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Showing 22 results

Anne Havemann | January 21, 2015

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan Should Reverse his Opposition to the PMT

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan was sworn in earlier today and legislators, farmers, environmentalists, state agency staff, and scientists are waiting with bated breath to see whether he will act on his post-election promise to fight the proposed Phosphorous Management Tool (PMT). The desperately needed regulation would limit the amount of phosphorus-laded chicken manure farmers can spread […]

Anne Havemann | December 18, 2014

Electronic Reporting Requirements: A No-Brainer

The main tool available to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit the amount of pollution discharged into the nation’s waterways is a system of permits issued to polluters that restricts how much they may discharge. This permitting scheme, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), requires permittees to monitor their operations and report back […]

Anne Havemann | December 12, 2014

Maryland’s Phosphorus-Laden Farms: One More Reason for the EPA to Get Back to Work on a Comprehensive CAFO Rule

Under an Obama Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will strictly monitor and regulate pollution from large industrial animal farms, with fines for those who violate tough air and water quality standards. —Sen. Barack Obama, 2008 The animal farms to which then-candidate Obama was referring are known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), and they house […]

Anne Havemann | December 8, 2014

New Map Plots Farmer-Reported Data to Show “Excessive” Soil Phosphorus Levels at All But One of 60 Large Poultry Farms in Six Eastern Shore Counties Due to Manure Usage

Without Better Phosphorus Management on Farms, Maryland Will Not Meet its Responsibility Under the Chesapeake Bay Pollution Diet A new interactive map from the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) and the Chesapeake Commons demonstrates that all but one industrial-scale chicken farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore reported having at least one field saturated with “excessive” soil phosphorus from […]

Anne Havemann | December 5, 2014

Obama’s Path to Progress: Protecting our Nation’s Lakes and Streams from Pollutant-Laden Stormwater Runoff

This week and next, CPR is using this space to highlight several key regulatory safeguards meant to ensure that the nation’s rivers, lakes, and streams are protected from damaging pollution—rules that are currently under development by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and included in our recent Issue Alert, Barack Obama’s Path to Progress in 2015-16: Thirteen […]

Anne Havemann | November 18, 2014

Oral Argument Begins in Farm Lobby’s Misguided Challenge to Bay Pollution Diet

Today, the Third Circuit will hear arguments in a case to determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overstepped its authority when it established a pollution diet for the Chesapeake Bay. After decades of failed attempts to clean up the Bay, the pollution diet imposes strong, enforceable deadlines for cleanup. Even without distracting and misguided […]

Anne Havemann | October 23, 2014

CPR Submits Comments on Proposed Permit for Maryland’s Industrial Animal Farms

This week, CPR President Rena Steinzor and I joined with the Maryland Clean Agriculture Coalition to submit comments to the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) urging the state to strengthen the permit that regulates Maryland’s nearly 600 industrial animal farms. MDE is in the process of renewing the General Discharge Permit, a one-size-fits-all permit […]

Anne Havemann | September 12, 2014

After Four Years, Chesapeake Polluters’ Free Ride May be Coming to an End

If you own a car, you’re used to paying a registration fee every two years. It may not be your favorite activity, but you do it. And you recognize that the fees and others like it help offset the cost of making sure vehicles on Maryland’s roads are safe, that their polluting emissions are within […]

Anne Havemann | September 3, 2014

The Rest of the Story Behind the Bay’s Enormous Dead Zone

Monday’s Washington Post article on the massive oxygen-depleted areas in the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico promised to uncover how “faltering” “pollution curbs” were contributing to the dead zones. Instead, the article focused almost exclusively on the dead zones themselves, providing nothing on the vital, yet stalled, regulatory solutions. The article mentioned that fertilizer […]