Livestock & Agricultural Waste Intelligence

The Potential of Mediation for Resolving Conflicts Between Irrigation and Urban Water Users

2007-12-13T11:55:00.000-08:00

by Joel D. Palmer (originally published in Management of Irrigation and Drainage Systems: Integrated Perspectives, 1993, American Society of Civil Engineers)

We can model conflict as a spectrum extending from mild disagreements to disputes to campaigns to litigation to fighting (Keltner, 1990). Major conflicts generally escalate from minor conflicts, and the parties’ ability to resolve a conflict on their own decreases as escalation occurs and violence becomes more likely. Increasingly forceful intervention may be required in the form of facilitation, mediation, arbitration, litigation, legislation, or police action. Disputes over water are usually engaged at the litigation stage or higher on the spectrum, with the result that “[t]he issue of what is the wisest use of water in the water-short West is in the hands of lawyers representing every conceivable interest [and is] an assurance of job security for an army of legal advisors, and a cause of deeply entrenched animosity” among disputing parties (Carpenter and Kennedy, 1980).

Yet litigation fails to account for “the goals of the contending parties, the use of water supplies to control growth in the metropolitan area, wilderness and other ecological values, and the needs of rural people who hold a deep-seated hostility toward urban demands for this natural resource” (Carpenter and Kennedy, 1980). In dealing with environmental disputes, litigation has earned a reputation for overcrowded courts, long delays, exorbitant expenses, and poor decisions (Kubasek and Silverman, 1988). Often the real source of a conflict cannot serve as the legal basis for a court challenge. Lawyers reframe issues to fit a legal doctrine and the court is not able to address the real issues and tailor an appropriate remedy. Court decisions interpret the law but rarely end a conflict or reconcile conflicting interests (Amy, 1990).

Conflict over allocation and use of water arises as much from the personal motives of individuals and the relationships among the conflicting parties, as from technical or substantive issues. Conflicts are often colored by emotional, psychological or financial issues. Often the parties have convinced themselves they are adversaries because of poor communication or misconceptions (Carpenter and Kennedy, 1980). Parties tend to see conflicts as “zero-sum” games in which one side can prosper only at the expense of the others. “[B]ecause the participants in multiparty, many-issue disputes are usually unable to deal with their differences on their own, assisted negotiation is often necessary” (Susskind and Cruikshank, 1987).

Mediation helps the disputing parties to settle conflicts peacefully, before they have escalated to the point of litigation. Where litigation involves lawyers fighting one another, mediation involves the conflicting parties collaborating to solve problems. Where litigation restricts communication, mediation encourages communication. Where litigation imposes a settlement on the parties, in mediation the settlement is decided by the parties. Where litigation is a coercive process, mediation is voluntary.
This emphasis in environmental mediation on cooperation and consensus-building is part of a larger alternative dispute resolution movement that includes divorce mediation, landlord-tenant mediation, neighborhood dispute mediation (Amy, 1990). Mediation has a longer history of use in labor-management disputes and international conflict resolution.

The traditional labor-management model of the mediator is a neutral third party who has no stake in the content of the agreement reached by the conflicting parties, but acts only to help the parties achieve an agreement on their own. The mediator leads a series of joint sessions and individual party caucuses. The mediator de-escalates the conflict, helps the parties understand one another’s interests and accommodate each other. The mediator ensures that the parties remain aware of the costs of failing to reach an agreement, and that the solutions proposed are realistic. In this “pure” model, the mediator will not promote one alternative over another and generally will not even offer alternatives of his own. “The mediator has no power to render a decision or to impose a solution” (Gray, 1989).

Bingham (1986) published the only comprehensive survey of mediation of environmental disputes. The 160 cases documented from 1973-1984 included 17 water resources cases. Many of the mediated environmental disputes involved only public agencies. Overall, agreement was reached 78% of the time. Even when those with the authority to implement the agreements did not participate directly in the negotiations, the parties reached agreement 74% of the time. Site-specific disputes were fully implemented in 80% of cases while policy agreements were fully implemented in 41% of cases. The likelihood of settlement was not correlated with the number of parties. A fairly comprehensive search of the literature made for this paper discovered no instances of mediation for resolving conflicts between irrigation and urban water users.

But the successes documented by Bingham show that mediation can produce solutions to similar environmental conflicts with which all parties are satisfied and committed to implement. One of the advantages of the mediation process in producing agreements is that it allows the parties to move beyond their preconceptions of the conflict and their stereotypes of each other (Amy, 1990). As a result, much of the conflict often dissolves once the mediator has the parties communicating. The mediator helps the parties to redefine the conflict as a common problem, and to understand that their different interests are not necessarily conflicting interests.

Mediation explicitly accounts for the different values, perspectives and motives of the parties as they craft alternatives to the problem (Carpenter and Kennedy, 1980). The mediator helps ensure that any agreement reached is technically, financially and politically feasible to implement (Cormick, 1982, Cassady and Orenstein). By emphasizing the parties’ responsibility for solving their own problems, mediation can produce a strong commitment to implementation of the eventual solution (Crowfoot and Wondolleck, 1990). Because mediation results in a consensus solution, parties are more likely to consider the process fair, abide by the settlement, and negotiate future disputes instead of suing one another (Muller, 1984).

