Where Have All The Nutrients Gone?
March 21, 1995
Richard A. Halpern
Virginia’s Livestock Agriculture and the Chesapeake Bay
There is nothing that wakes up a community quite as smartly as discovering that the government is watching. That was our experience several years ago in the agricultural heartland of Virginia when we learned that the state Department of Environmental Quality had fixed its attention on us as a threat to environmental quality in the Chesapeake Bay.
The story of how agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley came to be the target of state and federal regulators in the 1990s, however, begins with adoption of the Clean Water Act of 1972. This landmark legislation, which still is poorly understood by most Americans, has now been dignified by a generation on the books. It is personified and venerated in some quarters as an elder statesman of the environmental movement, a repository of wisdom and sound judgment, the front-line champion of the nation’s environmental well-being. It is questioned by very few in Congress, even among those most skeptical of government regulation. After all, the Clean Water Act must be the source and security for clean water in America, otherwise it wouldn’t be called the Clean Water Act, would it? And who among us is against clean water?
But, in its conception, the Clean Water Act was the child of panic. As a rational, measured act to protect the health of the environment, it was equivalent to performing bypass surgery on everyone in the country because someone in Ohio died from a heart attack. The climate in which the act came into being was generated by television pictures of the Cuyahoga River on fire, and images on the evening news of naked sewer pipes discharging disreputable-looking, and presumably toxic, liquids into various bays, lakes, and rivers around the country. These were terrible, if probably unwitting, abuses of the environment, and the nation, understandably, responded with shock, disgust, and, most of all, fear—the “fear itself” which FDR told us was the only thing of which we should all be afraid.
The American people, naturally and wisely, wanted abuses stopped and resources protected; and an obliging Congress, completely undeterred by the total absence of scientifically reliable water quality data, led the charge. No effort was made to identify the scope or magnitude of the nation’s water quality problems; and no task force was formed to prioritize the nation’s remediation needs. The Cuyahoga was on fire, and that was enough. Despite a caveat from the Senate Public Works Committee that the water quality program was based on “inadequate and incomplete,” information, the nation embarked on a well-meaning frenzy of undisciplined and very expensive waste water treatment. We installed technologies everywhere—whether they were needed, appropriate, cost-effective, scientifically justified or not.
When the smoke cleared, it was twenty years later; a pathetically inadequate $33 million had been spent by the states on monitoring the nation’s water quality, but the taxpayers and the private sector had spent more than $540 billion on technologies to fix our water, broken or not. We will never know how many billions might have been saved if we had kept our heads, remediated the obvious and undeniable disasters among our nation’s waters, and taken the time to identify and quantify the true scope of the problem. In fact, even today we have no real idea of what our half-trillion-dollar spending spree has bought us.
“After all this time and money,” a team of USGS water quality specialist reflected recently, “it would be desirable to know whether the [Clean Water] act has worked. Is the water cleaner than it would otherwise have been and have the environmental benefits, however they may be counted, exceeded the costs?” Sadly, the answer is that no one knows.
We could not speak intelligently about water quality in 1972, and we can speak no more intelligently about it now. Even today, only 36 percent of the nation’s river miles are being monitored consistently and scientifically. Perhaps in another decade, the USGS team speculates, we will have the “data needed to document environmentally and statistically significant trends in water quality.” Decision makers, they continue, “do not now have the information they need to make wise decisions for the future.”
While scientific assessment stood still, the spending went on, and on, and on. By 1992, the pocketbooks and the patience of the point source polluters—the municipal and industrial treatment plant owners—were exhausted. So, as Congress prepared for the next reauthorization of the Clean Water Act, the point source polluters—with the concurrence of the environmental lobbies—declared victory: “All that could be done to control point source pollution,” they proclaimed, “had been done.”
The goal, however, in the words of Charles Sorber, then president of the Water Environment Federation, was still “a toxics-free, risk-free environment.” Since victory over point source pollution had been declared, the environmentalist and regulatory communities needed a new focus and new polluters to go after. Not to be denied in the quest for zero-environmental-impact, they found an ideal, ubiquitous, never to be exhausted group of actual and potential targets—the entire human population.
Even though “scientists still cannot reliably answer the most basic questions about national water quality,” in 1993, environmentalists were selling, and Congress seemed ready to buy, the completely unscientific claim that, despite the “great progress” achieved by the Clean Water Act, precisely 30 percent of the nation’s waters were still unacceptably polluted. The reauthorization vehicle in the 103rd Congress, Senate Bill 1114, went on to blame “significant impairments” on a whole class of newly-prominent guilty parties—the “nonpoint sources.”
