Source:  Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 4/4/11

U.S. Poultry & Egg Association and the National Chicken Council have joined the American Farm Bureau Federation in a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to implement its new total maximum daily load (TMDL) rule in the Chesapeake Bay region.

In a statement, John Starkey, president of USPOULTRY and Mike Brown, president of NCC, stated their concern about the potential ramifications of the recent EPA action to set limits on discharges by each of the individual watersheds within the Chesapeake Bay region.

The groups noted that the poultry industry has a large presence in the Chesapeake Bay watershed providing thousands of jobs and contributing well over $1 billion each year to the region’s economy. They warned the industry must remain viable in the region to continue providing a safe, sustainable, wholesome, economical source of protein to the United States and the world.

In spite of the poultry industry’s well documented contribution to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, which has yet to be matched by other sources, EPA is looking for further reductions from agriculture, said Starkey.
“The implications of this demand will put pressure on thousands of family farms and put industry in the region in a position where it will be difficult to compete,” Starkey said.  “This could result in the loss of thousands of jobs.”

“EPA has announced this program will be a model that will be implemented on a nationwide level,” Brown noted.  “If so, the assumptions and data that went into developing this model deserves the highest level of scrutiny.  Even though the poultry industry identified a number of flawed assumptions to EPA in March of 2010, they failed to address those issues prior to issuing the TMDL in December of 2010.”

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