One of the greatest advantages of mediation for managing conflict is that the process encourages solutions that transcend each parties’ negotiating positions. Figure 1 (after Pruitt and Rubin, 1986) illustrates the point. The perceived benefit of a particular outcome to a conflict is plotted along one axis for Party 1 and along the other for Party 2. Each party’s aspiration or best expectation for resolving the conflict has been drawn as a line separating the solution space into four parts. Point A represents an alternative that benefits Party 1 at the expense of Party 2, while Point B represents an alternative that benefits Party 2 at the expense of Party 1. Point C is a compromise by both parties. Point D indicates an alternative that exceeds both parties’ expectations. Mediation explicitly seeks to create alternatives of this type.

The skillful mediator is able to discover the elements of such transcendent alternatives and keep them before the negotiating parties (Gray, 1989). He transforms the conflict by moving the parties from a “zero-sum” framework to an integrative bargaining framework. If the parties can externalize the conflict as a common problem, they can often cooperate in finding solutions. “The transformation involves exploiting the multidimensionality of most conflict situations.” (Susskind and Cruikshank, 1987).

The capable mediator generally does not need specific technical knowledge of a given conflict, and in fact this can be a potential problem as “the more the agreement is likely to be a result of the mediator’s ‘leading’ the parties and the less committed the parties will be to the difficult task of implementing the agreement” (Cormick, 1982).

Gray (1989) has listed the tasks mediators can be expected to perform:
* assessing readiness to collaborate
* getting the parties to the table
* minimizing resistance
* ensuring effective representation
* establishing a climate of trust
* modeling openness, optimism, and perseverance
* designing and managing the negotiation process
* managing data
* getting consensus

The nature of mediation makes it appropriate only under certain conditions. The mediator’s first task during the entry or conflict assessment phase is to evaluate the state of the conflict and whether it is “ripe” for mediation, or if the situation is too far escalated for mediation to be effective (Cormick, 1982). The mediator has extensive exploratory discussions with the parties before any commitment is made to negotiate the issues. If the parties are able to negotiate on their own, mediation will be of little value and the mediator’s presence may be a hindrance. Similarly, if the parties believe they have more to gain by stalling agreement or proceeding with a lawsuit, mediation will not be useful.

If after this evaluation the mediator decides to proceed, he must carefully “shape the table” by deciding who will take part, and how organizations will be represented. The mediator should determine who would be able to block implementation of an eventual agreement, and endeavor to include them in the mediation (Bingham, 1989).

The specifics of the process and the mediator’s style varies from case to case (Gray, 1989), but a differentiation, or problem-definition stage followed by a collaborative, or problem-solving stage is usual. Bingham (1989) describes a two-stage process for mediation of complex, multi-party disputes. The mediator first convenes the parties’ scientific and technical personnel to establish the facts of the case, what is known and not known, and what is presently in dispute...Next, a larger session, perhaps lasting days, is held with representatives of all identified interests.to negotiate a settlement. Bingham’s 1986 survey showed that the median duration of all cases from entry to settlement was 5-6 months, while 10% took more than 18 months.

“The mediator is, at the most basic level, a facilitator of communication between parties” (Kubasek & Silverman, 1988). He must enforce ground rules yet allow the venting of angry feelings in a safe atmosphere. He must overcome power imbalances and ensure that parties are at all times aware of the alternatives to continued negotiations (Susskind and Cruikshank, 1987). He must foster a mutual understanding of the needs and concerns of all parties, and help them generate, assess and select alternatives that satisfy all interests and can be implemented (Carpenter and Kennedy, 1980).

Mediation can be a powerful means of managing conflict productively. It can help mutually interdependent parties with different long-term interests and objectives to identify and implement cooperative actions. But “the search for joint gains does not require everyone to be ‘nice’ or to make concessions...” (Susskind and Cruikshank, 1987). “Mediation does not lead to a resolution of the basic differences that separate the parties in conflict ... [it] can help the parties agree on how to make the accommodations that will enable them to co-exist despite their continued differences.” (Cormick, 1982). Mediation is not a cure for ongoing environmental conflict.

Compared to the labor-management model, the environmental mediator may have a more complex task and additional responsibilities. Initiating the process is generally harder, and identifying the parties and issues can be difficult. Some writers in dispute resolution argue that the less-structured context of environmental conflict demands a more activist role than the labor-management-style mediator. Susskind and Cruikshank (1987) state that mediators need special knowledge of public sector operations and an ability to “sell” mediation to the parties. Others suggest that mediators should sometimes propose their own solutions to conflict, as an impetus for the parties to negotiate. However, Lentz (1986) warns that once the mediator starts leading the process actively, the traditional role of mediation is lost. Such activists run the risk of becoming a party to the dispute and destroying their impartiality.

Another caveat is expressed by Cormick (1982): “A danger we now face is that the overselling of the process and its misapplication by inexperienced interveners anxious to enter the field will result in costly failures that could broadly discredit the mediation process.” One potential problem is that mediators, controlling access to the negotiations to facilitate settlement, may exclude less powerful or less organized parties. Mediation may be unable to cope with significant imbalances of power, negotiating ability, or technical expertise. Some detractors of environmental mediation aver that certain issues generate such fundamental disagreement that simply to agree to negotiate is to compromise one’s values (Amy, 1990).

But perhaps the best measure of mediation’s value is its success at resolving conflicts and here the literature is unanimous. Mediation does produce consensus agreements, improves the relationships among the parties, and decreases the chances of the conflict recurring (Ury, Brett and Goldberg, 1988, Kubasek and Silverman, 1988).

As employees of, and consultants to rural and urban water interests, the members of the irrigation engineering community are in positions to advocate the use of mediation. By endorsing this alternative conflict resolution process, we promote integrative, collaborative problem-solving, and create substantial opportunities for creative technical and managerial solutions to water development problems.

