Gerald Winegrad: Chicken industry wins again, crippling Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts

Once again, the multi-billion-dollar chicken industry has won a major battle to block its grossly polluting practices that impede public health and the Chesapeake Bay’s restoration.

Disgustingly, the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) pulled out all stops in convincing the Maryland Supreme Court to strike down a March 2021 Montgomery County Circuit Court decision that would have forced MDE to properly regulate dangerous ammonia gas emissions from poultry farms.

The Aug. 9 court decision means the status quo prevails and allows minimal, if any, direct regulation of massive amounts of poultry industry ammonia releases.

As the one dissenting judge noted, there are likely at least 40,000 tons of ammonia emitted annually from such operations — equal to the weight of 1,700 Ford 150 pickup trucks. One of the new larger chicken houses can produce five tons of ammonia annually.

So, why would MDE fight the lower court’s decision and why did the Supreme Court comply? The reality is the chicken industry has a major and insidious influence in Maryland.

In his first days in office, then-Gov. Larry Hogan reversed common sense regulations of major poultry pollutants. Mountaire, one of the largest U.S. chicken producers, had made a $250,000 donation to the Republican Governors Association. It was used to fund TV ads for Hogan’s 2014 campaign.

The Environmental Integrity Project’s meticulously researched “Blind Eye to Big Chicken” 2021 report documented how MDE and the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) abdicated their responsibilities to enforce poultry regulations allowing chicken growers to violate state laws with impunity. The court ignored this report.

It was the Hogan MDE that argued strenuously on Nov. 3, 2022, to overturn the lower court mandate to regulate ammonia emissions. The reason given was that MDE already regulated ammonia under a Clean Water Act broad general permit.

Chicken growers are supposed to submit a nutrient management plan (NMP), but these plans were not designed to cover ammonia emissions. In twisted reasoning, MDE contended they were.

Six Supreme Court judges went out of their way to agree with MDE and side with KING CHICKEN. All six were appointed by Hogan.

Judge Shirley Watts disagreed and issued a well-reasoned 47-page dissent urging that the Circuit Court should determine if the MDE regulatory regimen properly controlled ammonia emissions. Under MDE’s ridiculously flawed system, each individual chicken grower is allowed to develop its own NMP, if qualified by the Maryland Department of Agriculture, or hire and pay for a qualified planner to draft the NMP.

These plans are not designed to cover air emissions. Watts noted that only if the grower or other plan writer determined that outdoor air quality is a concern, does ammonia have to be addressed. Watts stated: “To put it colloquially, having a writer of a Required Plan determine whether outdoor air quality is a resource concern is like having a fox guard the henhouse.”

In fact, of 550 large poultry farms’ nutrient management plans recently reviewed, none covered ammonia emissions even though all chicken growing operations emit ammonia.

Watts also wrote that many poultry operations were in the state’s lowest income areas with high percentages of minority populations noting that evidence presented showed that ammonia from chicken houses posed substantial public health risks.

So why is ammonia a concern? Ammonia is a toxic gas (NH3) that comes from animal feces and urine and is blown out of huge chicken houses by industrial-sized fans.

In 2022, there were 4,889 chicken houses on the Delmarva Peninsula with a capacity of 134 million chickens — an average of 27,408 birds per house. Chicken litter accumulates in chicken houses from excrement, urine, feed residue and feathers mixed with bedding material and wood chips.

It is cleaned out after chicken flocks are removed for slaughter about five times a year. The litter is stored and most of it is dumped onto land, emitting more ammonia.

Confined animal feeding operations are the main source of agricultural air pollutants ammonia and greenhouse gases. Ammonia is toxic to animals and one of the more worrisome gases in terms of air quality and environmental impacts.

It influences early onset of asthma in children, contributes to fine particulate matter that can penetrate deep into lungs and cause long-term illnesses such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and lung cancer. Agriculture is the source of more than 81% of all global NH3 emissions.

Poultry farm workers and those living nearby might be affected. Some citizens near poultry operations have unusually high rates of cancer, gastrointestinal disease and respiratory illnesses.

About 66% of people living near Pennsylvania poultry houses were more likely to be diagnosed with pneumonia. In Wicomico County, adult asthma emergency room visits were double the state rate. Researchers concluded: “It is imperative that food production does not come at a cost to the world’s ability to breathe.”

Ammonia breaks down into nitrates with poultry operations contributing 12 million pounds of nitrogen to the bay annually — more than all the wastewater, including excrement, from six million Marylanders. Nitrogen is the most serious pollutant causing the decline of the Chesapeake Bay with agriculture responsible for 42%, much of this from the poultry industry.

There are simple and cheap measures to reduce ammonia with federal and state cost-share monies paying most of the cost. These include feed amendments and adding aluminum sulfate (alum) to litter.

Cheap natural clay-based adsorbents can also be used. This could reduce ammonia emissions by 75% while lowering chicken mortality and producing heavier chickens. Hedgerows of trees, shrubs and grasses planted near poultry house ventilation fans can further reduce ammonia. But MDE and MDA refuse to require such measures.

In 2022, the industrialized Delmarva chicken industry produced 596 million chickens in 4,889 chicken houses—a record 4.4 billion pounds of chicken and $5 billion in wholesale value. This was a 38% broiler increase in a decade. These chickens produced 1.5 billion pounds of chicken excrement — equal to the weight of two Statues of Liberty! Corn and soybeans grown for feed are highly nitrogen intensive, adding more nitrogen to the bay.

Largely because of the failure to rein in agricultural nitrogen, bay restoration is foundering as the 2025 deadline for nitrogen reductions will be missed by a large margin. As a result, flesh-eating diseases threaten life and limb and fisheries are collapsing.

There seems to be little hope for a healthy Chesapeake Bay in our future. Only through more stringent regulation and enforcement of agricultural pollution can I see a glimmer of hope.

But the $30 million a year corporatized Chesapeake Bay Foundation refuses to take on the chicken industry or agribusiness. It has sold out with more than $21 million in grants, mostly from agricultural interests.

The small but brave Assateague Coastal Trust, led by Kathy Phillips and her successor Brenda Davis, deserves praise as do its attorneys at Chesapeake Legal Alliance, led by David Reed, for their heroic efforts in suing the chicken industry.

Gov. Wes Moore’s election and his focus on racial equity hinted at positive changes. Instead, his environment secretary, Serena McIlwain, called the Supreme Court’s decision “a win for the Chesapeake Bay.” By not acting, she, the governor and state legislature are complicit in affecting the health of thousands of residents and of our beloved Chesapeake Bay.

Gerald Winegrad represented the greater Annapolis area as a Democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate for 16 years. Contact him at [email protected].