Farmers Say They Need More Aid to Practice Techniques That Will Help Restore the Bay

By Lawrence Latane III

A.C. Shackelford Jr.’s Angus cattle graze within sight of the Blue Ridge, but the herd is just upstream of the Chesapeake Bay the way the cow pie falls.

He says the unnamed streams that drain the pasture feed the Rivanna River and thus the James. And when his cattle relieve themselves, their waste eventually flows past Richmond and into the bay.

Shackelford has used government grants to help with the expense of fencing his cattle out of some of the streams that cross his 365- acre Albemarle County spread.

But, like farmers throughout the 64,000-square-mile bay watershed that stretches from New York to Norfolk, he says the amount of farm aid for stream protection and other pollution-fighting "best- management practices" is not up to the job.

"Most farmers want to do what’s conservation oriented," Shackelford said. "The big thing is affording what they want to do."

State officials agree.

Virginia launched its best-management-practices program in 1984 to encourage farmers to fence livestock from streams, plant trees beside waterways and make other improvements to protect water quality. The agricultural initiative is considered one of the most cost-effective methods of reducing bay pollution.

But 21 years later, only 30 percent of the farmland in Virginia’s bay drainage is benefiting from best-management practices that are financed by the state.

Officials estimate that best-management practices, or BMPs for short, must be used on 92 percent of the farmland in the state’s bay watershed to meet pollution-reduction goals.

Even supposing that 20 percent more of the land benefits from BMPs paid for entirely by farmers, "we have a long way to go," said Joe Maroon. He is director of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, which offers cost-share grants to reduce agriculture’s impact on water quality from the state’s 8.6 million acres of farmland. The grants typically cover half or three- quarters of the expenses. Farmers, who operate on increasingly thin profit margins, pay for the rest.

The reason so few acres are being protected is money, Maroon said. All the program had to offer its first 10 years was $1 million to $2 million a year. Disbursements exceeded $10 million in 2000 but fell back to almost zero in 2002, rose to about $1 million in 2003 and dropped again in 2004.

"The boom and bust cycle has made it hard for farmers to depend on the money being there," Maroon said.

That is expected to change. This year, the fund received $7.5 million from the water quality improvement fund that receives a portion of the state budget surplus. The fund is due to receive $10 million for each of the next two years, Maroon said.

The outlays are part of an even bigger spending plan that analysts say is needed to clean up polluted waterways in the state and restore the bay.

Virginia is obligated under an agreement with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to drastically reduce nutrient pollution by 2010. Analysts put the baywide price at $12.5 billion, with farmers, city sewer customers, manufacturers and the state and federal governments sharing the bill.

"We’ve got a gun hanging over our head," said Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr., R-Fairfax, who is leading a legislative committee exploring ways to finance the cleanup.

Farming is just one source of the nutrients that harm water quality. Nutrients nitrogen and phosphorous reach the bay from septic tanks, storm drains, suburban lawns, city streets and air pollution. They flow directly into streams from the end of wastewater discharge pipes at sewage treatment plants.

Currently, about 75.4 million pounds of nitrogen a year reach the bay from Virginia sources. The goal is to trim that to 51.4 million pounds. The current number for phosphorous is 9.74 million pounds a year. The goal is to cut that to 6 million pounds.

The increase in BMP money has not been lost on farmers. On the Northern Neck, "we have seen [a] roughly 25 to 30 percent increase" in the number of farmers receiving assistance, said J.C. Berger, chairman of the region’s soil and water conservation board that oversees the local distribution of cost-share grants.

"Most of us seem to be encouraged by the awareness in the General Assembly that this is a need that’s been overlooked and not funded adequately on a sustaining basis."

BMPs for farmers

Virginia gets its biggest return for the dollar by helping farmers with the costs of the following five best-management practices, according to the state Department of Conservation and Recreation:

*Cover crops: These are grains or grasses that are planted in the fall in fallow fields. The roots hold nutrients and keep them from leaching into streams or the water table.

*Nutrient management: Specialists can give farmers a field-by- field analysis of their crops’ fertilizer needs. By tailoring the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous to a given field, less is wasted to find its way into streams or the water table.

*Conservation tillage: A revolution in "no-till farming" allows farmers to plant without plowing, thus preventing erosion, which releases sediments and nutrients from the soil.

*Livestock exclusion: Fencing cattle out of streams stabilizes stream banks to stop erosion and keeps manure out of waterways.

*Riparian buffers: Trees and grasses planted beside streams and wetlands filter nutrients before they can cause water pollution.

Where does water pollution come from?

The top three sources of water pollution in Virginia are sewage treatment plants, farms, and city and suburban landscapes collectively called urban sources. According to the state/federal Chesapeake Bay Program, here are some sources of nutrients that reached the Chesapeake Bay in 2002:

*Sewage discharges generated 32 percent of the nitrogen and 24 percent of the phosphorous.

*Farming and livestock contributed 29 percent of the nitrogen and 41 percent of the phosphorous.

*Urban sources provided 15 percent of the nitrogen and 18 percent of the phosphorous.