U.S. Water News Online
ROME, Ga. -- Researchers say the levels of phosphorous in Georgia's waterways are reaching an alarming level, and they blame the pollution on the growing amount of poultry waste dumped in rivers.
Poultry waste is a byproduct of a dominating industry in rural north Georgia, and -- to a lesser extent -- the southeastern corner of the state below Interstate 16.
Along with the sprawl of metro Atlanta into rural counties, there is far less land available for waste disposal. Runoff from farmland laden with chicken manure has been linked to high concentration of phosphorous in waterways, including the Coosa River in northwest Georgia's Floyd County and the Canoochee River, which runs through southeastern Georgia.
Linda Burkhalter remembers how she used to play in the Canoochee with her sisters 50 years ago, when the water was cleaner. A few years ago, she stopped visiting the algae-choked river, which runs four miles downstream from the Claxton Poultry Company poultry plant.
``You could not see the river from one bank to the other,'' she said. ``And it had a nasty smell.''
Claxton has settled a lawsuit filed by Burkhalter, and a portion of the money went to create Canoochee Riverkeeper, and environmental group.
In Rome, where the Coosa narrows, taxpayers are left footing the bill for cleaning their river that's saturated in algae and sediment.
``There's been thousands of dollars spent to deal with extra algae,'' said Mitch Lawson, the executive director of the Coosa River Basin Initiative, an environmental group.
Early in 2001, the state Board of Natural Resources set stricter standards for waste lagoons at medium and large egg farms, which use ``wet-waste'' disposal systems. But the rules exempted Georgia's roughly 3,700 farms that raise broilers because their waste is dry, which is used as a nitrogen-rich grass fertilizer.
This week, the board is considering a proposal that would require permits for the 500 largest broiler farms, but environmentalists say that won't be enough to offset the pollution.
``If you drive around southeastern Georgia, most of the farms have three, maybe four chicken houses,'' said Chandra Brown, executive director of the Canoochee Riverkeeper. ``These medium farms are going to be exempt from any regulation. They should have to have a plan for disposing of their (waste).''
Officials at the Environmental Protection Division say because of the additional workload, the state can't afford to expand the proposed regulation beyond the broiler farms.
Poultry plant representatives say regulating dry poultry waste is unnecessary because voluntary efforts to manage waste disposal have been effective.
About 85 percent of the state's chicken farms have ``nutrient-management plans'' that were developed in the 1990s, said Abit Massey, the executive director of the Gainesville-based Georgia Poultry Federation.
``They are site-specific,'' Massey said. ``What may be appropriate on one farm may not be appropriate for another in the same county.''
Return to the U.S. Water News Archives page Or Return to the U.S. Water News Homepage
Editor@uswaternews.com
*Your Name:
*Your Email:
*Friend's Email:
Use a comma to separate e-mail addresses:
*Your Comments:
Hi, I thought you might like to read this article.
*Required Fields