A University of Maryland report that calls for a more efficient, market-based approach to financing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-mandated pollution reductions in cleaning up Chesapeake Bay confirms the uses and benefits of Bion Environmental Technologies’ agricultural treatments.
Produced by the University of Maryland’s Environmental Finance Center (EFC), Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Restoration Financing Strategy Final Report is the second in a series of reports focused on the scale and cost of implementing federally mandated requirements to clean up and protect Chesapeake Bay. The report analyzes how state-based financing and revenue resources can be most efficiently and effectively invested in Chesapeake Bay restoration and conservation activities.
The conclusion of the report is a clarion call for harnessing private technology and innovation, such as that pioneered by Bion, to provide incentives for public benefits. “By changing the foundation of how public resources are invested, the state is in a position to not only achieve pollution reduction targets, but to do so in the most cost-effective way possible,” the report states.
Livestock waste is acknowledged as one of the largest sources of excess nutrients in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. By using livestock waste treatment solutions, states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed can provide large-scale reductions at dramatically lower costs than other sectors, such as municipal wastewater treatment and stormwater.
Bion’s technology is approved to generate verified nutrient reductions from livestock waste that can be used as a qualified offset to EPA nutrient reduction mandates. Bion proposes to replace stormwater reduction mandates that carry high costs and relatively low benefits to taxpayers and municipalities with low-cost agricultural solutions that yield high environmental benefits in the treatment of waste from livestock and poultry.
The EFC study provides a “clear, thoughtful and unbiased blueprint on how to meet the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay mandates more quickly and at a substantially lower cost,” said Bion Communications Director Craig Scott. “We simply have to reallocate spending to more cost-effective solutions. While change is always difficult, a new strategy that incorporates today’s technologies and provides a transparent and accountable process will substantially reduce costs while accelerating implementation. This is about the taxpayer—the real ‘owner’ of the Chesapeake Bay and the one who will ultimately bear the cost of its restoration.”
Source: Bion Environmental Technologies
