NCGA Pushes For Responsible & Responsive Watershed Legislation
11/09/2009 03:50PM
Bookmark
Subscribe
The Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife held a hearing to consider legislation affecting the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico S. 1816 would give expanded authority to EPA to regulate non-point source pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. S. 1311 would establish a new watershed program for the Mississippi River Basin specifically to address nutrient loading and hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.
“NCGA takes a strong leadership role on this legislation, which could affect farmers nationwide should these models and standards become the norm,” said Production and Stewardship Action Team Chair Steve Ebke, of Daykin, Neb. “We find the current legislation especially troubling as it is not flexible enough to deal with realities that farmers must face daily, including unpredictable weather events.”
NCGA joined with a number of other agricultural organizations in submitting testimony to the subcommittee. Specifically, the testimony states that the signing organizations are “concerned about the requirements established by this legislation with little or no consideration to economic impact or future growth” and lacks flexibility and voluntary provisions that would make this legislation more acceptable and effective for all stakeholders.
To view this testimony in its entirety, please click here.
Last week, farm groups from Virginia, including the Virginia Grain Producers Association, visited Capitol Hill to express concern with the Chesapeake Bay legislation. S. 1816 would lead to new Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) allocations for nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as the establishment of a water quality trading regime in the Mid-Atlantic region.
One major concern for farm groups is the flawed Chesapeake Bay Model, which attempts to identify polluters by sector and how it affects the bay. This data is used to establish the TMDLs for the watershed. The model severely undercounts the amount of conservation practices currently underway within the agriculture sector, which means that Agency overestimates the nutrient and sediment load allocations coming from farmland. In reality, agriculture is the only non-point sector in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that has consistently improved its water quality performance.
While the current legislation proposed for the Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico does not impose the same standards as those affecting the Chesapeake Bay area, many organizations believe that if these standards and models are adopted they will eventually spread to this region of the country as well.
To view a complete witness list, please click here.