Nmftig, so**,. April 30, iw SRBC Reports On Groundwater Nutrients
(Continued from Page Al)
involved in the-study.
The study was jointly financed
by the SRBC and the federal
Environmental Protection
Agency.
The farm toured Tuesday was
the 219-tillable-acre dairy and
poultry farm of Paul Gugston.
located near Halifax. He milks 103
Holsteins in a commercial herd
and raises approximately 92
replacement heifers and calves. He
also has 65,000 broilers under con
tract to Pennfield Corp.
Gugston has been cooperating
with nutrient studies for years, and
has been involved with several dif
.tcd' irk
The pipe at the top of the photograph is a drainage pipe
that was installed as part of an USDA SCS erosion control
plan. The pipe was sectioned and this measurement box
installed by researchers in order to measure the rate of flow
and also to take water samples. The small pipe on the right
leads to a stilling well. The “V”-notched weir helps with
measuring flow.
Larry Taylor stands by a surface water collection flume. Water flow is automatically
recorded and samples of surface water are automatically taken by the equipment
housed in boxes.
The old farmhouse sits on the right while all the measur- to treat groundwater collected from a 10-acre watershed. It
ing devices are in the foreground and researchers and all part of a research program designed to monitor the
others stand on the tar side of an artificial wetland created t >ow of water and nutrients in a real farming situation.
done there. From 1986 to 1990,
researchers from Penn State Uni
versity looked into nutrient cycles
at the site. Their work involved
measuring amounts of nutrients
pul on the soil and amounts
removed.
The SRBC studies were diffe
rent in that they focused on mea
suring water flows, the nutrient
levels in water flows, and also the
effectiveness of artificial wetlands
in removing nitrates from the
water.
Because of problems with the
design of the second study area at a
farm near Enterline, much of the
monitoring there was
dir >ied.
From the left, standing on an artificial wetland designed to breakdown groundwater
nitrates into environmentally safe nitrogen gas are Paul Craig, extension agent, John
Graham, civil engineer, Paul Clugston, owner-operator of the farm, Larry Taylor,
hydrogeologist, and Donald Bollinger, chairman of the state Nutrient Management
Advisory Board. The wetland is made of a series of haybale baffles to serve as a car
bon source overlain with a sandstone gravel medium to allow water flow and provide a
surface for bacterial growth.
What researchers have been
working with is a 10.9-acre self
contained watershed valley on
Clugston’s farm that has a natural
small spring.
The center of the valley had
originally been a wet, soggy, tree
line area until Clugston installed
field drains according to his con
servation plan created by the
USDA's Soil Conservation Dis
trict. The area had been considered
highly erodible land.
Those field drains, according to
researchers, were dug deep enough
that researchers said they think the
drains have been collecting all the
shallow ground water from the
field.
To treat the collected water, two
20-foot, by 50-foot, by 3-foot-deep
rectangular artificial wetlands
were constructed.
The first wetland was made five
years ago, but it was put in during a
dry period. Last year, a second bio
logical filter was installed, after
researchers experienced two years
of more normal rainfall and dis
covered that the first wetland
couldn’t handle the flow.
The research data shows that
high nitrate levels in the shallow
groundwater, attributable to the
use of manure fertilizer on the
watershed, seemed to be contained
in that layer of groundwater; and
that the wetlands plants and micro
bes consumed the energy from the
nitrates, converting it to N 2.
The N 2 is the gas which consti
tutes 78 percent of the earth’s
atmosphere and is considered a
reservior of nitrogen that is not
immediately available for use by
plants and animals as a nutrient.
The report lists four conclusions
reached by its authors:
• “Nitrification is an important
process influencing the quality of
recharge to the ground water sys
tem at both farm sites.
• “The nitrate concentration in
ground water decreases with
increasing depth below the water
table. Thus, the depth to the shal
lowest water-bearing zone is an
important factor in determining the
degree that the quality of ground
water produced by a well will be
influenced by agricultural
activities.
• “In the rolling topography, as
characterized by aress underlain
by the Catskill Formation, field
drains can be designed to capture a
significant portion of the recharge
to the ground water system; per
haps limiting the spread of nutrient
contaminated ground water. The
nutrient rich water can be treated
using small, artificial wetlands.
• “Application timing and rates,
and types of fertilizer may be
important factors in the quality of
recharge water, however, soil con
ditions, depth of water table, depth
of water bearing zones, and natural
chemical character of the ground
water (either oxic or anoxic) are
important considerations with
respect to the degree the ground
water will be contaminated.”
What is means is that research
ers are saying that it is possible to
protect the movement of nutrients
into deep groundwater by using a
drainage system to collect rainwa
ter filtering down through the earth
and then treating or using that
water.
While the researchers used
“artificial wetlands” to use up
nitrates in the collected groundwa
ter, they said it is theoretically pos
sible to use those nutrients in that
water to operate a hydroponics
facility.
They said they did have a prob
lem getting enough phosphorus as
a nutrient from the groundwater,
despite the fact that Clugston uses
almost all cow and poultry manure
to fertilize.
In the report’s comments on the
effectiveness of the constructed
artificial wetlands, which were
designed using the same principles
that would be used to construct a
biological filter for waste water
treatment, the researchers said that
the lack of adequate phosphorus in
the groundwater limited the ability
of the wetlands to use up nitrates.
“Although there had been a
small reduction in the nitrate in the
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