References

Amy, Douglas J. (1990). “Environmental dispute resolution: the promise and the pitfalls.” Environmental policy in the 1990’s, Norman Vig and Michael Kraft, eds., CQ Press, Washington, DC.

Bingham, Gail (1986). Resolving environmental disputes: a decade of experience (executive summary). The Conservation Foundation, Washington, DC.

Bingham, Gail (1989). “Must the courts resolve all our conflicts?” National Forum: Phi Kappa Phi J., 69(Winter), 20-21.

Carpenter, Susan L. and W. J. D. Kennedy.(1980). “Environmental conflict management.” The Environmental Professional, 2(2), 67-74.

Cassady, Jane and Suzanne Orenstein. “Mediating wetlands disputes.” Source unknown.

Cormick, Gerald W. (1982). “The myth, the reality, and the future of environmental mediation.” Environment, 24(September), 14-17, 36-39.

Crowfoot, James E. and Julia M. Wondolleck, eds (1990). Environmental disputes: community involvement in conflict resolution, Island Press, Washington, DC.

Gray, Barbara (1989). Collaborating: finding common ground for multiparty problems, Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco, CA.

Keltner, John (Sam) (1990). “From mild disagreement to war: the struggle spectrum. In Bridges not walls, J. Stewart, ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.

Kubasek, Nancy and Gary Silverman (1988). “Environmental mediation.” Am. Bus. Law J., 26(fall), 533-555.

Lentz, Sydney (1986). “The labor model for mediation and its application to the resolution of environmental disputes.” J. App. Behavioral Sci., 22(2), 127-139.

Muller, Frank (1984). “Mediation: an alternative to litigation.” Am. Water Works Assoc. J. 76(February), 42-43.

Pruitt, Dean G. and Jeffrey Z. Rubin (1986). Social conflict, escalation, stalemate and settlement, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, NY.

Susskind, Lawrence and Jeffrey Cruikshank (1987). Breaking the impasse: consensual approaches to resolving public disputes, Basic Books, Inc., New York, NY.

Ury, William, Jeanne Brett and Stephen Goldberg (1988). Designing systems to cut the costs of conflict, Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco, CA.

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Review: Is There Enough to Go Around?

2007-11-27T19:44:00.000-08:00

Is There Enough To Go Around? by R. Buckminster Fuller. Books on Tape. Interview from a New Dimensions Radio program, New Dimensions Foundation, 267 States St, San Francisco, CA 94114.

I won’t try to outline the whole of his arguments, but Bucky makes some fascinating connections between politics, philosophy and science, and I’ll outline some of them in the following paragraphs.

Fuller’s answer to the question is, “Of course there is enough to go around. The real problem is the patterns of thought that have led to our belief that there isn’t.” To present his thesis, Bucky takes the listener on a rapid-fire, rollercoaster tour of western civilization, outlining the geometry of thought that makes us believe in scarcity. Few of us know the fabric of history well enough to see from where our assumptions about resources come.

Humans were conceived in antiquity with exquisite equipment but no experience. We are designed to be born ignorant, with thirst and hunger and curiosity, and later sexual desire; designed to learn by trial and error. Humans were designed to discover that they live on a huge sphere, so large that at first it seemed and still seems to most a plane that goes on to infinity.

The Babylonians were the most ancient people to record their thinking about that sphere. As they floated the sea, they saw mountain tops on the horizon, and as they approached, more and more of the mountains became visible, until they became an island, then the island went by and the mountains slipped over the edge again. This happened in every direction of approach and recession, a reality that made obvious the sphere. But it took persons with larger than normal horizons to see this. Man’s senses are only tuned in to narrow bandwidths, at both micro- and macroscopic scales. The raft people saw more than the landlubbers, and became better tuned in.

So anyway, this thinking about spheres led to the Babylonians developing spherical geometry and inventing polyhedra, and the idea of systems. The geometry that we learn today as children is retrogressive, with its infinite planes which are nowhere reflected in nature. A plane is a surface, which means it has to be a surface of something, and there are no infinite somethings.

A main reason we are back to this simplistic geometry that does not describe nature, traces back to the Roman Empire. The Roman leaders, with their roads and armies, had achieved complete physical mastery over their conquered peoples, but were frustrated at not having similar power over peoples’ minds. At that time, life expectancy was very short, about 19 years, and life in general was so miserable that the idea of a heaven afterwards was a popular notion.

With the level of spiritual technology, let us say, of the ancient Egyptians, it had been possible to send the Pharaohs to heaven. By the time of the classical Greeks, the technology of religion and the ability to build mausoleums allowed the whole of the aristocracy to get to heaven. The idea became so popular and the quality of life enough better that eventually those merely rich could afford mausoleums. But by the time of the Roman Empire people had come to the idea that everyone could get into heaven, and the great populist religions of Buddhism, Christianity and finally Islam arose from this expectation.

Getting back to the Romans, in the appeal of Christianity the Emperor saw a way to tie-in physical power with power over men’s minds. The Emperors adopted Christianity, and eventually controlled the Popehood. And they found very useful the idea that man had to confess, to go through an intercessor, in order to get to heaven.

Well, there were clearly some problems with the science of the time, which professed that the Earth was a sphere, and that the planets circled the Sun. Obviously, if the Pope and his men were Earthmen, the Earth must be a much more important place than the Sun. The idea of a flat Earth, and the concept of infinity, produced better maps, because one could have the Empire in the middle, and the Pope in the middle of the Empire, with a flat plane stretching out to infinity in all directions away from him. Heaven was up and Earth was down.

