A study from the University of Delaware reports that federal environmental programs have drastically overestimated the poultry industry’s contributions to water pollution. James L. Glancey, a professor in the university's Bioresources Engineering and Mechanical Engineering departments, said that a multistate study, based on thousands of manure tests, found that actual nitrogen levels in poultry house manure are 55 percent lower than the Environmental Protection Agency's decades-old, lab-based standards.
The News Journal (Wilmington, Del.) reports that the results could lead to a formal proposal for changes to the Chesapeake Bay program’s six-state pollution forecasting model, used to guide a federally backed attempt to restore the bay's health and ecosystems and assign cleanup goals.