It has been some time since I have sent an update as to the
happenings in Kewaunee County with relation to county government. I will admit, being the chairman of the board
has taken a lot of my time, but I do feel good about the direction the county
is headed. This update will deal only
with the groundwater developments.
Kewaunee County
Board
I am happy to report that your new board of supervisors is hard at work to change the course of the county. It is indeed refreshing to go to committee meetings and hear the committee members ask good questions, having meaningful dialogue and taking actions on issues rather than kicking the can down the road. Your involvement as concerned citizens have caused the changes on the board. Government can work (although slower than I’d like), if citizens get involved.
I am happy to report that your new board of supervisors is hard at work to change the course of the county. It is indeed refreshing to go to committee meetings and hear the committee members ask good questions, having meaningful dialogue and taking actions on issues rather than kicking the can down the road. Your involvement as concerned citizens have caused the changes on the board. Government can work (although slower than I’d like), if citizens get involved.
Kewaunee County
Public Health and Groundwater Protection Ordinance #173-9-14
For some time in our county, we have been experiencing groundwater problems with an inordinate number of wells being polluted. For example, in May of 2014, 556 different wells throughout Kewaunee County were tested and we found 29.7% of these wells were not safe for human consumption due to presence of coliform bacteria and/or nitrates above the human health standard of 10 parts per million.
For some time in our county, we have been experiencing groundwater problems with an inordinate number of wells being polluted. For example, in May of 2014, 556 different wells throughout Kewaunee County were tested and we found 29.7% of these wells were not safe for human consumption due to presence of coliform bacteria and/or nitrates above the human health standard of 10 parts per million.
These kind of results are indeed worrisome as if allowed to
continue will have injurious impact on land values in our area and will
negatively impact tourism and general growth in the county. We already have billboards being sponsored by
some unnamed folks that are harming the county’s tourism growth.
Your board faced this problem head-on starting out with
meetings with DNR and DATCP officials in Madison. At that meeting, both the Secretary of DATCP
and the Secretary of DRN committed to helping Kewaunee County begin to solve
this problem. Those agencies did not
have any funds for us as they could not treat one county differently than
another county. So, the land and water
committee, along with a lot of hard work by Andy Wallander, crafted and passed
a new Public Health and Groundwater ordinance through to the full board. Following the first reading of that
ordinance and a well-attended public hearing, the final ordinance went to the
full board for passage on Sep 23rd.
It passed with all board members voting in favor of the ordinance.
Next steps in implementing the ordinance in the county will
be; each township has to have a referendum on their ballots in the spring
election period. If the individual townships
adopt the ordinance, in Jan 2016 the actual implementation of the ordinance would
occur. Basically the ordinance changes the
way manure is applied to certain Karst featured land in our county. A very short explanation of the ordinance is;
no manure (liquid or otherwise) will be allowed to be applied on soil that is
less than 20 feet to bedrock for the period of Jan 1 – Apr 15.
So what is the
long-term fix for our Groundwater Problems?
First we have to recognize, Agriculture has been, and will be, the major business of our county. Dairy and beef operations will continue to grow in herd size. We will not see a rebirth of small farms, for that is not a realistic expectation. We have a very large number of cows in our county, and on a daily basis, they produce millions of gallons of manure.
First we have to recognize, Agriculture has been, and will be, the major business of our county. Dairy and beef operations will continue to grow in herd size. We will not see a rebirth of small farms, for that is not a realistic expectation. We have a very large number of cows in our county, and on a daily basis, they produce millions of gallons of manure.
Several decades ago, DATCP encouraged farmers to build
manure pits for storage rather than stacking manure. To efficiently handle getting the manure to
the pits, barns were washed down with a whole lot of water, which in the end,
only increases the number of gallons of manure that are produced on a daily
basis. Now that manure has to be hauled
from the pits, transported from the farms to fields that are sometimes miles
from the originating farm and sometimes in adjacent counties.