So the Romans, having become the Catholics, now had virtually complete control over everyone aspiring to heaven, through the power of the confessional. The sinner had to tell the priest everything, which gave the clergy access to all they needed for continued political control of the population. As a further control, only the use of Roman numerals was allowed, which made calculation impossible and counting a chore.

But through the insidious leakage of Arabic numerals into the Empire, the power of the cipher slowly became available to merchants and men of science. By slow steps, through the calculations of Copernicus and then Kepler, the idea of a spherical earth re-emerged. Brains were figuring out things that the senses couldn’t know: orbits, and gravity, how systems come about, and the properties of systems. Cemented by the discoveries of Columbus and Magellan (his expedition at any rate) and the other explorers of the age, learned people knew with certainty once again that they lived on a sphere.

Naturally this represented a great threat to the control of the clergy and the Emperors’ men but by now it was too late for them to stop. The discoveries, and accumulation of wealth, were going to those who could navigate and control the sea lanes outside the Mediterranean: the Dutch, the Portuguese, finally shaking down to the dominance of the British and its Empire.

In Britain, the East India Trading Company was assembling in one place, for the first time in human history, a collection of data from all of our closed, spherical system. Malthus was a statistician for the Company, and he in possession of all this information arrived at the conclusion that population was increasing geometrically, while production of life support was increasing arithmetically. A dire situation.

A hundred years later along comes Darwin who with his theory of evolution postulates that survival of the fittest determines the course of life on Earth. Karl Marx reads Mathus and Darwin and accepts both. To deal with the supposed lethal inadequacy of life support, he proposes that the persons most fit to survive were the workers, because they can make tools and plant seeds, while other people are parasites.

Naturally the other people disputed that, saying, “Of course we are not parasites. We are the explorers, the risk-takers, the creators of new ideas. It is the workers who are dull-witted and live courtesy of our discoveries.” This furious debate over which portion of humanity was fit to survive led to the great philosophical movements that have controlled our politics since: socialism and free enterprise. But in both camps, to prove their fitness to survive, the arms race became the pre-eminent demonstration.

Fortunately, spin-offs from the arms race have at least resulted in a good portion of Earth’s population having had their quality and quantity of life improved in the last fifty years to a level higher than all the potentates of old. Man has developed extraordinary tools for manipulating energy and matter in the production of arms, and as the weapons in time (usually rather quickly) became obsolete, their technology was redirected at goods which improve the lot of the rest of us.

Today this is almost totally the result of advances in knowledge of the invisible world, a reality that we cannot see, hear, touch or taste. Our scientists and manufacturers have become much better tuned in. And it is this invisible capacity to do more with less that provides the answer to whether there is enough to go around.

In medicine, in materials, in efficiency of energy use, the invisible world is providing us with the ability to live longer and better. But unfortunately, this has almost all been due to applications increasing man’s destructive power. Housing and environmental control (what Bucky calls livingry), for example, is hundreds of years behind the best militarily-directed technology. We can and should be applying that technology to improving peoples’ lives. Houses of geodesic domes, one of Fuller’s inventions, do so much with so little, that they can typically be flown in to their sites. Try that with your basic ranch style, gravity and friction structure.

A typical spin-off is that of commercial airliners following early military jets. The airliners are no doubt useful and convenient, but hardly represent the most intelligent or wide-scale application of what we know about protecting people from the elements (in this case cold and wind). Applying the best materials and knowledge, again to use livingry as an example, could quickly bring nearly all of humanity up to a high standard of living.

Doing more with less, applying our intelligence intelligently, we may very well not need to mine any more metals from the Earth. Recycle, mine the junkyards, improve the alloys! Applying the best we know of energy cycles, we could be living on our energy income (we’ve already got fusion energy, as long as Old Sol shines). Instead we spend our energy capital, poisoning Earth with concentrated radioactives, and the atmosphere with smoky corpses of long-dead plants.

We are now technologically capable of making it so, merely by deciding that it will be so. We need no longer rationalize to ourselves why one person should have it so good when this other person over here has it so bad. The choice is no longer you or me, it’s you and me. We can increase our life support geometrically, ride the rocketing curve of riches in the invisible world.

So why does man live from crisis to crisis, with only the prospect of disaster ahead? Because, Bucky says, the power structures of Church and State still depend on man being in discomfort, and on their being man’s only hope of getting into heaven. Our governments promise that things can get better, but only if we wait, and stand in line and pay our taxes, and defeat our enemies. And what would the clergy do for a living if whole populations took it into their own hands to create a heaven on earth?

What, given this situation, can the ordinary person do to improve this situation? Don’t go along with the politics of the day. Handle the information for yourself and learn the truth. Insist that the truth be told, proclaim it and teach it to your children. We needn’t accept the lie. There is enough to go around.

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Free Energy and the Mining of Natural Resources

2007-11-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

We already have free energy from the sun. We need to become more clever about using it.

Natural systems yield much more than typical agricultural systems. We need to become more clever about the types of yield we are able to make use of. We need to be more clever about assembling systems that mimic the complexity and efficiency of natural systems.

Our present approach is to bludgeon natural systems in order to have our way with them. We need to be clever enough to coax natural systems to yield for our purposes.

The more we can imitate the redundancy and stability of natural systems, the more stable our systems of artifice.

The more we depend on technology to provide our basic needs, the more susceptible we are to large-scale disruptions, including disruptions economic, financial, social and political.

Old sunshine energy in the form of oil has left a trail of destruction across the world. We do not need any more energy than new sunshine. Oil is just concentrated sunshine. We need to be clever enough in the assembly of our systems that waste products of some elements are the needs of others, that we take advantage of all existing energy fluxes before importing more energy than sunshine.

