Everyone is Facing New Regulations

I spent all day Tuesday at a local farm show and lost track of the number of people who came up wondering why people weren't concerned about the sewage treatment plants and/or lawn management in regard to the new regulations to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.  We were at a farm show, and I'm a dairy educator, so I tend to focus on the agriculture regulations, but sewage treatment plants and lawn care are certainly on the radar of EPA and more regulations are coming to these sectors as well. 

Sewage treatment plants are looking at very expensive upgrades.  Also, discharge from sewage treatment plants is easy to monitor because it all comes out of one pipe, therefore, regulations are relatively easy to enforce. Because sewage treatment plants may not be able to come up with the money for the necessary upgrades there may be opportunity for farmers to get involved in nutrient trading.

As for lawn care management, EPA is very much aware that lawn care is contributing a large proportion of the nutrient loading to the Chesapeake Bay.  There are more and more people moving into the Chesapeake Bay watershed so even though one little lawn may not be adding much, the large number of lawns really bumps up the nutrient loading. 

Because the focus of this blog is agriculture and the environment I won't spend too much on this topic, but I did want to set the record straight that farming is not the only focus when it comes to the Chesapeake Bay and everyone will have to make changes.