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Article: Saving the Chesapeake with federal funds.
- Article from:
- Our Planet
- Article date:
- February 15, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Earth Action Network, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For many Virginia poultry and cattle farmers living along the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the U.S., federal funding is the key to keeping the water clean. The bay is suffering from algae blooms and a decline in fish habitat caused by excess nutrients from nearby farms.
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"These programs are important to reducing agricultural runoff," says Chuck Epes, a spokesman for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF). "If Congress doesn't reauthorize the bill, conservation programs for farmers will die with it."
But those funds are now resting in the hands of the Senate as lawmakers wrestle with the 2007 farm bill. The 2002 bill ...