In this article it talks about how there is about 650 million pounds of chicken manure produced in Maryland and farmers don’t really have anywhere to put it. They leave it piled up and some of it leaks into the Chesapeake Bay. An environmental group called the Assateague Coastkeepers flew over a farm in Berlin, Md. and took a picture of what it claimed was a heap of chicken manure leaking pollution into a Chesapeake Bay tributary. The Maryland Department of the Environment did an investigation and determined the heap wasn’t poultry waste at all but treated human waste sludge from Ocean City’s sewage plant. So an activist named Kathy Phillips did her own water testing downstream from the heap and it showed high fecal bacteria levels in the stream. The MDE says they can take any actions they want with or without taking samples from the heap. They said that they were confident that the material was sewage sludge but still intend to take a sample of the water as requested by the Coastkeeper. The case is still not solved yet and the MDE is trying to put it under a cover but the Coastkeeper filed a notice and it became a bigger concern than expected.
I think this situation should be handled in the proper manner. We don’t know how much the manure could have an effect on the bay. It could do major harm to the animals living in the water and it could have a ripple effect to humans since we eat crabs and fish from the bay. One way they could handle it is to find a way to use the manure in ways that they use cow and horse manure. It may be helpful for land and plants. Another is to just put it in trash bags and take it to the dump. Items that are in the dump are similar to it and probably can’t be reused so they can just add it with it.
-Damien Kinchen
