ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 8, 1996 TAG: 9607080109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PARKSLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
R.G. PARKS says runoff from tomato farms is polluting water and killing his baby clams during spring spawning.
Tomatoes and shellfish would seem to inhabit totally different worlds, only coming together to make Clamato juice. But a shellfish hatchery owner is claiming that runoff from tomato farms is killing his baby clams.
R.G. Parks, owner of Kegotank Bay Clam Co. on Virginia's Eastern Shore, used to draw his water from the Gargatha Creek at his front door. But for four straight years during crucial spring spawning months, Parks said, nearly all of his baby clams died, and he didn't know why.
In early June, he gave up on increasingly elaborate attempts to filter his local water and began transporting water from 10 miles away. Now, Parks says, his clams are thriving.
For Parks, the turnabout confirms that the Gargatha is fouled with chemicals that he contends run off the plastic-covered tomato farms upstream. He and some environmentalists say his difficulties are part of a wider problem with industrial-scale, chemical-driven tomato production.
Tomato growers say Parks and other critics are blaming an ecologically sound industry for problems that often afflict shellfish hatcheries.
Tomato acreage under plastic in Accomack and Northampton counties, which together form Virginia's Eastern Shore, has grown in three years from about 3,200 acres to 4,600 acres or more, according to agricultural extension agents in both counties.
Scientists say there's no evidence to support critics' assertions, but they plan to investigate. Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science said last week that they expect to begin testing local waters in a few weeks.
The argument centers on so-called tomato plasticulture, a common production method that doubles or triples yields per acre but demands intensive, expensive management.
In the method, farmers form soil beds running the length of fields. They lay drip irrigation tubes along those beds and cover the beds tightly with a long shroud of thin plastic. Tomato seedlings are punched at intervals through the plastic.
The plastic can cover half or more of a field's total area. Critics say this makes tomato fields prone to excessive runoff, as rain water sluices off the plastic. The running water carries sediment, as well as insecticides and fungicides applied through above-ground spraying.
``This is the most God-awful thing I've seen in my life,'' said George Simmons, a professor of biology at Virginia Tech, who has studied water supplies on the Eastern Shore for more than 10 years. ``I cannot believe the amount of erosion that is coming off some of these fields.''
Growers concede that they grade fields or align their rows to drain quickly. Standing water invites disease and brings mud that can prevent workers from spraying the crops or staking tomatoes.
But Eddie Clevenger, farm manager for Kuzzens Inc., one of five large tomato growers on Virginia's Eastern Shore, called plasticulture an ecological way to farm tomatoes that limits the use of fertilizers, which can damage water quality.
Scientists emphasized that they have no indication whether the tomato farms are more harmful than other types of agriculture but that they believe there is some urgency to find out.
``We can't even wait until we've got funding to study this,'' said Mark Luckenbach, director of the Eastern Shore laboratory of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, an arm of the College of William and Mary. ``It's just attracting too much attention.''
AP-DS-07-07-96 1631E
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB