February 6th, 2020 by WCBC Radio
Maryland State Senator Clarence Lam and Delegate Vaughn Stewart announced legislation placing a moratorium on new and expanding factory farms in Maryland. These facilities are also known as CAFOs, or Confined Animal Feeding Operations. In Maryland, most CAFOs are chicken operations, and the bill takes aim at facilities that produce more than 300,000 broilers, or meat chickens, per year.
Agricultural runoff is the leading cause of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, and the industrial waste produced by CAFOs contributes heavily to the problem. This pollution leads to toxic algae blooms and “dead zones,” which are detrimental to the fishing and tourism industries.
Industrial agriculture also pollutes the air. Communities on the Eastern Shore, where factory farms are most dense, have some of the highest rates of asthma, respiratory disease, and certain cancers in the state, and low income and minority communities are disproportionately affected. A coalition of groups on and off the Eastern Shore worked for years to pass the Community Healthy Air Act, which would have required robust third party analysis of the air emissions coming from CAFOs, and a study of the health effects. However, today, these communities remain without much-needed protections to their health and water.
“I am introducing this moratorium bill because there has yet to be a scientifically rigorous study on the effect CAFOs have on the air quality on the Eastern Shore. All Maryland residents deserve clean air to breathe, and this bill will ensure that no large CAFOs are built until we know their effect on the surrounding community,” says Senator Clarence Lamb.
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February 06, 2020 at 4:13 pm, Brian said:
Maryland has made it clear. That they do not want any industry. That doesn’t involve. Sitting behind a computer screen Now they’re making it clear. That they do not want commercial Farmers either. We need to all they will accept. Is some type of job in an office. Not everyone wants to work in an office. But that’s what you get. When the people making decisions I have never been outside. To do anything But go on vacation. I go back and forth to their job.
February 06, 2020 at 8:00 pm, Jay said:
Love your punctuation Brian. Awesome!
February 06, 2020 at 8:30 pm, Virgil said:
That’s what liberals do. They want laws for everyone that cater to their narrow opinion. Without factory farms the cost of food would rise dramatically.
February 06, 2020 at 9:54 pm, Brian said:
Have to use talk to text. And it doesn’t do a great job. Sorry for my inability. To type like some 12 year old.
February 06, 2020 at 10:01 pm, Joe Wellberg said:
That is a stupid bill. Thanks for telling off Maryland’s largest Private Farming company Perdue farms to drop dead. My family had a farm over 100 years ago and owned most of the real estate too. Thanks to the 1929 stock market crash that wealth collapsed. These idiots don’t understand economics.
February 07, 2020 at 12:52 pm, Terri Martin said:
When will EVERYONE wake up an realize that the Democrat Politicians are All SOCIALISTS working towards a total Communist state with them in control!?! TYRANTS! The ELITES are NOT JFK-Democrats & if you consider yourself a Democrat & especially if you vote for Party Only, you really should decide what’s most important to you: Enriching & Empowering Elites to Rule YOU or YOUR life, family and freedoms~America!?!