Poultry Litter Management Act

State and federal officials have long been aware of the pressing problem that industrial-scale animal agriculture brings to the Chesapeake Bay, the largest and one of the most important biologically productive estuaries in the United States. Unfortunately, Maryland’s elected officials and policy makers continue to allow the big chicken companies who profit so richly from this unsustainable industrial model to evade any responsibility for their waste. Instead, these lawmakers allow the companies to shift the liability for excess chicken manure onto overburdened “contract growers” who raise their chickens, and to pass the Bay clean-up costs onto taxpayers. It is time to make the poultry industry clean up after itself, as other industries across the country do.