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CHICKENS have become the biggest agricultural crop in West Virginia, generating more than $148 million in revenue a year. The industry tripled in the past decade, rising from 30 million broilers annually to 90 million.
In this week's series, "Poultry on the Potomac," reporter Ken Ward Jr. examined the industry and its effects on the region.
He found that, in addition to a multitude of low-paying jobs, the industry produces 150,000 tons of chicken droppings per year, plus 2,000 tons of carcasses of chickens that die before being butchered.
This mountain of waste goes mostly into fertilizer, eventually washing into streams.
Unfortunately, state and federal reports say most poultry farmers aren't doing much to keep the chicken waste from running off into creeks that eventually feed into the Potomac River.
While not absolutely conclusive, there is strong evidence that this run-off is causing serious problems in the Potomac. American Rivers, a national environmental watchdog group, ranked the Potomac as one of the 10 most endangered rivers in North America. The group laid the blame on chicken and cattle pollution.
Many facts support that claim. A U.S. Geological Survey found high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in the Potomac Valley, with the highest levels occurring downstream from regions of poultry houses and cattle feedlots. While poultry production has tripled over the last 10 years (led by WLR Foods' expansion of its Moorefield plant), cattle production has remained the same.
Common sense would point the finger at poultry as a large factor in the problem.
Alas, government regulators appear to reject common sense. Barb Taylor, water resources chief for the state Division of Environmental Protection, actually told Ward: "As a regulatory agency, we can't use common sense as an approach. We have to use scientific data."
Arrrgh. Can't Taylor see the data? It just needs some common-sense interpretation. Poultry is polluting the Potomac, although some state politicians want to turn a blind eye.
Agriculture Commissioner Gus Douglass called American Rivers "headline hunters." He said his agency and the federal government have spent $7 million to curb chicken waste contamination of streams. But there's little evidence that the spending had much tangible results.
The Washington Post said "the dramatic boom in the West Virginia chicken industry" caused federal officials to warn that the Potomac "is now so polluted that people risk getting sick if they canoe or swim in it, or rely on wells for tap water." This caused Rep. Bob Wise, D-W.Va., to tell Congress that West Virginia is "addressing this problem and making sure the Potomac is safe."
Perhaps, but not very well. DEP could - but does not - require poultry farmers to obtain permits and require that they limit run-off of manure. DEP could - but does not - set up regulations governing how close chicken houses can be built to streams and the type of storage facilities for manure.
DEP could - but does not - regulate the amount of manure spread on fields as fertilizer.
Instead, DEP uses voluntary "best management practices," similar to those used by the Division of Forestry to "regulate" logging. In both cases, the voluntary regulations have failed.
Most of the farmers who have taken part in the poultry boom have not followed the best management practices. Now that federal and state money is available to clean up pollution, some farmers may improve their facilities - at taxpayer expense.
The real winner here is WLR, which gets the profits from the poultry without facing the expense of the environmental consequences.
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