Liquid manure spill

[highhertel]

Fair enough, appreciate your opinion.

I have worked for many good farmers in my earlier years and they all went out of their to do what is right and help provide food and a good living for their families while being a steward of the environment. These are small family farms I am talking about. Unfortunately today the small family farm is for the most part a thing of the past and corporate America has taken over (again).

Referencing a comment from the Milwaukee Journal article, how is the annual dumping of the equivalent amount of manure that would fit inside a baseball stadium onto N.E. Wisconsin soil a good thing? Where do you think it is all going? Into the soil? Do your homework please. My well I had at my residence in Door County was 300' deep with casing to 150', with all the orchard and farm contamination in the area this was not enough.

What if millions of gallons of oil were being dumped onto our soils, could you image the uprising? Obviously manure is not as toxic in the short term as oil, but in the mid to long term, the negative environmental results will be much worse.

HH

 

[carman_65]

A stadium full of manure? Of course that sounds bad when you first hear that, but think about it. That much manure being applied in all of NW Wisconsin over the course of a whole year? Ok, so what? That's just a comparison made to make it sound worse than it really is. And they are not just "dumping" it onto the soil, which sounds bad, they are injecting it and incorporating it into the soil to minimize runoff and leaching.

And of course it's going into the soil. What else are they supposed to do with it?? That's when pages of regulations come into play. Now I can't speak for Wisconsin, but in Minnesota of example, we cannot apply any kind of manure within 300 ft. of any surface water or waterway. And there's regulations that say how it must be applied and if and when it must be covered/incorporated, what time of the year it can be done, and other areas that can and can't be covered. I could go on and on about that.

Now do all farmers do this? Of course not! It's back to what I said before, it's the bad ones that you hear about. And the ones who are being careless and causing the accidents need to be held accountable. ****, they shouldn't even be in farming if that's how they are gonna be. But there is a big difference between a simple accident and just being stupid, and it's important to know that before you go calling every incident a big careless disaster by all the big, mean farmers.

And again, what more are they supposed to do? What should they do with all the manure? If new regulations continue to come down on them, they are just going to close up. Not because they would want to, but because they would have to. And that's already happening. Is that what you want? If you think food prices are high now, wait till they all just quit.

I'm not against you. I do understand the problems being created. There isn't a good farmer out there who is trying to pollute and destroy the environment. The soil is what allows them to be in business and they will take as much care of it as possible. What do you want them to do different? What ideas do you have that will help, but will still cash-flow and not regulate them to death?

 

[highhertel]

My point exactly, what are the farmers suppose to do with all the liquid poo? By allowing large scale centralized farming operations into high density population areas like N.E. Wisconsin, the problem becomes amplified. Same problem as placing wind generating farms into high density areas. What a disaster that has turned into.

Amarin Technologies out of Oak Creek, WI was developing a technology to process swine, poultry and dairy livestock manure to dry organic fertilizer for commercial resale. This is where the future lies.

HH

 

[carman_65]

You have that backwards. Large scale farms are not moving into high populated areas. High populated areas are moving into large farming areas. The farms have always been there. It's the people living in the cities, who don't know the first thing about farming, that are moving closer to farms. And they have always been applying manure to their fields. Manure is packed with nutrients and greatly increases the organic matter of the soil (increase organic matter reduces leaching and runoff by making the soil more fertile for plant growth). Would you rather they use lots of "evil fertilizer" as you seem to make it sound, to create productive soil?

If they are able to process liquid manure into dry at a reasonable cost without a lot of time consumption, many of them will be for it, as would I. The reason these farms use liquid manure opposed to dry is because it's much easier and cost effective to handle, store, and apply.

And "large" farms are not always a bad thing. They are able to produce much more with less inputs and labor, making them far more efficient then "smaller" farms. Yes, they are usually the ones that pollute the most and the ones you always hear about because they are easy targets, but that's why there are regulations. It's a double edged sword. If we relied only on "small" farms to produce the food we need, food and fuel prices would skyrocket because of the costs of production.

