Living in a world of Sh**

[n2doc]

Manure becomes pollutant as its volume grows unmanageable

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 1, 2010
Nearly 40 years after the first Earth Day, this is irony: The United States has reduced the manmade pollutants that left its waterways dead, discolored and occasionally flammable.

But now, it has managed to smother the same waters with the most natural stuff in the world.

Animal manure, a byproduct as old as agriculture, has become an unlikely modern pollution problem, scientists and environmentalists say. The country simply has more dung than it can handle: Crowded together at a new breed of megafarms, livestock produce three times as much waste as people, more than can be recycled as fertilizer for nearby fields.

That excess manure gives off air pollutants, and it is the country's fastest-growing large source of methane, a greenhouse gas.

And it washes down with the rain, helping to cause the 230 oxygen-deprived "dead zones" that have proliferated along the U.S. coast. In the Chesapeake Bay, about one-fourth of the pollution that leads to dead zones can be traced to the back ends of cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys.


more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022803978.html

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Yuck. I've cut my meat intake drastically and am considering cutting it out entirely.

Not that it'll make much of a difference, but still.

[pleah]

2. Why aren't they using it on the fields for crops?

On the small farm that I grew up on, you recycled all of the manure on you garden and fields. You saved a ton of money by not having to buy commercial fertilizer. It will be the best thing you ever did for your garden!

[Xipe Totec]

3. livestock raising has shifted to a smaller number of large farms

Quote from the article:

In recent decades, livestock raising has shifted to a smaller number of large farms. At these places, with thousands of hogs or hundreds of thousands of chickens, the old self-contained cycle of farming -- manure feeds the crops, then the crops feed the animals -- is overwhelmed by the large amount of waste.

The result in farming-heavy places has been too much manure and too little to do with it. In the air, that extra manure can dry into dust, forming a "brown fog." It can emit substances that contribute to climate change.

And it can give off a smell like a punch to the stomach.

"You have to cover your face just to go from the house to the car," said Lynn Henning, 52, a farmer in rural Clayton, Mich., who said she became an environmental activist after fumes from huge new dairies gave her family headaches and burning sinuses. The way that modern megafarms produce it, Henning said, "Manure is no longer manure. Manure is a toxic waste now."

[pleah]

6. I'm calling bs to that quote, because they could

sell more at the garden centers. It is hard as hell to get good composted manure. At least where I live.

[malakai2]

9. I know of a handful of local hog CAFOs

They are small as CAFOs go. Their combined manure output in a normal year is 27 million gallons. A single large CAFO can outdo that figure, and there are thousands of CAFOs nationwide.

[Xipe Totec]

11. Sounds like a great business opportunity!

Best of luck to you, and I hope you will still talk to us when you're a rich bs tycoon.

[pleah]

12. Maybe, I'll have plenty of jobs available. :D

edit to add: I'm just a little old country girl. I never was into fancy things. Like playing in the dirt to much. I like to think I would never snub anyone on purpose. Unless of course they deserved it. ;)

[Lorien]

14. I guess because Monsanto wouldn't like that. nt

[Blue Owl]

4. Say, isn't that the GOP's HCR plan along the right side in that photo?

:evilgrin:

[Statistical]

5. There is potential there.

Cover pits of manure and use some smart engineering and bacteria to speed up methane production.

Convert methane into electricity via internal combustion engines, turbine, or fuel cell.

Charge farmers to dispose of manure, sell electricity to the grid.
A smart company could make money on both ends.

[PavePusher]

7. "Charge farmers to dispose of manure..."

You know that won't fly, right?

[Statistical]

8. Well it should. If they need to raise their livestock prices which will have added bonus

of lowering demand reduce amount of manure to begin with.

Excess manure is waste and should be charged just like any other waste is.

[malakai2]

10. Yeah, should

States with agriculture dominated economies have laws on the books today that:

1) make it a felony to release location data tied to pesticide-impaired water wells;
2) require landowners to poison "agricultural pests" on their own property;
3) fine landowners for refusing to eradicate prairie dogs from their property;
4) prevent the local public from ascertaining what kind of pesticide is being used in their neighborhoods;
5) require CAFO manure lagoons only meet the local 25-year floodplain protection standard;
6) allow disposal of liquid manure by soil incorporation far in excess of the actual binding capacity of the soil;
7) and prevent new landowners from eliminating drain tile on their property for the purpose of restoring natural hydrology if landowners up or down gradient use it for crop production on their property.
Oh, and 8) prevent landowners from enrolling their property in wetland or grassland easements without the consent of the county and the state.

Among many other things these states do or require in the name of their agriculture lobbies that harms public health, private property rights, or public property.

The CWA exempts irrigation flows from pollution discharge requirements. The Supreme Court has made a further mess of CWA jurisdiction. Even in cases where courts get it right, such as with the Cotton Growers decision that requires pesticide users who are discharging to water to get a NPDES permit, state governments are fighting back by seeking judicial intervention, legislative intervention, or just plain refusing to follow the letter or spirit of the decision because they view it as "outsiders telling us how to run things." Hell, EPA's Washington office has never, I'm convinced, seen a pesticide they didn't like.

Really, when it comes to agriculture, "should" and "reason" go right out the window at the start.

[pscot]

13. Not as long as the Supremes say it's ok

to dump it in the nearest creek.

[Javaman]

15. Why not store it and draw off the methane for fuel?

:shrug:

When it's exhausted, use it for farming.

[NickB79]

16. And yet the US uses MILLIONS of tons of natural-gas-based fertilizer every year

So tell me that why this manure can't be applied to the fields when farmers are still spending huge sums of money annually for chemical fertilizers that are inferior to composted manure?

[The Croquist]

17. I agree

I own some land next to a cow farm and the owner picks up the manure, lets it dry and then spreads it on the pastures. He told me I can have all I want provided I pick it up myself. So far I haven't taken him up on it.

The bottom line is that this stuff should have some commercial value. Between the value of it as methane and compost versus the cost (environmental and otherwise) of pouring it down the drain it should be worth more to be used then dumped. If you charge the farmers for the amount they dump you might get a nice little industry going for recycling.