simple chicken coops in their
backyards. As the population grew, so did the poultry business. In the 1920s, Charles W.
Wampler Sr. , “the father of the modern turkey industry,” raised the first flock hatched