Both have their benefits and flaws. My family and I run an "average" sized farm (farm size is relative to the area you live in) here in MN, so I know first hand how this works. Farms are not getting larger by being greedy and by all the "big money they get from the government" (don't get me going, I'll save that discussion for a different thread). It's a means of staying in business. We have two choices, get smaller and go under, or become larger and survive. Love it or hate it, that's what farming has become in the last 5+ years. With the advances in technology and the costs of inputs, it makes more economic sense to become larger.

 

[highhertel]

In Calumet County/N.E. Wisconsin where I grew up, the 'CAFO' farms of today started out as small operations. They started buying up small family farms surrounding their footprint and became what they are. When liquid application occurs, the people WITHIN the cities of Chilton, Hilbert, New Holstein...cannot even open up their windows because of the stench. Enjoy a nice summer evening in the city? Ya right, the farmers are spreading liquid manure again, no fresh are for a few weeks. How is this encroachment by a population center into rural areas? I am sorry but you have it backwards.

The property values have crashed for residents living near these farms and their wells are contaminated. These are folks that have lived on these rural properties for generations, not new comers to rural living by no means. This has nothing to do with population encroaching towards CAFO farms, but the large farms outgrowing their sustainability in populated areas.

Did you ever see the CAFO farms in California? I have, they are located miles away from population centers, very unlike mega farms in areas of Wisconsin.

Remember what the steel mills and paper mills did to our environment? Forget history and we are doomed to repeat it again I am afraid.

HH

 

[carman_65]

Sorry but I have very little sympathy for people who complain about the smells. That's just part of living in the country or near rural areas. If you don't like it, leave. No one is forcing them to stay there. There has always been bad smells a associated with farms, that's just part of their job until something new changes it. They can't just stop applying and wait for a better technology to arrive. As long as people are creating a market by eating beef and drinking milk, the farmers will do what it takes to meet that demand. If they want it changed, create a demand for something else. And I'm willing to bet that the people complaining about the smells are the same people who complain about the high food prices too, so the farmers can never seem to win.

Same goes for the steel and paper mills. They were there to meet the demand for building materials. I realize the problems they created and some things they did to the environment are irreversible, but they were a necessary evil. Our country needs the materials to build and grow, just like people need the food from the farms. And with a growing population in this country and world, that demand is only going to get bigger.

You've made your point about all the problems farms create, I get that. And no one is denying that, including myself. I'm just trying to give you the farmers side of things about why they do what they do. But I'm still waiting to hear some kind of solutions instead of more complaints. What do you want changed?

 

[highhertel]

I do not know anybody that complained about farm smells before liquid manure came along. I go to small free range farms and enjoy the smell of a fresh cow pie, call it strange but the mellow odor takes me back to my younger years. Add to that the sweat smell of fresh cut alfalfa and fresh fermented silage and my nostrils are in scent heaven.

So the rural towns of 3,000, 5,000 or even 10,000 people should just pack up and relocate so some farmer can slop a couple million gallons of liquid manure onto the land without regard to his neighbors? Really? Do you read your messages before you hit the reply button? If they don't like it leave, are you serious? If I would hear that from a farmer I would take that as a threat.

I come from four generations of U.S. farmers, many more ancestral predecessors from Germany who also farmed. From genealogy I have done on my family, I found they loved their occupation and they loved the land even more. I doubt that any of these pioneers would have made threats to support their business. They would have conducted business in a moral and ethical manner, not bullying and making threats.



HH

 

[highhertel]

I think we have taken this issue about as far as we can on a snowmobile message board, I will not post anymore manure spill data or incidents, just read the local and state papers/websites for future developments and ongoing spills.

Best regards,

HH

 

[frnash]

Originally Posted by highhertel

I do not know anybody that complained about farm smells before liquid manure came along. I go to small free range farms and enjoy the smell of a fresh cow pie, call it strange but the mellow odor takes me back to my younger years. Add to that the sweat smell of fresh cut alfalfa and fresh fermented silage and my nostrils are in scent heaven. …

I can relate to that, HH. One hundred percent!