Defining agriculture as “just a resource” implies that the only measures of that resource are the economic decisions of the current generation of Americans. We need save nothing for our children, or for any other living thing.

What thing can man make that is as complex as another living thing? Life is the most important “resource” we have. With the loss of any creature are also lost the yield and use of that creature. We need to be expanding our options, not reducing them. Blind devotion to technological fixes at the expense of living systems represents the destruction of survival niches, for us and for other living things.

We do not need to destroy natural systems. We can meet all our basic needs by manipulating natural systems.

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Sustainable Agriculture Resources

2007-11-13T11:06:00.000-08:00

This quick survey of links outlines some of the more important influences on what is meant by sustainable agriculture in the United States, as philosophy, policy and the exercise of appropriate technique.

The really high point of thinking about how, specifically, to create communities that over the long term feed themselves, recycle their wastes, and culture the highest aspirations of human potential, is Bill Mollison's Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. From climate to earth-moving to gardening to economics, Mollison illustrates how energy and material flows can be arranged to create whole landscapes that feed themselves, that generate their own energy: systems which, once set in motion, require little external impetus to keep going. This extraordinary book should required reading for every student of agriculture, engineering, anthropology, landscape design, economics - well, just about everybody who would like to experience a vision of abundance for all life and the design principles to create it. (Amazon's permaculture book selection; Wikipedia's permaculture article.)

Going back even earlier to the days of the Whole Earth Catalog (which first attracted a 12 year-old me because it had an article on synthesizers) are Nancy & John Todd's Living Machines. The Todds have made heroic, poetic, as well as soundly scientific demonstrations of compact living systems of plant and animal life, which sustainably purify water, turn wastes to fertilizers, and produce copious amounts of food, all in a small amount of space with little maintenance.

Wendell Berry for decades farmed with horses on his Kentucky homestead, writes novels, essays and poetry, and provides a deep, American justification for the preservation of rural life, and an approach to farming that on balance does more good than bad, for the land and for people. Wikipedia link.

Mr. Berry's long-time friend is Wes Jackson (Wikipedia link). Wes Jackson is a plant breeder who founded The Land Institute in Salina Kansas to create a perennial polyculture of native prairie grasses, bred to produce harvestable amounts of grain. The Land Institute envisions vast fenceless, roadless areas of prairie grains, never plowed and disturbed only by a balloon-tired harvester once or twice a year. The Institute's mission has expanded to include a more general support for rural arts and culture. One of the classic Berry/Jackson collaborations is New Roots for Agriculture

Sustainable economics has one of its greatest champions in Hazel Henderson, who has long examined alternative models for production and trade, and advocates "ethical economics." Paul Hawken is another advocate for ethical economics, and for sustainable business operations.

At the production agriculture level, there are several notable think tanks, each taking a rather establishmentarian point of view. They provide excellent insight into the future of government land use policies, economic incentives, production systems and the like:
USDA's Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education
UC Davis Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program
Washington State University Center for Sustaining Agriculture & Natural Resources.

Tilth is an intangible quality in soils that is a measure of its health and productivity. "Tilth" organizations, such as Seattle Tilth, tend to represent interests in urban gardening, community supported agriculture and general food production awareness. Oregon Tilth additionally has grown to have a large business in certifying producers and and food products as organic and sustainably grown.

Closely allied with the sustainable agriculturists are the heirloom breeds preservers. There are many such among the livestock fanciers - see the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. Preeminent among the vegetable growers is Seed Savers in Decorah, Iowa, and whose quiet garden beds winding along the banks of laughing water are a terrific place to visit.

Sustainability is a slippery idea, particularly around the edges. Unfortunately the term is tossed about with little care for definition. Most of the information referenced in this article leads to the edges, where questions outnumber answers, and real sustainability is recognized as a long-term and iffy proposition.

Send me your suggestions for additional resources to add to this page!

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

The Illusion of Water Scarcity

2007-11-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

[This article was originally published in Oregon Tilth's monthly In Good Tilth newspaper. Oregon Tilth supports locally appropriate, sustainable agricultural practices, and certifies farmland and producers as organic.]

by Joel D. Palmer, PE

Many of us are concerned about the quality and quantity of our water supply. Government officials warn that we should be conserving and carefully manage existing supplies to assure enough for the future. Frantic planning is underway in the northwest and across the country to prepare for the presumed shortages to come. But while conservation and good management are important goals, the scarcity of water is an illusion, based on assumptions that we need not take for granted. There is in fact an enormous amount of water about. And we have the resources to ensure a plentiful supply for ourselves and our landscapes for all time.

Scarcity is an illusion because we have insisted that all water at all times be available in the same way. By having our governments construct vast, costly collection and distribution schemes, we have in effect “put all of our eggs in one basket”. A reservoir is constructed to collect water for an entire city; water in the reservoir is pumped to a treatment plant and then to holding tanks. From the tanks a complex of distribution pipes convey the water to our homes. Everyone uses water from the same sources, and for all purposes. Thus we have the absurdities of, for instance, using chlorinated, fluoridated, and flocculated water not only to drink and bathe in, but to water our gardens and lawns, to wash our cars, and to flush down the toilet.

How many of us living in towns and cities know the source of our tap water? For instance, in Corvallis, Oregon in the summer, most of the water is pumped from the Willamette River. In the winter the water comes by pipeline from three creeks on Marys Peak. Chlorine is added to destroy coliform bacteria. Alum is added to cause impurities which color the water to coagulate and settle out. Fluoride is added for strong teeth in the drinkers. This water is stored in Baldy Reservoir on the west side of the city, and in two volumes collectively known as North Hill Reservoir on the north side. The total volume stored is about 21 million gallons.

