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Apr 30, 2008 5:17 pm US/Eastern
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Chesapeake Bay Funds Added To Farm Bill
WASHINGTON (WJZ) ―
Help for the Chesapeake may be coming from an unlikely source: hundreds of millions of dollars tucked away in the mammoth federal farm bill.
As
Alex DeMetrick reports, the money was added by Maryland and other bay watershed congressmen.
Michael Heller works a farm owned by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation near Upper Marlboro in Prince George's County. It is a showcase for the kind of farming practices designed to reduce agricultural impacts on the bay.
Because much of the farm is left open pasture, instead of growing grain, which takes fertilizer, cattle eat grass instead of corn.
"Corn is what scientists call a leaky crop. When it's fertilized, it cannot absorb one hundred percent of the nutrients we give it," Heller said.
That extra nutrient is what runs off the land, feeding the algae blooms that are choking the life out of the Chesapeake. So Congress is now setting aside $380 million of the multi-billion farm bill to help clean the bay.
"It means probably about $40 million a year in new money for at least the next five to 10 years for the Chesapeake Bay, for conservation programs to reduce the pollution from agricultural lands coming off the watershed," said Will Baker.
It will handle things like buffer zones of vegetation at the edges of farm fields and electric fences to keep livestock out of streams. It will also go for cover crops.
Agriculture accounts for 30% of the bay's nutrient pollution and the farm bill money could help reduce that amount.
Reducing nutrient pollution from farms is considered to be the most cost-effective way of helping the bay, since other sources like urban runoff and sewage treatment plants will cost billions to remedy.
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