The TMDL sausage-maker

The TMDL Sausage Maker

I got my first taste of EPA’s “pollution diet” or TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) at a public meeting last year in Binghamton.  At that meeting, Bob Koroncai, front man for EPA Region 3 commented that the TMDL process was “like sausage-making, and you may not know all the ingredients going into it.”  Of course this statement, which may very well come back to haunt him, doesn’t really exude a whole lot of transparency or confidence in the recipe that may change the dynamics of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed forever.  As the upcoming public hearings loom, I wonder what kind of casing will be used to hold all the ingredients and how it will taste.

Even though I am very suspicious and cynical of the mystery watershed computer model  that reflect only hypothetical situations, algorithms and educated guesses of what will happen when water quality measures are implemented; I still can appreciate the work and financial resources EPA has provided or partnered on when it comes to protecting the environment.

Take for instance, a conference partly sponsored by the agency in which I traveled to the Bay to learn more about the daily challenges from Waterman, the effect of legacy sediment on the ecosystem, the perspective of city dwellers on farming (and how little they know)and how urban runoff mixed with my headwaters suffocates underwater agriculture.  The EPA has also provided funding for installing best management practices, training conservation interns and seed money for localized water quality projects.

 For me, as a farmer and conservation district employee working in the Bay watershed, the proceeds of this knowledge have inspired me to work harder to form better relationships with fellow farmers, legislators and local citizens while implementing practical conservation based on a more holistic watershed mindset.  A day rarely passes when I don’t pause to reflect on my time in the Chesapeake Bay learning about the plight of Waterman trying to make a living after a one inch rain.

But I also live in the reality of farm country trying to feed a watershed with an increasing nutrient imbalance for customers and legislators that want cheap food on a clear conscience.  West Winfield Farmer Robin Fitch makes a good point:  “We feed our nation, and right now our farmers and fisherman can barely feed themselves.”  And now we are under the “big hammer mandate” to do even more with less.  What was the goal again of President Obama’s edict for the National treasure?  It’s not like we haven’t been doing anything to protect water quality.

Shannon Hayes said in her book, Radical Homemakers, “We must accept that the basic foundation of our wealth is topsoil, sunshine and water, not fossil fuels or other nonrenewable resources”.  My colleagues and I here in New York have heeded this advice for the last three decades while working on the land, meeting farmers where they are,  implementing local conservation initiatives and helping the EPA understand our local conditions and constraints as well as providing tangible technical guidance with “due diligence” to the agency’s Watershed Implementation Plan Draft.  Our stringent regulated and voluntary, incentive-based efforts have been heralded in the water quality arena, but now it seems the “baby is going out with the bathwater”.

EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin specifically asked that New York adopt a strategy that is based in the realities of the day, with respect to funding, manpower and local adoption.   I believe the NYS DEC, The Upper Susquehanna Coalition, NYS Ag. & Mkts., NRCS, Farm Bureau and all the partners who came to the table provided these realistic goals and expectations to the TMDL model.

After reading the stinging comments about how “grossly” inadequate New York’s realistic plan was and that of neighboring Bay states, I’m feeling dazed and confused.   To have gone through the lengthy process of conference calls, TMDL language jargon, countless model runs, endless e-mails and meetings held in Maryland or D.C at chore time seems quite unjust.  I’m particularly uneasy about EPA mandates without money and the incessant use of words in the documents like; backstopping measures, enhanced regulatory control, gap-filling, and a very suspicious phrase, “residual designation of currently unregulated AFOs to CAFOs as necessary”.  This sounds a lot like regulating family farms out of business whether you are from a plain community, from sustainable agriculture or from chicken country.

I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck; I have seen similar tactics used to denigrate other agricultural initiatives.  It’s the game of divide and conquer with a little extortion thrown in.  It’s beautiful really; sell the working together idea, set unrealistic goals that you need a FOIL application to find, chastise the partners for falling short, stir the pot amongst the participants, cut the funding of the non-conformers and then watch everyone sacrifice themselves for the scraps.  Or in this case watch how the non-farmers with full stomachs crucify the farming community for most of the water quality problems.  It’s already happening, just read the latest blogs and op-eds.  We are such easy targets given our minority status and lack of lobby power.

I’ll take the heat from the TMDL kitchen for my opinions, but then again I‘m not sure because I rarely see anyone from the beltway gang come to the headwaters during winter or the spring thaw and tell me how to achieve 100% pollution control on 12 dollar milk.  I’m not stupid or naïve to think there is no room for improvement on most farms and there are still some “bad actors” that need more education. I am hopeful common sense will prevail in moving this complex TMDL sausage making venture to some kind of consensus and many of you will exercise the right to free speech at the upcoming hearings on how you have helped water quality in your communities by doing the right thing.

If the process gets too ugly, I am suggesting the combatants each spend a week trying to make a living milking cows or fishing the Bay waters after a one inch rain.  Eating sausage may be all you can afford.  Go to my website:  www.thegrasswhisperer.com and read the EPA’s evaluations.  Published in Lancaster Farming 10/23/10