A supposed advantage of these centralized systems is that the individual citizen need never give a thought to the water supply. One merely turns on the taps, and out it flows. But the consequence of not making any effort to secure our water supply is that we learn to think that the water actually comes from the tap. The citizen is relieved of all responsibility for thinking about the watershed, the reservoir, the pumping plants, the chemical treatment, the infrastructure upon which the tap depends.

The situation is precisely analogous to the widespread, albeit sometimes subconscious, belief that food comes from the grocery store. Our personal responsibility for providing such a basic necessity as water has been pre-empted. If something goes wrong, a pipe breaks or there is a chemical spill upstream, the individual’s only recourse is to complain that the experts, the specialists were remiss in their responsibilities. So not only are we relieved of responsibility, we are relieved of our ability to correct any problems that develop.

There are probably psychological effects associated with our no longer having to take any care for our supply of water. What are the consequences of losing control over essential goods and services, in terms of the way we think about the world and about our effectiveness? How much do we waste or use unwisely because we don’t see the effort that was involved in bringing the water to the tap?

We know that it rains a lot in the Willamette Valley, but do you know just how much? According to George Taylor of OSU’s Atmospheric Sciences Department, on average Corvallis has 42.55 inches of rainfall every year. Pull out your measuring tape to forty-two and a half inches above the ground. If all that rain ponded where it fell, with no evaporation, you‘d be chest-deep in water after only a year. That’s forty-two inches on the ground, on the streets, on the rooftops, on the lakes and rivers.

We presently discard our local rainfall, in fact we treat it as a nuisance. The rain runs away, down the spouts and into the gutters, through the grates and into the storm sewers, entailing another vast, expensive infrastructure. But this abundance of rainfall suggests an alternative to supplying our household needs for water: water harvesting. As some simple calculations show, local rooftops shed enough water through the year to supply much of our demand without taking any conservation measures. And water harvesting allows the householder to take personal responsibility for a safe and clean water supply.

According to Melissa Ware of Corvallis’ Water Department, average residential water use is about 61.5 gallons per person per day or 22,440 gallons per year. A family of four would use about 90,000 gallons per year. This much rain falls on only 0.08 acres of land, a square plot 58 feet on a side. A typical 1500 square foot house roof area would shed about 40,000 gallons of water, or 44% of all the family’s water needs.

When one considers that current 8 gallon per flush toilets can be replaced with those requiring only 2 to 3 gallons, the scope for meeting household water needs from rooftop harvesting grows considerably. Add in low-flow shower heads and a few other sensible conservation practices, and the possibility exists for doing completely without the centralized city water supply.

Another advantage of rainwater harvesting is that water need only be treated to the extent necessary for the intended use. Toilet and outdoor water need not be treated at all. Water for cooking and drinking (and bathing, if one were particular) can be purified in the home by chlorination, filtration or other method.

Unfortunately, rainfall harvesting is of questionable legality. State and city codes, enforced in Corvallis by the Plumbing Inspector, do not allow rain to be collected for home use, for the sake of protecting the public’s health. But there is no reason that properly designed and maintained rain harvesting systems cannot be as safe as the centralized systems. Elsewhere in the world, harvesting rainfall for households is routine.

Hardiness of water supply is a function of redundancy, diversity, storage, conservation, and enhancement. Our present water supply systems have little redundancy or diversity: they consist of a few far away reservoirs filled with water from even farther away sources. Many types of disruptions could occur, and cut off the existing supplies. Those 21 million gallons of water in the city’s reservoirs would last about three days at our autumn rates of consumption. In August the consequences of disruption would be much more severe.

The capability for long-term survival of our city under conditions of disrupted central supply does not at present exist. But we can develop a number of smaller scale resources to collect and store water, of which rooftop harvesting is just one example. Neighborhood-scale reservoirs, and harvesting from small streams and upland watersheds are others.

We city-dwellers have pegged all of our hopes to a very few, impersonal, large-scale, complex engineering works that effectively remove control of the water supply from the citizen. But this needn’t be the case. Relatively simple measures are available to augment and diversify our water resources, and to regain control and responsibility for one of our most basic needs.

©1990, Joel D. Palmer

2007-02-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers,

This site is presently inactive, as I have had to devote my attention to other matters. Please contact me at worldaboundingATcomcastDOTnet for information about my engineering, mediation and communication services, or with any questions or concerns.

Very best regards,

Joel David Palmer

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Western calls to address climate change smell like conspiracy in third-world

2007-02-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled, "You Benefited From Fossil Fuels, Why Can’t We?" author Bashir Goth expresses with sharp cynicism the argument that concern over anthropogenic climate change is a convenient sentiment for the rich, developed nations but ignores the histories and present realities of the have-not nations. An excerpt:

With all our respect to you, distinguished scholars, we cannot but smell conspiracy in your advice to deprive the Third World everything of worth. You can mock our feelings if you like, but sometime ago you even accused our African nomadic herdsmen of being a major cause of global warming. You pointed the finger at our domesticated livestock; ruminant animals (cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, and camels), which you say, produce significant amounts of methane as part of their normal digestive processes. And methane, you say, is dangerous to the environment. So the Africans have to get rid of their cattle, sheep and goats and the Asians have to do away with their stable rice because it also emits methane. We wonder how shall we survive without our cattle and our rice? Do you want us to remain just a dumping ground for your excess corn waste or genetically modified food?

