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“Well-managed” farmland and other working “open-spaces” should not be taxed when they provide ecosystem services  exceeding the cost of  public services for the land. In many states including Virginia, local governments have a special way of collecting revenue from their constituents that have farmland or “open-space” called “land-use” taxation.  It’s a method of calculating a tax […]

Maryland: The newly elected republican governor, Larry Hogan repealed the Maryland  Department of Agriculture’s “Phosphorus Management Tool”.  Read my rant here. This trashes decades of phosphorus research and will further pollute the streams in Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay. It basically allows farmers to continue applying poultry manure to fields already saturated with phosphorus.  The […]

Maryland: The newly elected republican governor, Larry Hogan repealed the Maryland  Department of Agriculture’s “Phosphorus Management Tool”.  Read my rant here. This trashes decades of phosphorus research and will further pollute the streams in Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay. It basically allows farmers to continue applying poultry manure to fields already saturated with phosphorus.  The […]

This is an OPED piece I wrote for the Bay Journal News Service which was published on 8/19/2014.  I have added photos and links.  Here’s a link to the Downstream Project’s Amy Matthews Amos blog about it. Surviving a heart attack is a huge wake-up call that usually warrants a change of diet. Toledo, Ohio […]

“Well-managed” farmland and other working “open-spaces” should not be taxed when they provide ecosystem services exceeding the cost of public services for the land. In many states including Virginia, local governments have a special way of collecting revenue from their constituents that have farmland or “open-space” called “land-use” taxation.  It’s a method of calculating a tax […]