—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 11. 1971
14
Lancaster Co. REAP Program Now Offers Help:
As the local dairy, beef and
poultry industries expand in size,
one problem grows even faster.
That problem is:
How to get rid of the waste in a
manner which will keep peace
with increasing numbers of
neighbors, meet stricter pollution
laws and still not cost so much it
makes farming impractical 9
Increasing attention is being
devoted to solving this dilemma.
Farmers, agribusinesses,
educators and government are
among those spending increasing
amounts of time and money on
this mushrooming problem
One indication of the concern
and the efforts to solve the
problem is the new program by
the Rural Environmental
Assistance Program (REAP) to
subsidize animal waste storage
systems which meet certain
minimum requirements. REAP
will pay up to 50 per cent or a
maximum of $2,500 of the cost of
“animal waste storage treatment
and diversion facilities,” or more
specifically, “manure pits and
lagoons.”
Lagoons are not allowed in
limestone soils, however,
because of the danger of un
derground pollution. Since
limestone underlines a major
portion of Lancaster County,
lagoons are severely restricted
under the REAP program.
According to Orval Bass,
district conservationist of the
U.S. Soil Conservation Service,
Lancaster County is mostly going
withholding tanks under the
subsidy program.
Reasons for Holding
The primary purpose of these
tanks, he explained, is to hold the
manure for extended periods of
time so that it can be spread
under ideal conditions.
Requirements are that the
tanks be large enough to hold
waste output of about 100 days.
The 100 day figure enables
farmers to avoid spreading
A Look at 3 Animal Waste
Orval Bass, district con
servationist of the U.S. Soil
Conservation Service, recently
showed Lancaster Farming three
animal waste disposal systems
which he thinks are working.
(See related story on this page.)
One on the John Landis farm
near East Petersburg was in
stalled by Zimmerman In
dustries, the Ephrata pre-fab
concrete firm The round 36-foot
diameter pit is 12 feet deep. It
was built early this year with
REAP help
Landis’ pit was installed to the
rear of his dairy operation on
This is a view of John B. Groff’s veal calf way that wastes from the pens flow into his
pens. The facility was designed in such a irrigation system.
Animal Waste Disposal—Some Problems and Solutions
The concrete slab and related equipment are about all
that’s visible of the large pit at the John Landis farm
near East Petersburg. The animal waste storage pit,
manure on frozen ground. In
Southeastern Pennsylvania the
frozen ground or holding period
runs approzimately from mid-
December till April i, or about
100 days.
Some of the major pollution
problems stemming from an
animal wastes are believed to
result from spreading manure on
frozen ground, Bass explained.
When the ground is frozen, the
manure readily mixes with rain
and runoff to flow into streams.
When the ground is not frozen,
the manure mixes with the soil
and there is relatively little
runoff, Bass explained.
Until recenlty, nearly all local
farm waste disposal systems
have operated in one or two
manners: Either the manure has
been hauled daily or nearly so, or
else it has been stored only
briefly—possibly for a couple of
weeks.
Even where storage has been
open ground. The pit itself is
underground, with just the
concrete surface showing just
above ground level. This concrete
surface has a couple of openings
to allow the waste to flow in and
be pumped out into the “honey
wagon.”
Weidler Grube, who lives
farther north just off Route 283,
has been operating what Bass
considers to be a similar and
successful system, which was
built long before REAP got into
the act
Grube’s system, built in 1967, is
not visible to the casual observer
for longer periods, it has not
usually been long enough or
timed in such a way as to avoid
frozen ground.
Another problem with systems
of limited storage capacity has
been lack of available ground for
disposal during the long summer
crop season. Some farmers have
solved this problem by growing a
variety of crops and grains with
different planting and maturity
dates. Increasing use of corn has
aggravated the summer disposal
problem.
The storage ot the waste also
allows—to the greatest extent
possible—the spreading of
manure on days when the
weather is suitable. Rainy
weather, particularly when the
ground is water-logged, is to be
avoided because of increased
dangers of runoff.