Listen distinguished scientists, we in the Third World, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, certainly value and envy your unfathomable knowledge of things, but with all respect, we also know one or two things about our livelihood and our surroundings. You may pity us sirs, but our vision stops at our horizons and our knowledge doesn’t go beyond our survival.

We can also tell you honorable scholars that severe droughts were always with us as long as memory can go. They are like statues in our ancestral history.

You have to know, therefore, that we are not going to give up our cattle, our sheep and our newly found fossil fuels. We will burn the fossil fuels as long as it takes. Until we have wealth, science and technology like you. Then we will definitely become like you and think of moving to higher moral grounds.

How can the rich nations respond to such frustrations and anger, to such glaring descrepancies in energy use, technology and infrastructure? To the extent that increased sustainability and decreased use of fossil fuels and industrial air emissions will require sacrifice of the developed world, it must set an example and at every turn ensure that such sacrifices are greater than those demanded of the underdeveloped nations. New energy sources, and new energy-conservation and pollution-prevention technologies, must be introduced and promoted contemporaneously for all.
Livestock & Agricultural Waste Intelligence

Award-winning Washington dairy expands into biofuels

2007-02-02T10:28:00.000-08:00

Natural Selection Farms, Inc. in Sunnyside, Washington, US, and Imperium Renewables have announced a purchase agreement for the dairy to supply canola oil that Imperium will process to biodiesel transport fuel.

Natural Selection Farms promotes environmentally responsible agriculture, including their composting operation which uses dairy waste to produce organic compost. Their biosolids recycling program for soil nutrition has earned two national EPA awards and the King County Green Globe Award. Beginning in 2003, the United States Department of Agriculture Small Business Innovative Research program funded research to carry out variety trials on canola varieties to produce a feasibility study on biofuels and to construct an oilseed pressing facility. With assistance from the Washington State Department of Agriculture, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire's office and the Port of Sunnyside, this facility is the first to become operational within the state.

Imperium Renewables was the first biodiesel focused company in the US to be funded by venture capital and claims to be the largest producer of biodiesel on the West Coast. When its new facility, Imperium Grays Harbor, begins production in mid-2007, it will operate the largest biodiesel production facility in the country, producing up to 100 million gallons of biodiesel per year.

The following is taken from an Imperium Renewables press release:

Imperium Renewables and Natural Selection Farms have formed a new partnership ushering in a new phase in Washington State’s alternative fuels industry. Imperium Renewables, one of the nation’s largest biodiesel producers, will be utilizing canola grown at Natural Selection Farms in Sunnyside, Washington to produce up to 1 million gallons of biodiesel. The deal represents the largest purchase agreement for Washington State produced canola and further fuses the state’s agricultural sector with the emerging growth economy in alternative fuels.

“This partnership demonstrates the incredible opportunity for our state’s agricultural industry to benefit from the increasing demand for biodiesel within the state as well as nationally,” said John Plaza, Imperium’s Founder and President. “We’ve always said that we’d be the state’s biggest customer for Washington State produced canola oil, and today we are. This is just the beginning of what we hope will further establish a new market for Washington State farmers as well as Washington State consumers of the fuel.”

“Diversifying our crop base to include canola makes both great agricultural and business sense,” said Ted Durfey, owner of Natural Selection Farms. “We’re proud to be doing our part to clean up the air, increase jobs and revenue in our state and reduce our nation’s dependency on foreign oil. I hope others will realize the benefits of adding canola to their crop mix.”

"I commend these entrepreneurial companies for building the next Washington and moving us toward energy independence," said Governor Gregoire. "Renewable fuels will help bridge the rural and urban divide in Washington: our farmers can grow crops like canola, we can crush the seeds in places like Sunnyside, refine the oil in Hoquiam for uses across the state.”

Imperium and Natural Selection Farms have been collaborating for 18 months to develop this critical relationship between the agriculture and biodiesel industries in Washington State. This deal:

* Provides a significant economic incentive to increase the acreage of Washington state canola;
* Provides new revenue opportunities and cost-saving potential for regional farmers and dairies;
* Provides Imperium with a reliable, premium local feedstock (and one which is suited to create fuel that performs well in cold weather).

Imperium took its first delivery of 6,000 gallons of Natural Selection’s canola oil on Tuesday, January 30 at its Seattle Biodiesel facility. Imperium Founder and President John Plaza will discuss the partnership today as he participates in a conference on the future of Transportation Biofuels. Plaza was invited by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The benefits of growing canola oil extend past its use as a fuel. It can be used as a rotational crop with wheat, and studies have shown that wheat yields increase when following a canola planting. Because of canola’s early harvest, it allows for an additional planting of a short-season forage crop or opens up land for livestock grazing. It also requires only 15 inches of water per year, allowing farmers to dedicate limited water resources to other crops, while achieving revenue from land. Finally, Washington state dairies can utilize the high quality meal from cold pressed and extruded canola instead of importing meal from Canada, keeping revenue within the state.

Biodiesel is a clean burning alternative fuel made from oils derived from farm crops, and can be used in any conventional diesel engine. It can be used in pure form (100 percent biodiesel) or in a “blended” form, in which it replaces a percentage of regular diesel. A U.S. Department of Energy study determined that biodiesel emits about 78 percent less carbon dioxide than petroleum diesel.

