What the poop?

Amberle Eversen

 

 

What is that smell?  I can’t tell you how many times growing up we would be driving down the road on a family outing and someone would say, “What is that smell?”  Without missing a beat, my brother would say, “Whoever smelt it dealt it!” and someone would get a limper.  Another common reply would be, “mmm, farm fresh air!”  Well, some farms are actually freshening up their act.

I have to admit, as a student of Water Resource Management, I am no friend to large scale cattle farms, also referred to as C.A.F.O’s or consolidated animal feeding operations.  These farms generally wreak havoc on the environment.  One of the greatest contributors to water pollution is the runoff of animal waste.  There is so much manure that farmers are often fertilizing fields more than they need to, and when it rains that manure runs from the cattle yard and the farm fields right into our rivers and lakes.  This runoff adds nutrients to the water, including nitrogen and phosphorus which can contribute to algae blooms and fish kills.  It also adds dangerous bacteria like salmonella and e-coli which can cause serious illness to people, pets, and wildlife.  One study I read said that in one year (1997) there were 5 tons of animal waste for every U.S. citizen.  That’s 5 shit tons per person!  If you’re anything like me you might be wondering why they don’t do something differently.  Well some farmers are.

Methane digesters use the manure and other plant and animal waste to create energy in the form of heat or electricity.  Some farms, like the Wysocki family farm, which has 4,300 head of cattle, in Saratoga, WI, are able to get enough electricity out of a digester to run the farm and still have enough electricity left to sell some back to the electric company.  

There are many environmental benefits that come out of this process.  One is that the methane and carbon dioxide, greenhouse gasses that can increase global warming, are used up in the process to create electricity.  The process also uses up about 70 percent of the ammonia, which is nitrogen, and 30 percent of the phosphates.  It also kills 99 percent of illness causing bacteria like e-coli and salmonella.  Another great benefit is that it kills the odor associated with manure, so in the end you are left with beautiful, stench free dried manure that can be sold to gardening stores as organic fertilizer.

There has been some opposition to digesters.  In Maribel, WI there was a proposal to build a digester for food waste.  This would greatly reduce the amount of garbage entering dumps and landfills from various food manufacturing companies, but members of the community opposed the digester because they believed it would smell and pollute the environment at the location of the facility.  People are also concerned about the values of their homes going down due to the presence of the digester. 

I think that the opposition in Maribel may not be properly educated on the environment and renewable energy benefits that can come from the digester, but I suppose a tank of manure may not be everyone’s ideal neighbor. 

References

<http://www.wisconsinrapidstribune.com/article/20120915/WRT03/309150289/Dairy-digesters-improve-animal-waste?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE>

<http://www.htrnews.com/article/20120901/MAN0101/309010155/-We-all-live-water->

<http://wearegreenbay.com/fulltext?nxd_id=121502>

How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture. Horrigan, Leo, Lawrence, Robert S and Walker, Polly. May 2002, Environmental Health Perspectives, pp. 445-456.