Farmers with neighbors also
know that some kinds of weather
His sytem is also built un
derground, with a concrete
surface. But the concrete surface
is part of a larger rectangular
concrete feed lot or walking area
for his animals. About the only
thing which gives his pit away is
the system which brings the
waste from the bam to the pit.
Grube’s pit has the same
diameter, 30-feet, as Landis’, but
at eight feet deep, it’s four feet
shallower. But Bass explained
that it still has 100 days of
capacity, since Grube has a
relatively small dairy herd
John B. Groff, Mount Joy RDI,
built to meet local conservation district recom
mendations, is round, 30 feet in diameter and 12 feet
deep.
are better than others to keep s
odors to a minimum
Large Storage Needed
Obviously, to hold the waste
from a modem farm opeation for
100 days requires a very large
storage facility.
For design purposes, Bass
figures the farmer needs to allow
storage capacity of 15 gallons a
day for dairy cows, 12 gallons a
day for beef cattle, 2.1 gallons for
pigs, .81 gallon for sheep and .047
for poultry.
That figures out to a 37,500
gallon tank for a small 25-head
dairy operation; a 150,000 gallon
tank for a relatively large 100
head dairy operation; a 120,000
gallong storage for a 100 head
steer operation.
A similar 100-day capacity for a
10.000 poultry operation would be
47.000 gallons.
Design, Costs
Systems of this type which are
being approved under the REAP
Systems
has an entirely different kind of
system, but one which Bass
thinks is very successful. It’s an
irrigation system.
Groff said he got his ideas for
the system from Donald
Hostetler, Chester County.
The system begins with two
160-foot gutters which slope at the
rate of one and one-half inches
per 10 feet. These gutters carry
the animal waste directly into a
large pit at the low end of the
bulding
Periodically, Groff opens the
gate of his gutters and flushes
with water from a pond which he
built near his barn. Besides
cleaning the gutters, the water
serves to liquify the waste and
make it suitable for irrigation.
The only power used m the
system is a three-phase 30-
horespower motor which pumps
water into the gutters from the
pond and pumps the sludge into
the fields.
The only problem so far with
the system is that the nozzles
sometimes clog up out in the
field. Groff presently is looking
for a better type of nozzle.
Another drawback of Groff's
system, according to present
REAP standards, is that the pit
has only a 30-day storage
capacity, - while recom
mendations are for a 100-day
storage to get over the winter
freeze. Because of limited
storage, Groff has to irrigate
every 30 days.
program, Bass said, are either
approved prefabricated concrete
or reinforced concrete poured on
the site.
Cost of these systems varies
considerably. Bass has seen them
run all the way from about six
cents per gallon of capacity up
to about 18 cents'.
For a 60 cow dairy herd, Bass
figures a reasonable cost
estimate would be $6,000 for a pit
alone, with an extra $3,000 to
$4,500 for related equipment.
Obviously, it’s costly.
Bass warns farmers that
REAP funded projects must
meet minimum standards to
insure they work. Some local
farmer attempting to take
shortcuts on costs found their
tank didn’t work and the money
was wasted, he stated. Failures
have resulted both from systems
which sprang leaks and from
systems which simply collapsed
(Continued on Page 15)
Orval Bass
District Conservationist
But Bass feels that Groff has a
very minimal problem of
pollution because his farming
practices include a complete
conservation program. “I
wouldn’t advise anyone to
irrigate without waterways and
terraces because of the dangers
of runoff following a heavy rain,”
Bass said.
Groff has been using his
irrigation system for a year. He
has 68 milking cows. His new veal
operation is also on the system.
A major advanatage has been
that it saves labor.
He previously hauled every day
and it took about 50 minutes to
load and unload.
Now he figures about six hours
a month, pushing switches and
occassionally moving an
irrigation pipe.