Manure

— Many farmers in this rural Kent County community were left shaken after a father and his two teenage sons were found dead early Thursday in a pond full of liquid manure on a local dairy farm. The deaths appear to be accidental, but investigators will wait for autopsy results before ruling out foul play, said Greg Shipley, Maryland State Police spokesman. The bodies, tentatively identified as those of Glen W. Nolt, 48, and his two sons, Kelvin R. Nolt, 18, and Cleason S. Nolt, 14, all of Peach Bottom, Pa., had taken hours to find, submerged in a 20-foot-deep, 2-million-gallon manure pit on Centerdel Farm, state police said.

Autopsies showed that deaths of a father and his two teenage sons found in a Kent County manure pit Thursday were accidental. Maryland State Police said Glen W. Nolt, 48, Kelvin R. Nolt, 18, and Cleason S. Nolt, 14, all of Peach Bottom, Pa., died of suffocation during a farming accident. Their bodies were recovered from a pond of liquid manure at Centerdel Farm, a 200-acre dairy farm in the 12000 block of Vansant Corner Road in Kennedyville. Multiple injuries contributed to Cleason Nolt's death, police said.

Autopsies showed that deaths of a father and his two teenage sons found in a Kent County manure pit Thursday were accidental. Maryland State Police said Glen W. Nolt, 48, Kelvin R. Nolt, 18, and Cleason S. Nolt, 14, all of Peach Bottom, Pa., died of suffocation during a farming accident. Their bodies were recovered from a pond of liquid manure at Centerdel Farm, a 200-acre dairy farm in the 12000 block of Vansant Corner Road in Kennedyville. Multiple injuries contributed to Cleason Nolt's death, police said.

— Many farmers in this rural Kent County community were left shaken after a father and his two teenage sons were found dead early Thursday in a pond full of liquid manure on a local dairy farm. The deaths appear to be accidental, but investigators will wait for autopsy results before ruling out foul play, said Greg Shipley, Maryland State Police spokesman. The bodies, tentatively identified as those of Glen W. Nolt, 48, and his two sons, Kelvin R. Nolt, 18, and Cleason S. Nolt, 14, all of Peach Bottom, Pa., had taken hours to find, submerged in a 20-foot-deep, 2-million-gallon manure pit on Centerdel Farm, state police said.

The Maryland Farm Bureau balks at environmentalists' efforts to classify manure as a pollutant. They say that farmers value the manure as a resource and use it in lieu of chemically enhanced fertilizer. The simple fact remains that when too much manure is applied on land, it can become a significant source of phosphorus pollution that's killing local streams, creeks and the bay itself. Up to a certain point, manure can indeed be a helpful resource. But once the soil is saturated, no more manure should be applied.

Supermarket shoppers in Maryland can't miss the signature blue-and-gold Perdue label on chicken and turkey in the meat section. The Salisbury-based company is the nation's third-largest seller of poultry. That makes it a prime target of environmentalists, who contend "Big Chicken" is fouling the Chesapeake Bay by not taking care of the animal waste produced by the flocks raised for it on thousands of farms across the Delmarva Peninsula. But in supermarkets with garden sections, consumers are likely to run across another product with links to Perdue, one that even environmentalists like — organic fertilizer, made with manure from some of the fowl grown for Perdue and other companies.

I'm going grocery shopping for my garden. It may take severa trips; I'm running low on staples. The potting shed is bare of basics like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium -- the agricultural equivalent of bread, milk and toilet paper.My soil is hungry, and I must feed it.This is no easy task. Certainly it is more arduous than a trip to the grocery store. When I shop for myself, I take coupons and checkbook. When I shop for the garden, I take pitchfork and pickup.When the garden's tummy starts growling, I don't go to the farmer's market.

New farm regulations being aired this week by Maryland officials would ease first-ever limits on how, when and where the state's farmers can spread animal manure and sewage sludge on their fields. The " nutrient management" rules , which were posted online Wednesday, have been revised by state officials in response to widespread complaints when they were first floated last summer. A scientist who reviewed them calls them a major step forward in the long-running effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay. But farming and local government groups remain concerned about the potential costs, while environmentalists are split on whether they go far enough to curb farm pollution.

With an O'Malley administration bill seeking to boost offshore wind development effectively dead, the General Assembly approved another bill to promote projects that would produce energy from poultry manure and wood. SB237 , which would provide incentives to place giant wind turbines off Ocean City, has yet to come to a vote in the Senate Finance Committee.  Environmental groups, many of whom had made the measure a top priority, threw in the towel late in the day, issuing a press release expressing their disappointment with the General Assembly's failure to pass the measure for a second straight year.

