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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12,2009
Farmers, streams
If experience is any guide, there is going to be bluster
aplenty, much posturing and tons of huffing and puffing
from groups representing farmers as Congress takes up The Chesapeake Bay Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009.
If experience is any guide, farmers themselves won’t be nearly so overwrought by the legislation’s mandates. They are much more willing to entertain the notion' that agriculture isn’t exactly the benign, family-centric occupation enshrined in our popular mythology, and that, indeed, farming may bear some responsibility for problems in the bay and its tributaries.
Our sense is that many Rappahannock farmers are already adhering to the majority of the items on the bestmanagement practices short list as suggested in the legislation: no-till; stream buffers; winter cover crops; nutrient management plans; and fencing livestock out of streams.
In discussions about farm cleanup, the last-named always seems to be a sticking point, though there is no good reason why it should. That the water will be cleaner if you don’t have a bunch of cattle stomping around in it is a no-brainer.
Money isn’t that much of a problem, either. For many years, funds have been available through a variety of state and federal environmental-protection grants. The money is there to assist farmers in putting up the fences and for building alternative watering systems once they do.
What are the chances that a tough new bay cleanup program will become law? Pretty good, it seems to us.
There are a lot of senators and representatives who will be voting on a feel-good bill that, unless they represent Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New York or West Virginia, won’t really affect their own con
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