Having let the tired, broke, dispirited point-source polluters off the hook, the new culprits would be everyone else: foresters, developers, suburbanites, urbanites, and farmers. One way or another, under nonpoint source programs, every human in the country could be targeted. It was time, they said, for the rest of us to step up and do our fair share. But, as we discovered in the late spring of 1993, most of all it was the farmers whose turn had come.
“Nonpoint-source-pollution” indeed became the buzzword of the attempt to reauthorize the Clean Water Act. Film footage of animals standing in streams—presumably defecating and urinating continuously—replaced the 1970s images of the burning Cuyahoga River on the evening news as the emblem of environmental irresponsibility for the 1990s.
Now all this while, my wife and I and three children, and about 77,000 other people, were living quite contentedly in our beautiful corner of rural, agricultural America. I mean it as a compliment when I say that, sometimes, walking through the center of town, I feel sure that Eisenhower must still be president. When the clock on the County Courthouse falls a little behind, I say, proudly, that it’s “ten years and five minutes slow.” At any rate, we were farming away, drinking the water, taking care of the land, and thinking (on good days) that all was right with the world.
Then, in May 1993, we were invited to a public hearing by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), where we found out that, because we work so hard and have so many animals around producing so much food, we were probably in real trouble. Under the provisions of the Clean Water Act and the Chesapeake Bay agreement, Virginia had promised to reduce 1985 levels of nutrient loading in the Bay by 40%. They needed 40% and they were going to find it. Apparently they figured Rockingham County, Virginia was a good place to look.
Now Rockingham County is indeed an agricultural powerhouse worth between $2 and $3 billion a year in retail value of farm products, food processing payrolls and producer payments. We rank second in the country in poultry production with 560 farms producing 77 million broilers and 13 million turkeys a year. We are 16th nationally in total livestock and dairy production, with 280 dairies and 25,000 cows churning out more than 221 million tons of milk a year. We also have 113,000 head of beef cattle, 22,000 sheep and lambs. In addition, in our one county alone, we have 262,000 acres in crops and pasture—almost 15% of the entire Shenandoah River watershed.
We feed a lot of people.
The other thing we produce in the millions of pounds is manure—about 2 million pounds a year. When EPA regulators color maps based on the potential for pollution there is always a black spot indicating “nightmare waiting to happen” in the northwest corner of Virginia—right where Rockingham County is. With our agricultural profile, state and federal regulators seemed to just naturally assume that our farms were awash in animal wastes running uncontrolled down to the creek; that we routinely over-applied fertilizers, sprayed pesticides directly into the river, and allowed erosion to wash the land, with its loads of nutrients and poisons, into our rivers and down to the sea. What a fertile field for new regulation the agricultural community in Rockingham County and elsewhere promised to be!
At the public hearing we were presented with a fait-accompli. Despite a promise of consultation and collaboration with local governments and interested communities prior to the development of goals or strategies, nutrient reduction goals for the Potomac basin had already been set. In the paper that was circulated afterwards, agriculture was both directly and indirectly blamed for devastating SAV (sub aqueous vegetation) habitat in the Chesapeake Bay, for “elevated bacteria levels,” excessive nutrient loads and “biological impairments” in our home waters and beyond. When agriculture is thus singled out, what is meant is Rockingham and three adjacent farming counties in the central Shenandoah Valley. Together they account for nearly 60% of all the agricultural land in the entire Potomac Basin.
Agriculture, we were told, in no uncertain terms, is “the dominant controllable nonpoint source of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay Basin” and that we, like it or not, were going to do something about it—they just hadn’t quite decided for us yet what it was going to be.
Now, no sensible person would deny that agriculture contributes to nonpoint source runoff in various subwatersheds of the Shenandoah, or that appropriate management practices should be adopted to minimize if not entirely eliminate sources of pollution. But we also knew—and DEQ did not know—that 85% of Rockingham County farms operate under approved conservation plans. We also knew—and DEQ did not know—that the county began implementing a nutrient management program in 1988, which represented a major step forward in environmentally responsible farming. The Rockingham County program was the first of its kind in the country, as far as we know. It has been adopted as a model across the Commonwealth, and is also being studied (at last count) in 40 states and four foreign countries. The nutrient management plans developed under this program document, farm by farm, the use of all nutrients produced or bought in the county, and spell out agronomically appropriate rates of application for crop and pasture land. The program prescribes a proper balance between nutrients applied and plant needs, and it greatly reduces the likelihood that nutrients will find their way into our streams and rivers, or, for that matter, the Chesapeake Bay. By October 1994, there were 670 of these nutrient management plans in effect in Rockingham County, covering 1,000 farming units and more than 100,000 acres.
