14 firms fight over Dane County’s manure
The following story by Bill Novak appeared in The Capital Times on December 13, 2006:
This might be hard to digest, but 14 companies are clamoring to get a contract from Dane County to see if tons of cow manure can be turned into a cash crop of sorts, with methane gas wafting from the poop soup sold to power companies to make electricity and dried manure sold to consumers as fertilizer.
Livestock manure can be a stinky problem in more ways than one, especially if manure runs off farm fields and into the county’s waterways, which happened twice in the winter of 2004-05, killing hundreds of fish and loading massive amounts of phosphorus into area waters.
The county approved tougher manure management regulations for winter spreading and storage a year ago, but more work was needed to see what else could be done as alternatives to spreading, including setting up a manure digester to help farmers who run out of space to spread their manure or who don’t have enough storage space to hold manure until spring.
A task force of farmers, environmentalists and County Board supervisors said a study should be done to see if a manure digester would work here, so requests for proposals were made and 14 firms responded, wanting to tell Dane County what to do with its excess livestock leavings.
“I am pleased to see the response to this worthwhile project to see how we can use manure as a valuable resource for revenue and energy,” said County Executive Kathleen Falk.
The firms bidding on the study range from SJH & Co., a renewable energy firm in Boston, to Bio-Gas Direct from Sauk City, a builder of digesters to produce usable fuels.
The county put $71,000 in the 2007 budget for the digester feasibility study, and local power company Madison Gas & Electric also kicked in $30,000.
County Board Supervisor Jerry Jensen of rural Oregon is a cash grain farmer and a member of the task force. He told The Capital Times a digester is needed in the northwest part of the county, where farmers with substantial dairy operations are running out of room to spread their manure during the winter months.
“The agriculture community realizes there is a problem and is willing to help,” Jensen said. “In some cases in the towns of Springfield and Vienna, farmers are running out of land to spread manure because of the new spreading rules.”
Dane County has about 2,500 farms, including more than 400 dairy operations.
Jensen said other ideas have bubbled up besides a digester, including drying manure and selling the two byproducts, the dried manure to power plants for fuel to make electricity, and the nutrient-rich water to spread on landfills to help speed the breakdown process of materials in the landfill.
A consultant for the feasibility study is expected to be chosen in January, but it might be several years before a manure digester is up and running in the county.
