“IMPORTANT VICTORIES” SEEN AS WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE FILES PIA REQUEST WITH MARYLAND DEP’T OF ENVIRONMENT TO GET TO BOTTOM OF PERDUE’S HUDSON FARM FACILITY POLLUTION
Assateague Coastkeeper Outlines Major Gains in Initial Efforts to Minimize Pollution After Lawsuit Notice Filed in December.
OCEAN CITY, MD. - January 12, 2010 – The Waterkeeper Alliance reported today that it has filed a Public Information Act (PIA) request to compel the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to produce all records about its dealing with the Perdue’s Hudson Farm, a chicken factory farm located in Berlin, MD., known to be polluting Maryland waterways and endangering human health.
At the same time, Assateague Coastkeeper Kathy Phillips said that her organization already has achieved “important victories for water quality” in that the Perdue Hudson Farm manure pile (purportedly consisting of human waste) was largely cleaned up in the wake of a MDE inspector’s visit prompted by the December 17, 2009 notice of intent to file suit for violations of the Clean Water Act at the Eastern Shore facility, an 80,000-bird Concentrated Animal Feed Operation (CAFO) owned by Alan Hudson, a contract grower for Perdue Farms.
Phillips pointed to these important developments spurred by the filing of the NOI:
· The trenches extending from the manure pile to a ditch leading directly to a waterway were filled in to block further pollution.
· The manure pile photographed on Dec. 9. 2009 has been removed, and there is no longer a pile of waste material in this location
· There seems to be a new, tarp-covered pile on site further removed from the drainage ditch.
· As a result of these steps, the pollution problem has been mitigated somewhat for the time being. While the group no longer is finding fecal coliform levels at 100-200 times levels permitted by the Environmental Protection Administration for treated human sewage (Class A Biosolids), the bacteria levels detected at the Perdue operation are still high enough to be problematic in terms of water quality.
The PIA was filed as a result of contradictory statements attributed to MDE about the extent of sampling and testing, the results of such sampling and testing, and whether or not the pile was removed from the Perdue facility or simply relocated on the Hudson Farm to a different location without a connection to a waterway.
The Assateague Coastkeeper has December and January aerial photographs of the pollution site confirming that major steps were taken after the filing of the NOI and the subsequent MDE inspector visit.
Phillips emphasized the matter is not yet closed and that the group will remain ever vigilant: “It goes without saying that none of these actions would have been taken by MDE or Perdue in the absence of a real pollution problem. As such, the proof of the validity of our concerns is not just in the water samples, but also in the fact that the parties apparently felt compelled to take such immediate action. At the same time, the Public Information Act request was necessary because MDE will not disclose to us voluntarily what is going on at the Perdue site, how long the state knew about it, what (if any testing) was done, and what kind of pressure the state faced from the federal EPA to clean up this and related problems.”
Phillips added: “Unfortunately, what we saw with Perdue’s Hudson Farm – piles of uncovered waste sitting in open fields, going right into drainage ditches that carry pollution to the area’s streams and rivers, and eventually to the Bay – is commonplace throughout the Eastern Shore. Until this industry takes responsibility for its waste, and state environmental agencies get serious about protecting our waterways, no amount of taxpayer money, ongoing study or well-intentioned legislation is going to fix the Bay’s problems.”
The Waterkeeper Alliance PIA and the Perdue farm aerial photos are available online at http://www.assateaguecoastkeeper.org.
BACKGROUND
The NOI filed against Hudson Farm and Perdue was the culmination of several years of intense scrutiny of the Maryland CAFO industry for its contribution to the ongoing decline in health of the state’s local waters. The results of recent water sampling from ditches that ran past an extensive, uncovered waste pile on the property show high levels of many toxic pollutants, including fecal coliform, phosphorus and nitrogen.
In addition, photographic evidence taken from both the ground and the air over the past few months clearly shows the runoff from the manure pile to the surrounding ditch drainage areas. The facility discharges pollution into the Franklin Branch of the Pocomoke River, which then empties into Chesapeake Bay. Both the Pocomoke and the Bay have been listed as impaired for nutrients under the Clean Water Act.
Corporate-owned, large-scale factory farm facilities in Maryland and other states nationwide produce a significant amount of waste, including manure and slaughter byproduct. This year, Maryland’s Department of the Environment finalized a state Maryland Animal Feed Operation, or MAFO, permit for some of these facilities which allow for piles of manure to sit in open fields for up to 90 days. The federal CAFO permit that Hudson Farm applied for by filing a Notice of Intent with MDE allows for stockpiling of manure for a 14-day period.
Under either the federal and state permitting system, however, discharges from manure piles are illegal. As a result of inevitable discharges from manure stockpiling, these growing operations continue to pollute drinking and recreational water supplies by fouling rivers, lakes, streams and underground aquifers with untreated livestock manure.
Assateague Coastkeeper is an on-the-water advocate that patrols and protects the coastal bays of Maryland and the northern Virginia Eastern Shore, standing up to polluters and guaranteeing everyone’s right to clean water. More information can be found at http://www.assateaguecoastkeeper.org.
CONTACT: Leslie Anderson, for Assateague Coastkeeper, (703) 276-3256 or landerson@hastingsgroup.com.
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