Q.I have permission to haul some well-composted sheep and horse manure from a local farm. Can I just let it sit on top of the soil and work it in before planting next spring?A. You should incorporate the manure with a spade or roto-tiller as soon as possible. Manure left on top of the ground is prone to be moved by rainfall. Also, some of the nutrients in the exposed manure will be leached out.If incorporation is out of the question because the soil is too wet, cover the pile with a tarp and work the manure in next spring.

New farm regulations being aired this week by Maryland officials would ease first-ever limits on how, when and where the state's farmers can spread animal manure and sewage sludge on their fields. The " nutrient management" rules , which were posted online Wednesday, have been revised by state officials in response to widespread complaints when they were first floated last summer. A scientist who reviewed them calls them a major step forward in the long-running effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay. But farming and local government groups remain concerned about the potential costs, while environmentalists are split on whether they go far enough to curb farm pollution.

With an O'Malley administration bill seeking to boost offshore wind development effectively dead, the General Assembly approved another bill to promote projects that would produce energy from poultry manure and wood. SB237 , which would provide incentives to place giant wind turbines off Ocean City, has yet to come to a vote in the Senate Finance Committee.  Environmental groups, many of whom had made the measure a top priority, threw in the towel late in the day, issuing a press release expressing their disappointment with the General Assembly's failure to pass the measure for a second straight year.

Millions of tons of one of theChesapeake Bay'slargest sources of pollution continue to be dumped onto farm lands without proper regulation. Farm animals produce 44 million tons of manure annually in the bay watershed, and most of it is collected and disposed of on farmland - or left where it falls. This ranks the bay region in the top 10 percent in the nation for manure-related nitrogen runoff, and the problem of proper management of this waste is exacerbated by the fact that three highly concentrated animal feeding operation areas contribute more than 90 percent of the manure.

Maryland and other Chesapeake Bay states struggling to clean up the degraded estuary should do more to encourage projects that convert farm animal manure to energy, a new report says. The report released Thursday by the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a tri-state legislative advisory body, suggests more than a dozen policy changes aimed at boosting development of manure-based energy projects. One proposal, for example, would require utilities to purchase a certain amount of such power, as they must now from solar and wind facilities.

In a move that increases Maryland's commitment to renewable energy, the state Board of Public Works approved a deal Wednesday under which a Virginia company will be given a 30-year lease on land at an Eastern Shore prison to build a plant that will generate electricity out of a mixture of crops and chicken manure. Under its agreement with ECOCORP Inc. of Arlington, Va., the state will provide a 4.2-acre site at the Eastern Correctional Institute near Princess Anne at an annual rent of $100 for the company to construct the so-called anaerobic digester.

As an Eastern Shore chicken grower, like most others chicken growers and farmers, I was pleased to read recently in The Baltimore Sun of a study that indicates that after years of work, progress is being made in reducing the size and duration of Chesapeake Bay dead zones. Much of this success is due to improvements in farming techniques. Experts have said for years that non-point source pollution reduction practices such as we use on farms would take years or decades to show results.

Reacting to a citation from state environmental officials, the Baltimore Zoo has stopped dumping tons of foul-smelling animal waste at a city-owned site near the Jones Falls, zoo officials said yesterday.The citation, issued last week by the state Department of the Environment, accuses the City's Recreation and Parks Department of improperly storing tons of zoo manure on the western bank of the Jones Falls. State inspectors did not see manure running into the stream, but they were concerned that runoff from the site would pollute the stream.

Mark Bowman, the sommelier at Pure Wine Cafe, the upscale wine bar in Ellicott City, woke up Sunday to a striking aroma - and it wasn't the bouquet of nouveau Beaujolais. It was liquid manure, dumped over a mile-and-a-half stretch of Main Street sometime early Sunday. "It was disgustingly epic," said Bowman, who lives on Main Street. Howard County highway crews spent nearly three hours cleaning up the manure, according to Howard County Fire Battalion Chief Eric D. Proctor. He said the spill ran from Main Street in Ellicott City east onto Frederick Road in Baltimore County, causing street closures while crews cleaned the pavement.

If you live along the Patapsco River, Sparrows Point, Bear Creek or Coke Point you and your family are paying with your health ("Port authorities find health risks near Sparrows Point," May 23). These four areas are overwhelmingly contaminated to the point where people and wildlife are at risk of exposure to toxic chemicals and carcinogens. Benzene is only one of many chemical contaminates in our waters; there are also high levels of arsenic from chicken manure, pesticides and chemical fertilizers.