"… the mellow odor takes me back to my younger years …" Yes it certainly does that.

I had the great pleasure and yes, even luxury of spending many summer vacations on my grandparents' 320 acre dairy farm north-northeast of Bruce Crossing, MI, as a welcome alternative to hanging around on the streets of Deetroit. (Though they were not so "mean streets" as they are today, had I hung out there, I'm sure I could have got myself into a heap o' trouble.)

I visited the farm as a toddler in the early 1940s and later, then in the later years of elementary school and all of my high school summer breaks. It was full involvement in the farm chores, from fetching the cows from the pasture for morning and evening milking, feeding 'em, milking em', birthin' calves, slopping out the barn, "making hay" (loose hay in the earlier years, rectangular bales in later years), helping to some degree with the grain harvesting. Then after the chores were done, a good hot sauna, then perhaps a quiet evening walk up Larson Road chasing fireflies, and watching the awesome displays of Northern Lights.

Winter visits as well, for deer season. Including the long hours on the dock in dad's old dark green "bloated sausage" 1950 Mercury sedan, with all the other deer hunters, waiting for the old car ferries in the years before the Big Mac bridge.

Memories? Oh yeah!

 

[durphee]

Its a good thread and an interesting read. The problem is that we can't lump all generalization into one area. Some mega farms are incorporating into established areas and on the other side some cities are sprawling into the farm areas. From a legal perspective, no I am not a lawyer, the issue comes to a nuisance. There is something called "coming to a nuisance" which is a city sprawling into the farm idea. But, a large farm being developed (theres a big one trying to locate about 30 miles from my house and its a heated issue) can represent a nuisance and citizens do have some protection.

 

[highhertel]

I can relate to that, HH. One hundred percent!

"… the mellow odor takes me back to my younger years …" Yes it certainly does that.

I had the great pleasure and yes, even luxury of spending many summer vacations on my grandparents' 320 acre dairy farm north-northeast of Bruce Crossing, MI, as a welcome alternative to hanging around on the streets of Deetroit. (Though they were not so "mean streets" as they are today, had I hung out there, I'm sure I could have got myself into a heap o' trouble.)

I visited the farm as a toddler in the early 1940s and later, then in the later years of elementary school and all of my high school summer breaks. It was full involvement in the farm chores, from fetching the cows from the pasture for morning and evening milking, feeding 'em, milking em', birthin' calves, slopping out the barn, "making hay" (loose hay in the earlier years, rectangular bales in later years), helping to some degree with the grain harvesting. Then after the chores were done, a good hot sauna, then perhaps a quiet evening walk up Larson Road chasing fireflies, and watching the awesome displays of Northern Lights.

Winter visits as well, for deer season. Including the long hours on the dock in dad's old dark green "bloated sausage" 1950 Mercury sedan, with all the other deer hunters, waiting for the old car ferries in the years before the Big Mac bridge.

Memories? Oh yeah!

Thank you frnash for this great Norman Rockwell-ish moment.

If I had my druthers, I would be farming now (not dairy) instead of working for corporate America. Hmmmm....


HH

 

[highhertel]

Its a good thread and an interesting read. The problem is that we can't lump all generalization into one area. Some mega farms are incorporating into established areas and on the other side some cities are sprawling into the farm areas. From a legal perspective, no I am not a lawyer, the issue comes to a nuisance. There is something called "coming to a nuisance" which is a city sprawling into the farm idea. But, a large farm being developed (theres a big one trying to locate about 30 miles from my house and its a heated issue) can represent a nuisance and citizens do have some protection.

Very well put, thank you.

I will be living in Oregon (the state) for a few more months, then back to the Midwest. Fresh water out here is treated with great respect, some of the best trout and salmon rivers in the lower 48. I my opinion, the tree huggers take things a little too far out here, but they are a necessity when trying to balance out sustainable harvesting of our natural resources.

Here is how manure is spread in Oregon and a few water scenes: