DATE: Thursday, August 14, 1997             TAG: 9708140461

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PAINTER                           LENGTH:   61 lines

ENVIRONMENTALISTS SEEK TO CURB TOMATO FARMS

If high levels of sediment and pesticides continue to drain off plastic-covered tomato fields into Eastern Shore creeks, the state should regulate the farms as if they were industrial polluters, some environmentalists say.

Plasticulture, the use of plastic mulch on fields, represents a ``fundamentally different form of agriculture,'' said Ann Jennings, a scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Jennings was one of several environmental activists to speak Tuesday at the first public meeting held by a General Assembly task force studying whether current regulations adequately protect Virginia's estuaries from plasticulture toxins.

The panel met on the Eastern Shore because 77 percent of the state's 11,859 acres under plastic are located there.

Although the issue has been a touchy one on the Eastern Shore, pitting farmers against watermen and clam growers, only 25 people attended the meeting and only eight spoke. Several of the speakers represented large, influential environmental groups.

``Evidence abounds that the runoff from plasticulture is not typical of nonpoint-source pollution,' said Bob Baldwin, representing the 800-member Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore. ``Its channeling is much more like an industrial outfall.''

Speakers from the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Assateague Coastal Trust and the Virginia Shellfish Growers Association also called on the state Department of Environmental Quality to take the lead in protecting the creeks near plasticulture tomato fields.

But members of the interagency task force disagreed with the environmentalists about the extent of the problem.

``I think we have sufficient regulations in place now to handle the problem,'' said Marvin Lawson of the Virginia Pesticide Control Board.

Lyn Gayle, the only tomato farmer who spoke at the meeting, said plasticulture farmers have enlarged and planted buffer strips, installed silt fencing at key locations and begun developing conservation plans that will address the runoff problem.

``I think that's positive progress,'' Gayle said.

Steve Mallette, a task force member with the Eastern Shore Soil and Water Conservation District, agreed. He said all five major tomato growers on the Eastern Shore have cooperated with his agency's investigation of the toxic runoff.

The Soil and Water Conservation District, a subgroup of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, is responsible for coordinating state, federal and local conservation measures.

The district is developing conservation plans for each of the tomato farms, including such measures as installing grass filter strips and redirecting stormwater into irrigation ponds.

The farmers are experimenting with ``polymer blocks'' that bind sediments and cause them to settle quickly, before reaching the creeks. Mallette said his agency also is asking farmers to break the ground in certain areas to promote stormwater infiltration into the tomato fields and is urging them to take particularly sensitive areas out of production.

The effectiveness of these measures won't be evaluated until the next growing season. ``We need the monitoring now to give us a baseline to see where we're at,'' Mallette said after the meeting.

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