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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Environment - More on: Ohio agricultural waste, dumped in Indiana

Updating this ILB entry from Nov. 16th, Tom Bechman of The Prairie Farmer reported on Nov. 22nd:

Rumors of Ohio livestock producers hauling manure into Indiana and 'dumping' it led to a sensational-type report aired on an Indianapolis TV station, WTHR, Channel 13, last week. The rumors say livestock producers in the heavy-livestock laden counties of west-central Ohio will soon face tougher regulations, so they're bringing manure to Indiana to get rid of it instead of face the regulations.

Tom Menke, of Menke Consulting, Inc., Greenville, Ohio, says that may be what some people think is happening, but it's not reality as he sees it. First, manure has moved from Ohio into Indiana for at least the past 34 years he's been advising livestock producers. Much of it is spread on land owned or rented by Ohio farmers. The rest is spread on land owned or rented by Indiana farmers who are buying the manure, typically poultry litter, because it's a cheaper source of fertilizer than commercial fertilizers.

In fact, Menke argues that the value of manure itself will keep it from being wasted. Farmers know how valuable it is. Poultry manure tends to be economical to haul within a 100-mile radius of where it's produced. That means a large percentage of it is hauled into Ohio counties surrounding high-livestock producing areas as well.

The term dumping is also inaccurate, he notes. Ohio law allows for stockpiling of manure. Government officials have long recognized there that manure can't always be land-applied when it needs to be removed from the facility. So they instituted requirements for stockpiling. As far as we know, Indiana does not have the same stockpiling rules for people who buy manure but who don't raise livestock.

However, that could change. Bob Kraft, Indiana Farm Bureau, says the legislature may address the issue of the person who stores and uses manure, but who currently isn't under the same regulations as his adjoining neighbor who has a livestock confinement operation and produces the manure. He expects it's possible a bill may be proposed that would require those storing and applying manure to meet the same requirements as those who have CAFO units.

Also dated Nov. 22nd, this story by Bill Richmond of the Winchester News-Gazette, headlined "Manure dumping report draws praise, criticism." Some quotes:
Area water quality activist Barbara Sha Cox has received more than 200 e-mails congratulating her on a recent WTHR-television report on manure dumping in Randolph County. The TV report alleges that thousands of pounds of poultry manure from farms in Western Ohio are being trucked across the state line to Eastern Indiana.


“Overall the response has been positive,” Cox said Thursday. “They are mostly glad the issue was finally aired.”

The television station website includes numerous comments on the segment. Some accuse Cox of conspiring to eliminate animal agriculture, some point out that most farmers are responsible, while others decry the state’s lax standards for punishing out of state dumpers.

Indiana Department of Agriculture Director Joe Kelsay in this week’s Hoosier Ag Today newsletter said people seem to misunderstand the goals and outcomes of livestock farming. Kelsay said the use of animal nutrients to fertilize corps is an important tool for Indiana agriculture and most farmers manage it very well.

She said for some farmers the issue is how low in phosphorus Randolph County soil is and how desperately we need the this type of fertilizer.

“When this came up last year, there wasn’t as much poultry manure as there seems to be this year,” Cox said. “I, along with other environmental groups, meet with IDEM (Indiana Department of Environmental Management) monthly and I keep bringing this up. They suggested the manure brokers follow best management practices.

“But year before last a law was enacted dictating that counties cannot regulate manure dumping more stringently than the state chemist’s office does.”

She said although there is much opposition on the the issue, a commonsense solution could have been reached long ago if not for the excessive amount of bureaucracy involved. The issue has worsened substantially since last summer when Grand Lake St. Marys, Ohio, was devastated by blue-green algae that killed fish, birds and tourism. An Ohio water quality management official has allegedly called for increased manure hauling away from the lake’s watershed as a possible solution.

“When you see what Ohio has suffered, you know pretty much what’s at stake,” Cox said.

“I am not anti-farming. I spend more of my waking hours on the farm than at home.

“We need manure management rules stringent enough to protect our waterways. We’re encouraging livestock farmers to use best management practices - simply put, to be concerned about how your actions affect others. If you have a lot of manure, put a berm around it or cover the manure.

“IDEM says they’ve never had a problem but they also say they’ve never inspected, so how do they really know they’ve not had a problem?”

Cox said when she took the television crew to a site where a massive amount of chicken manure had been dumped on a particularly windy day they couldn’t believe what was going on.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 23, 2010 11:10 AM
Posted to Environment