Visting a Manure Digester and Summer Roundup

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Dear Neighbors,
Members of the Environment Ag and Natural Resources (EANR) committee and County Board members toured the Community Manure Digester Facility located in the Town of Springfield (often referred to as the Middleton Digester). These digesters serve a number of purposes including: removing phosphorous from manure, generating RNG gas (the gaseous output of decomposition of organic matter) and composted manure. These processes help remove phosphorus from the Yahara Watershed which pollutes our lakes while creating clean energy.

Now while all this sounds like a complete solution to many of the environmental challenges we face, it is a very expensive and energy intensive process. The digester we visited served 5 farms however Dane County has considerably more dairy farms so it is hard to scale up. The County Board approved 3 million dollars for a feasibility study of expanding manure digestion. I will closely follow the study and the results to help inform any decisions going forward.

However, let’s take a closer look at what happens at the Manure digester. In the following set of pictures and videos, I will try to recapture the sights and sounds. Unfortunately I won’t be able to recreate the smells.

Manure is trucked in from neighboring farms and pushed through underground piping to the huge silos for the decomposition process to begin. Here is a truck dumping its load:

This manure is in primary liquid form with different viscosity levels and is mixed together. After it is mixed together, it is put into one of huge operating silo tanks where it naturally breaks down over a period of 25 days at about 100 degrees.

From there, the liquid fraction of the separated manure is pumped through ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis membranes, oxygenated and adjusted for pH, before being discharged to the North Fork of Pheasant Branch Creek. The system has the capacity to treat up to 100,000 gallons of manure each day while returning as much as 50,000 gallons of clean water back to the stream. (text from land and water web site). Here is what the inputs looks like:

That eventually becomes this:

The composted manure then fills a huge building. Here is a picture of me standing in front of a pile of manure (insert your favorite joke here):

Here is the 15 million gallon pool to store the separated liquids. There is a sign indicating no swimming or fishing

The manure digester also has 3 megawatts of solar panels to help power the facility. RNG produced at the facility is stored in containers and then trucked over to a Dane County facility where it can be added to a pipeline. This is more cost effective than trying to build gas pipeline infrastructure to the facility.

This is a brief overview of this facility. I look forward to studying this in more detail and all solutions for phosphorous reduction and climate resilience like cover crops, harvestable buffer strips, adaptive farming practices and nutrient management plans. Not one solution will solve all of our problems but we need a combination of strategies to work in concert with each other.

Here are some additional links with info:

https://yogeshchawla.com/d6-updates/2018/4/30/manure-digesters-a-closer-look

Summer Roundup

  • Waterfront fest was a blast! I hope to see you all at all the summer festivals big and small. There are too many to list here but you will probably see me volunteering and bartending at most of them. Keep your eyes on social media for a leg of the AtwoodFest convergence that me, Davy Mayer and my kid are leading. There will be a Taylor Swift theme with sing alongs, bracelet making/trading, and secret songs.

  • The County Board just completed a three part training on Black History in the United States and Wisconsin taught by Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara. It was very informative and will help inform and educate the entire board and community going forward.

  • We are starting preliminary work on the Dane County Budget which really kicks into gear this Fall. I look forward to talking in more detail with our district to help inform our collective budget priorities going forward.

  • I was a proud sponsor of a resolution declaring Dane County a sanctuary for trans and nonbinary individuals.

    The resolution called for the following:

    * That the Dane County Board of Supervisors firmly states its commitment to protect transgender and nonbinary individuals, and believes that access to health care is a fundamental right and all people in Dane County and the State of Wisconsin should have access to all health care, including gender affirming care.

    * that, if the state of Wisconsin passes a law that imposes criminal or civil punishments, fines, or professional sanctions on any person or organization that seeks, provides, receives or helps someone to receive gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers, hormones or surgery, the Dane County Board of Supervisors urges the Sheriff to make enforcement their lowest priority.

    * that Dane County be considered a safe place, a sanctuary, for transgender children and adults and their families.

    Make no mistake that Transphobia is real in Dane County. The Board had received a number of despicable emails based in ignorance and hate which have likely been stoked by far right forces in the County and on the board. We will not be intimidated by these extreme factions and stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.

  • That’s all for now. I hope to see you around the neighborhood and out and about!