Report: Poultry Industry Pollution in Chesapeake Region

This report by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) examines data from the federal and state Chesapeake Bay Program,⁷ emissions estimates from the most recent scientific studies, and numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s most recent farm census. EIP used the Bay Program’s computer modeling of pollution entering the estuary to evaluate the total nitrogen load from the poultry industry, including both the runoff of manure spread on fields as fertilizer, and ammonia that rises from chicken houses and litter before falling back down in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. EIP adjusted the Bay Program numbers – which are based on EPA estimates – by using a review of more recent scientific studies of ammonia emissions from poultry barns than EPA used to provide more realistic estimates of total emissions and nitrogen pollution in the Bay. In our definition of “poultry” we include not only chickens raised for meat (called “broilers,”) but also chickens used for eggs (“layers”), turkeys, and other poultry. By “Bay” pollution load, we mean pollution entering the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay, often described as the “delivered load.”