A Pennsylvania environmental group is warning that pollution from large-scale livestock farms in that state is worsening, and it's calling for stricter government regulations and enforcement to help restore the Chesapeake Bay.

Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, or PennFuture, released a report contending that there's been an increase in the past five years in the amount of farm animal manure washing into one of the major tributaries to the Susquehanna River - itself the bay's largest tributary.

Among the group's findings:

- just 57 percent of livestock operations in the Octoraro Creek watershed are in compliance with "nutrient management plans" limiting how, when and where they can spread manure on their fields to fertilize crops;

- though the number of livestock operations has declined in the past five years, the amount of manure generated has increased substantially and nearly all of it is used or disposed of in the watershed.

"The cleanup program based on voluntary efforts is going the wrong way," Jan Jarrett, PennFuture's president and CEO said in a release accompanying the report. Her group called for stricter enforcement by Pennsylvania, or to have the federal Environmental Protection Agency step in and start denying permits for any new livestock operations in watersheds already impaired by nutrient pollution from farm runoff.

The Chesapeake group of the Waterkeepers Alliance has been making similiar complaints about Maryland's oversight of manure generated by livestock farms, especially the many poultry operations on the Eastern Shore.

You can read PennFuture's report here.