We produce and use 17 million pounds of nitrogen a year from livestock manures, but we have crop needs of 28 million pounds. In other words, we can’t afford to waste waste. We were also aware—and DEQ probably was not—that the more efficient use of animal manures in the county had led to a sharp decline in commercial fertilizer sales—a sure sign of improved resource management—eliminating application of excess nutrients and benefiting the environment. Through an innovative and aggressive program of education and nutrient management planning, we had, in fact, created a seller’s market for poultry manure.
In short, we didn’t believe them when they said that Shenandoah Valley agriculture was having a significant impact on the Chesapeake Bay. For one thing, the idea of farmers taking animal waste that was worth money, and allowing it to be washed away, just didn’t make sense. Farmers, as a rule, don’t think or act that way, and the ones that do may not be farmers for long. So, we asked DEQ to share the data they had used to reach these conclusions, and they sent Virginia’s 1992 305 (b) report, the biannual report each state must submit to EPA under the 1987 Clean Water Act. Virginia’s 1992 report presents a thorough, detailed analysis of every watershed and subwatershed in the state, documenting water quality and identifying the sources of water quality problems where they can be determined.
A careful reading of the 305 (b) report revealed a very different picture from the one painted by for us by state officials. Nonpoint source pollution from agriculture came in for some comment, but, contrary to the claims made by DEQ in its discussion paper on the Potomac, the 305 (b) report blamed most elevated nutrient concentrations, bacteria levels, and biological impairments on municipal and industrial point source discharges. Agriculture is hardly made out to be the villain, as DEQ was suggesting. The 305(b) report also contradicted a second assumption behind DEQ’s analysis. Contrary to DEQ’s claim that increasing nutrient concentrations in the watershed were a threat to the Chesapeake Bay, the 305(b) report showed a declining trend for nutrient levels in the Shenandoah River at its confluence with the Potomac.
Realizing that the DEQ data and the 305(b) data—on which DEQ was supposed to hve based its report—were in conflict on two important points, our curiosity was really piqued. So we began looking at the magnitude of controllable nonpoint source nitrogen entering the Potomac from the Shenandoah.
According to a bar chart in the DEQ paper, the Shenandoah’s total controllable nonpoint source nitrogen contribution in 1991 was about 4.5 million pounds a year. We had no idea where this number had come from. When pressed, DEQ produced data, based on four years of USGS monitoring, that seem to indicate an average annual controllable nonpoint source nitrogen load that is less than half of that—2.2 million pounds a year. But the most complete monitoring data comes from the state’s own water quality monitoring station just above the confluence of the Shenandoah and the Potomac, reflecting 14 years of monthly water quality and flow sampling.
According to this 14-year record, as analyzed by DEQ specialists, the total measurable, controllable nonpoint source nitrogen load flowing from the Shenandoah into the Potomac is about 1.65 million pounds a year —a far cry from the 4.5 million a year figure we started with. Nutrients that are not in the Shenandoah cannot reach the Potomac, and nutrients that do not reach the Potomac, do not reach the Bay. Nutrient loadings sufficient to have a real impact on the Bay appeared to be just not there in the Shenandoah River.
To put these numbers in perspective, compare the 1.65-million-pound controllable nitrogen load from the Shenandoah to the estimated total annual nitrogen loading in the Bay of 377 million pounds. What impact is agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley likely to be having on SAV habitat in the Chesapeake Bay? A single Northern Virginia sewage treatment plant generates 2.5 million pounds of nitrogen a year. Again, compare our 1.65 million pound contribution to the 14 million pounds of nitrogen discharged every year by the mammoth Blue Plains plant in Washington, D.C.
What is clearly needed here is a sense of proportion. If the 377-million-pound estimate is anywhere near the mark, then all the controllable nonpoint sources in the Shenandoah, of which agriculture is only one, contribute four-tenths of one percent of the nitrogen reaching the Chesapeake. To really put agriculture’s role into perspective, we would also have to address the issue of what percentage of the Shenandoah’s nonpoint source load has an agricultural origin, and the fact that small treatment plant discharges are not included in point source loading estimates, and are, therefore, probably being counted against agriculture, along with very substantial nutrient loadings from the many thousands of septic systems in the Shenandoah Basin. But if the entire basin delivers an insignificant nutrient load, Shenandoah Valley agriculture can hardly pose a serious threat to the quality of water in the Chesapeake Bay, and the other issues become moot.
