Farm Runoff

THE BILL EMERGING from the House Environmental Matters Committee on control of agricultural runoff pollution is a good compromise on a contentious issue. It shows understanding for farmers, yet reflects the reality that strong steps must be taken to protect the health of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.Originally the bill, sponsored by Chairman Ron Guns, a Cecil County Democrat, would have retained the system of voluntary control of nutrient pollution. Mr. Guns, an ardent defender of the farming community, pitted himself against Gov. Parris N. Glendening, who wants mandatory plans to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, which causes harmful, oxygen-destroying algae blooms in the bay and is suspected of provoking toxic Pfiesteria outbreaks in bay tributaries.

ALTHOUGH farmers and chicken growers are resisting Gov. Parris N. Glendening's proposals to combat Pfiesteria, watermen should support state leaders' and environmentalists' call for controlling farm pollution. Not only has the governor come up with an acceptable plan to deal with this infestation of our waterways, but he also appears to have learned an important political lesson.Crab catch limitsIn fall 1995, Mr. Glendening imposed emergency catch limits, saying the Chesapeake Bay's stock is threatened by increased catches of female crabs.

CENTREVILLE -- In the past two years, Eastern Shore farmer Temple Rhodes has spent about $110,000 of his own money and nearly $500,000 of taxpayers' cash to stop his farm's fertilizer and cow manure from polluting the Chesapeake Bay.It probably won't be enough. Despite all that money and effort, no one knows whether the Rhodes family's 3,000 acres near Centreville are contributing nitrogen- and phosphorus-laden runoff to the Chester River. And if they are, farm experts say, no one can tell Rhodes how to stop it.The Rhodes family's dilemma typifies what Eastern Shore farmers will face if the General Assembly enacts Gov. Parris N. Glendening's plan to help prevent Pfiesteria.

Hoping to curb water pollution from chicken manure and other animal waste, the Environmental Protection Agency will for the first time attempt to hold processing companies as accountable for runoff as the farmers who grow the chickens, hogs and cattle.But with enforcement of the new rules to be left up to the states, farmers could still end up bearing most of the burden of additional costs, red tape and penalties."Whichever way they go, the companies will have control through the contracts [with farmers]

Men living in agricultural mid-Missouri are markedly less fertile than men living in New York, Minneapolis and Los Angeles, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia have found. The researchers suspect that runoff from farm chemicals may be to blame. The results "are important to couples that are trying to conceive," said research professor Shanna Swan, who led the study. "If we can find out what specific exposures were related to this reduced semen quality, we might be able to prevent delays in conception in the future."

IT IS crunch time for the Maryland General Assembly. Eight days remain before the midnight adjournment date a week from tomorrow. Major legislation of sweeping importance remains in limbo.Having spent much of the early weeks ensnarled in ethics and conflict of interest allegations that led to the exit of two senior legislators, lawmakers now have little time to reach consensus on contested bills. Complicating matters is a battle of wills between Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. over which chamber dominates.

It's imperative that the state do more to control pollution runoff from Maryland farms into the Chesapeake Bay. But the state's proposed nutrient-management rules, which go into effect next year, need amending to ease the burden on small farms and to assure their equitable application.An advisory committee made up of farm and environmental interests is proposing several worthy changes to the rules.They include a change in calculating the size of a livestock farm, exemption of research or demonstration projects, and a state cost-sharing manure-disposal program for all livestock producers.

A new study shows some Chesapeake Bay rivers have gotten cleaner over the past three decades, while others are getting worse. The analysis, released Wednesday by the U.S. Geological Survey, suggests costly upgrades of sewage plants have helped, scientists say, but it raises questions about the effectiveness of efforts to date to curb polluted runoff, particularly from farms on Maryland's Eastern Shore. "We're going in the wrong direction in some places, and the right direction in others," said William Dennison, vice president for science applications of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening will launch a counter-offensive against Pfiesteria in Maryland waters today with the signing of landmark legislation aimed at reducing pollution coming from the land.The signing caps a nearly yearlong effort to adopt a strategy for battling the microbe, whose toxic outbreaks proved fatal to fish and harmful to humans on the Eastern Shore last summer.In order to win passage of the bill, Glendening had to agree to some critical compromises that were hard for environmentalists to accept.

TOO BAD ABOUT R. G. Parks, commercial clam farmer in Gargathy Creek, on the seaside of Virginia's Eastern Shore, about a 15-minute drive south of the Maryland line.If the toxics that have been killing the little clams in his hatchery by the millions were coming from a power plant, an industrial facility or a city sewage plant, chances are good the Environmental Protection Agency would be riding to the rescue.Even Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality, emasculated courtesy of Gov. George F. Allen, would be doing something, given that levels of toxic metals and chemicals in the creek nourishing Parks' clams far exceed state and federal water-quality standards.