Farmers in Kewaunee County have nutrient management plans
and follow those plans closely as they apply their liquid manure. It is difficult, however, to apply the
nutrients in liquid manure scientifically.
Although the manure is tested at the pit for nutrient content, the
application on the fields is broadcast.
Let me try to explain this.
Technology has existed for some time that provides farmers GPS
coordinates for each type of nutrient required for a specific spot on a field. When applying granulated fertilizer, this can
be accomplished. However, when applying liquid
manure this cannot be done. Therefore,
if a farmer is spreading the required amount of potassium, it could be
the nitrogen and phosphate levels might be too high. By the way, it seems nitrates are one of the
biggest problems with the wells that are polluted in Kewaunee County.
Recently, I was fortunate enough to take a day trip to
Lansing Michigan to Michigan State University to view some of the latest
technology for treating large volumes of manure. These systems provide processing for organic
waste treatment. We visited both Digested
Organics and McLanahan facilities while in Lansing. Both of these companies along with a company
called Bioferm are working hard to introduce systems that provide the solution
for farmers to treat their manure and to separate the nutrients from the vast
number of gallons of water.
The following companies will be
displaying their systems at the World Dairy Expo being held in Madison this
week. Each has their own strengths and
weaknesses when dealing with the large volume of material coming off farms now
days.
Digested Organics (DO) (www.digestedorganics.com) is an organic waste treatment
solutions company that has been very active in WI and specifically
in Kewaunee County. They offer modular, scalable systems to the Ag
community that can process both raw manure and digestate with efficiency. They are able to process manure from dairies
with 100 to 5000 head, our treatment systems reduce COD (Chemical Oxygen
Demand) by 99%+ - compared to an industry average of 55% and generate 80%+
methane rich biogas for both electric and thermal demand. DO technology is currently being used on
organic wastes/sludge's in Europe with over 250 systems in operation.
DO’s distributed/modular systems are
designed for smaller farms that traditionally have not had a right sized - cost
effective solution to address their manure management issues. DO and its
partners also provide back-end systems to generate renewable power, as well as
separate and capture nutrients. DO's
treatment system also generates reusable water - suitable for irrigation,
flushing or other barn use.
DO's Midwest livestock waste commercial
demonstration system is located just minutes from the World Dairy Expo in
Madison at the Wagner Dairy Farm in Middleton. They are scheduling tours for
interested parties during the Expo. Please contact Chris Maloney at chris.maloney@digestedorganics.com to
arrange a visit/demo.
McLanahan (www.mclanahan.com) is another company that
is working in this space. In Michigan we
visited a farm where they were wet vacuuming up manure from 200 cows and
treating that manure each day. At the
end of the process was reusable/irrigatable water and segregated dried caked
material that contained the nutrient value (nitrogen/phosphates/potassium) of
the manure. That caked material could be
further dried and could be pelletized as a slow release solid fertilizer.
Bioferm, www.biofermenergy.com
is another company that has developed anaerobic
digesters for various farm size types.
So where do
we go next?
As a County Board, we need to communicate openly with our local farmers, Ag industry officials and affiliates to better understand how we, as local government officials can better assist each type of farming operation. We will have to work with the DNR, DATCP and the State Legislature to ensure they are aware of the local developments and are considering all options. Specifically, the types of systems any farm or farms would need to process manure are costly and we could work with State Government to explore financing for these systems.
As a County Board, we need to communicate openly with our local farmers, Ag industry officials and affiliates to better understand how we, as local government officials can better assist each type of farming operation. We will have to work with the DNR, DATCP and the State Legislature to ensure they are aware of the local developments and are considering all options. Specifically, the types of systems any farm or farms would need to process manure are costly and we could work with State Government to explore financing for these systems.
Perhaps we will determine several smaller community
digesters make more sense in the long run.
These could even be run as cooperatives.
We don’t have all the answers at this point, for sure, but with time we
will find the right answers.
