Feds back off on farm and stormwater rules

EPA to let states try to reduce bay pollution first

By PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writer

Published 11/10/09

The federal government is promising to crack down on pollution from factory farms and urban stormwater that harms the Chesapeake Bay - that is, unless the states do it first.

The federal government is offering the wiggle room after Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia government officials complained about potentially far-reaching new regulations on their farmers.

"The states generally believe they have a lot of local knowledge. They have a lot of programs working well. They would like the first shot at constructing new regulatory regimes," said Chuck Fox, a top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official for bay...

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Chesapeake Bay - 2009-11-10 17:42:52

When a quarter of the people living on the Eastern seaboard are still allowed to use the Chesapeake Bay as a giant urinal, nobody should be surprised that all the programs to control pollution have failed. Most people think (are misinformed) that when you flush your toilet their waste is treated, but what people do not know is, that their sewage is only treated to prevent odors and that most sewage treatment plants do not treat the nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste, since that is not required by EPA. (www.petermaier.net)
This waste with carbon dioxide the real waste products of human bodies, besides exerting an oxygen demand (like fecal waste) is also a fertilizer for algae, mostly responsible for eutrophication and eventually dead zones. Since all this is caused by a faulty test, acknowledged but never corrected by EPA in 1984, it is extremely discouraging that correcting this essential test is impossible and that nobody is willing to hold the EPA or members of Congress accountable. One also has to wonder why the media is not interested? Or is this too difficult to understand?

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Peter Maier - Stansbury, UT - Karma: Neutral