DATE: Wednesday, September 24, 1997         TAG: 9709240002

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Opinion

SOURCE: BY WILLIAM C. BAKER 

                                            LENGTH:   79 lines

PFIESTERIA: A METAPHOR FOR ALL THAT'S WRONG IN THE BAY

It kills fish. It has caused brain damage and other ailments in people. It has cost commercial fishermen their livelihoods. And it has shaken the solid consumer confidence in Chesapeake Bay seafood. Pfiesteria piscicida is truly the ``cell from hell.''

Lost jobs, dead fish and sick people. Pfiesteria is a metaphor for all that is wrong with the Bay - the culmination of a rather timid approach to pollution reduction. Pfiesteria may also be nature's clarion call to action, a rude awakening for all who have become complacent about the need to save the Chesapeake Bay.

And therein lies the potential silver lining in the dark pfiesteria cloud. The determined mid-80s commitment to reduce polluting nutrients by 40 percent by the year 2000 has become mired in a bureaucratic palaver of ``only controllable sources,'' ``exemptions,'' ``exceptions'' and ``compliance schedules.'' Now there is even a clear admission that for nitrogen, the program will fall significantly short of its goals.

So is the situation hopeless? Absolutely not. The commitment of people around the Bay to save it has never been stronger. In fact, love for the Chesapeake Bay is as close to an environmental ethic as anything seen throughout the world. Achieving significant reductions in nutrient and toxic pollution is constrained only by our willingness to make tough political decisions. Intolerance for pollution must be demanded. Thorough monitoring, enforcement of existing laws and the willingness of elected officials to impose new laws when voluntary measures are being ignored are clearly in order.

Taxpayers have shelled out billions of dollars to help reduce Bay pollution, much of it through the construction and operation of huge treatment plants to reduce pollution from human sewage. ``Sewage'' from animals, however, has been untouched by government regulation or taxpayer assistance, even though the impact on the Chesapeake Bay is the same.

The sheer numbers are overwhelming - on the Delmarva peninsula, for instance, some 600 million chickens are raised annually. The nitrogen and phosphorus from these birds' excrement exceeds that of the entire human population of the state of Maryland.

Most of the chickens are raised by individual farmers who are under contract to companies such as ConAgra Poultry Co., Hudson Foods Inc., Mountaire Farms of Delmarva Inc., Perdue Farms Inc., Townsends Inc., Tyson Foods. The large companies own the birds, the feed and the medicine, while the farmer (or the bank) owns the chicken houses in which they are raised. The companies deliver chicks, then from six to 10 weeks later collect the full-grown chickens for slaughter. The manure from those birds is left behind for the farmer to address.

In some areas, there is enough cropland on which to spread chicken ``sewage'' as fertilizer. But in other regions, the sheer number of chickens overwhelms the ability of crops to utilize the nitrogen and phosphorus in their manure. It washes off the land and into the rivers of the Chesapeake Bay.

There are other examples. Hog farms in North Carolina have created terrible problems for that state, and as regulations tighten there, the industry has looked to its neighbors for sites for new operations. And large chicken farms have burgeoned in Virginia.

Tackling pfiesteria head-on cannot wait for years of scientific research to provide all of the answers with 100 percent certainty. The very identity of the Chesapeake region - known for years as ``the land of pleasant living'' - relies on an abundant and healthy variety of Bay seafood. Property values, tourism and recreation all demand clean and safe water. The economic devastation that will result from a spread (or even a continuation) of the pfiesteria tragedy is huge.

Clearly, solutions must be comprehensive, addressing all sources of polluting nutrients to the Bay. They will also be costly. The source of funds are only two, public (i.e., taxpayers) and private (the polluter-pays principle). Our elected officials will have to decide, based on their reading of public sentiment.

As for the chicken industry, we hope the companies operating in the watershed will step forward and take responsibility for the sewage that comes from the birds they own. They could be heroes. MEMO: William C. Baker is president of Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a

nonprofit organization that provides education program, resource

protection and resource restoration work for the Chesapeake Bay

watershed.

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