From the Chickens to the Crabs - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 67

mixed with the sawdust or peanut hulls used for bedding—into big piles. Tractors
spread the litter across acres of row crops, as fertilizer. This is an ancient, and seemingly
holistic, method of farming. But the sheer volume of poultry waste in the Shenandoah
Valley has overwhelmed the ability of crops and the soil to absorb it. The inevitable res-
ult is that it seeps into local waterways.
According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group, Rocking-
ham County has more excess manure on its animal farms than any other county in the
nation. This agricultural pollution is immeasurably worsened by the large number of
septic systems and “straight pipes” from area homes, which dump human sewage into
the ground and eventually into the water table. A 1999 USGS survey found that nitrate
concentrations in the Delmarva Peninsula, in Maryland, were among the highest in the
country. In 2008, chicken farms there produced an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of ma-
nure , which was reportedly more than the annual human waste of New York, Washing-
ton, DC, San Francisco, and Atlanta combined.
Bill Satterield , executive director of the Delmarva Poultry Industry, defends the in-
tegrators. In a 2009 essay titled “Every Day Is Earth Day for Delmarva's Chicken In-
dustry,” he wrote, “To single out the broiler industry as 'the bad guy' in the Chesapeake
Bay region is simplistic and sensationalistic and not based on the facts.” He has said that
the poultry industry aggressively reduced nutrient pollutants in the previous decade.
Because groundwater moves slowly, the effect of farming practices from thirty or forty
years ago “may have allowed nutrients to get into the aquifers.” But, he added, simply
because the USGS study found the highest concentrations of nutrients near poultry
farms doesn't necessarily mean the farms are the source.
“ I'm not sure what these studies indicate ,” he told the PBS news show Frontline.“Is
it nutrients from a chicken, from a fox, from Canada geese, from ducks, from cats, from
dogs, from humans, from septic systems? … If we're going to talk scientific data, let's
not jump to conclusions.”
The question of who is legally responsible for the chicken manure is murky. Poultry
industry spokesmen, such as Satterfield, maintain that the manure belongs to the grow-
ers, who are happy to use it as fertilizer. “The manure is considered a resource, actually,”
Jim Perdue , chairman of Perdue Farms Inc., told Frontline.“We're trying to help [the
farmers] understand what the EPA wants … the farmer puts the litter on his land, and
that's a nutrient management plan, and we're not involved in that, you know? If he puts
chemicals on his land, he's responsible for what he does.”
Nevertheless, Carole Morison, who lives on the Delmarva Peninsula, told me,
“ Nobody educates farmers about water pollution. I've never had anyone come here and
say, 'What we're doing is not good for the environment.' Never. Not once.” Rather, Per-
due's representatives would tell her about legislation proposed to limit industry prac-