There is no doubt that fifteen years ago something was very wrong with the Bay, and there is also no doubt that it is improving, and coming back to life. We love the Bay. We believe in doing everything reasonable to improve the quality of its water and the lives of those who depend on it and enjoy it. But we do not wish to be made pawns in a political game in which finding a 40% reduction in nutrient loadings, any way you can, is all that matters.
The initial source of DEQ’s numbers on nutrient loadings is a computer program developed by researchers working on the Chesapeake Bay. Like many of their colleagues involved in environmental research, they created a computer model. They acted, I am sure, with very good intentions, but with necessarily limited knowledge and insight; and, despite their caveats and disclaimers, like Pygmalion, they have fallen in love with their own creation, and, what is worse, they believe in it.
The way the model was made is instructive. The Chesapeake Bay model begins with a 64,000 square mile watershed, broken down into 63 segments of about 1,000 square miles each. From whatever land use information is available, a generalized pattern of uses is determined, and acreage estimates are assigned to each use. To those estimates of acreage in each land use, an estimate of nutrient loading is assigned. For example, the model assumes an edge-of-field loss from cropland of between 5 and 34 pounds of nitrogen, per acre per year. How much to assign to a given area of cropland, whether 5 or 34 pounds a year, is a decision made by a group of people sitting together in a room, who have probably never seen the land they are evaluating.
Since there are both known and unknown factors that are not or cannot be included in the model, the modelers assign values based on “their best estimate”—otherwise known as a guess. The best part is that an intimidated public, overawed by the technology, the endless stream of data, and the self-assurance of the modelers, generally does not question the findings.
Despite some very appropriate, reality-based disclaimers such as: “For many nonpoint sources . . . we have only educated estimates or very limited information about the nutrients delivered to the waters of the Bay and its tributaries,” or “We must remember that these figures are estimates based on incomplete information about highly complex realities,” the manipulators of the Chesapeake Bay model have produced some astonishingly precise numbers on the sources of nutrients in the Potomac Basin. They really have to be seen to be believed.
Is it believable, for example, as a chart in the DEQ discussion paper shows, that precisely 4.7% of the controllable nonpoint source nitrogen in the Potomac basin comes from pasture land, that 6.3% is from animal waste, 3.9 % is from hayland. 6.4% is from urban uses, and exactly 0.8% comes from forestry activities? It is ridiculous, even preposterous, to pretend at such precision when everything these numbers are based on is so grossly generalized and estimated. Yet each of these percentages, multiplied out, would yield a nitrogen load, expressed in millions of pounds of a year, presumably to be controlled by those of us engaged in these activities, all on the strength of the educated guesses of computer modelers and the say-so of state and federal regulators.
We know too much about statistical models to believe them or trust them very much. Sometimes they are all we have, and lacking site-specific data, we use them with extreme caution and with an awareness of their limitations. Lacking good specific data, we might, for example, use them to determine which watersheds, based on probabilities, should be more carefully studied. But in the case of the Shenandoah River, good specific data are available, and the modelers of the Bay might profit from using them as a reality check. It could lead to a better outcome, faster, for the Chesapeake Bay and all the rivers that run to it.
Rockingham County was extremely candid and pointed in its comments and conversations with officials at DEQ and the Division of Soil and Water Conservation in the state Department of Conservation. To their credit, in the most recent paper on the tributary strategies there is no finger pointing at agriculture. In fact, one high ranking state official remarked following a meeting with a local conservation board, “Regulating these farmers would be like giving a speeding ticket to someone who’s driving under the limit.”
The new paper formally acknowledges that much has already been done locally to improve the condition of the Bay. It promises “to quantify the contributions these [local] programs make,” and insure that “appropriate credit” is given for their achievements. In it, the state makes a commitment to pursue nutrient reduction strategies “within a framework of local initiatives,” without “unfunded mandates” and “in the least intrusive manner possible.” The Commonwealth, according to the new paper “does not intend to dictate or micro-manage” nutrient reduction programs, but rather “to build partnerships with communities and the private sector” to accomplish the goals of the Chesapeake Bay agreement.
In other words, the new DEQ paper sets out a scenario in which we continue to implement our locally initiated nutrient management programs, the state continues to pursue its own sponsorship of similar programs, and we all get to say that—as the numbers show—we are on our way, in Virginia, to achieving the 40 percent nutrient reduction goal for nonpoint sources. As the new DEQ paper says, it is “within our reach.”
The farmers are sleeping well at night. At DEQ there seems to be a new sense that we can accomplish our goals through voluntary, good-faith efforts. I think there is a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction all around. Everyone is living happily ever after—so far.
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