Imperium’s high quality fuel meets or exceeds ASTM D-6751 specifications and is currently sold through a network of the Pacific Northwest’s largest fuel distributors.
Livestock & Agricultural Waste Intelligence

Testimony on Indiana CAFOs focuses on odor, property values, human health

2007-01-31T07:14:00.001-08:00

As we noted yesterday, the Indiana legislature is considering changes to livestock farming regulations. The South Bend Tribune reports on testimony before lawmakers. It is evident here and elsewhere that water pollution laws are not adequate to address the concerns of an informed and experienced citizenry about other impacts of these industrialized agricultural operations. We have often wondered why farmers with such operations do not take more responsibility for such real impacts on their neighbors as declining property values, noise, odor, flies - the list goes on.
Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Stark politics in alternative CAFO bills before Indiana reps

2007-01-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Fort Wayne News Sentinel reports on the Indiana legislature's response to a revolt by local communities. As we've reported often, county governments and citizen groups all over the state have been busy scrutinizing confined animal feeding operations and other livestock operations and attempting to hold them accountable to standards higher than the state and federal governments.

Testimony is being taken on three bills that represent something of a gamut in the legislature's attempt to take back control of deciding who will build large dairies and hog confinements, and where, and under what conditions. One would place a three-year moratorium on new construction while a comprehensive approach to satisfying environmental and community concerns was developed. On another extreme, a second bill would prohibit local regulations more stringent than state regulations, with the effect of nullifying local rules altogether. The third bill attempts to reassert the state's role by raising money from permit fees to hire a larger staff of inspectors to police the permitted operations.

Of course, that middle approach is not quite on the mark, either. State livestock environmental regulations, in this case and most others, are primarily aimed at compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. The CWA has some basic, strong prohibitions with respect to keeping wastes out of federal waters, but does cover the kinds of local impacts that counties have been trying to deal with through planning and zoning or health department ordinances or by other means. Most CAFOs regulated under federal rules, for instance, are not regulated for groundwater impacts, nor for particulate matter and gaseous air emissions, nor for odor or noise.

We'll be surprised if any of these bills get much traction. Best case scenario: the discussion they generate brings stakeholders together to find more creative approaches to integrating animal agriculture into the rural landscape. Eliminating the notion of "waste" in these operations is key - as farm operations can more easily control the processing of by-products through energy and power cogeneration, production of stable and consistent soil and crop nutrient additives, capture of carbon dioxide and ammonia, the less opportunity there will be for water and air pollution. Giant uncovered septic lagoons and sloppy land applications are one day soon going to look extremely primitive and wasteful.
Livestock & Agricultural Waste Intelligence

Nebraska poultry CAFO fined $1M for pollution

2007-01-26T07:51:00.000-08:00

Report from the Sioux City Journal: the egg ranch is completing work on a $16M wastewater treatment facility to prevent future occurrences.
Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Bush's unreal alternative energy plan

2007-01-26T07:25:00.000-08:00

President Bush in Tuesday's state of the union outlined a "bold initiative" to reduce US dependence on foreign oil by decreasing gasoline consumption by a fifth from current levels in ten years' time. His notion is that ethanol and biodiesel from agricultural products will make up the difference, and consequently make the American people less vulnerable to disruption in supplies from volatile parts of the world, and spikes in oil prices by foreign producers. There would also be modest, federally-mandated increases in fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, of 5 mpg.

That's it: that's the President's plan. No changes in driving habits, no conservation ethic, no national discussion about the long-term effects of suburban and exurban sprawl that causes the profligate use of transport fuel for families to get to work, to school and all their various, wide-flung activities. No mention of the serious declines in supplies of oil, or the incredible growth of demand for oil by India, China and other rapidly-industrializing nations (as Howard James Kunstler reminds us in The Long Emergency, at current rates of growth in demand, China alone in ten years will be using more oil than total current worldwide production). No mention of the strong connections between combustion of oil and global climate change.

The President's plan is nothing but a fantasy, and a dangerously short-sighted fantasy at that. Iowa Senator Charles Grassley was beside himself with glee at the mention of the ethanol push, and in the short-term a relatively small number of farmers are going to recieve a windfall from rising prices for corn (at present the only significant feedstock for American-made ethanol). Those who are even slightly behind the curve, however, are going to see that windfall erased by increases in farmland prices and rents, rising costs of livestock feed (corn used for fuel can't be used to feed hogs or cattle). Corn sweeteners and food products will inevitably become more expensive as Cargill and General Mills compete for corn with the ethanol refineries.

And, bottom line, American farmers cannot produce enough corn to come close to meeting the President's goal for ethanol production; he envisions cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, woodchips, livestock waste solids. The trouble is, cellulosic ethanol takes more energy make than it provides, and while efficiencies are increasing, cellulosic ethanol as a fuel is nowhere near proving itself a substitute for oil. Finally, a gallon of ethanol has less energy than a gallon of gasoline, so any gallon-for-gallon substitution will result in decreases in vehicle mileage.

But as Vice-President Cheney has famously pronounced, "The American way of life is not negotiable." So long as American political leadership refuses to engage the citizenry in an honest discussion about bettering their way of life through deliberate steps designed to increase energy use efficiency, decrease the amount of driving we have to do and the time we waste doing it, increase the purity of the air we breathe and the water we drink, the future is going to take this country by surprise, and it's not going to be a pleasant surprise.

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Wisconsin manure rules made more user-friendly

2007-01-25T06:55:00.000-08:00

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has modified its regulations for animal agriculture operations to be more in line with federal standards, reports Wisconsin Ag Connection. Dairies, beef lots and hog farms with fewer than 1000 "animal units" that comply with Technical Standard 590, published by the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, will be considered in compliance with state rules. Some specific changes include a redefinition of manure application to frozen ground (frost to a depth of half and inch or less is not "frozen") and of application to saturated soils. Regulations more stringent than federal rules will still apply to waste management and pollution control on farm operations of greater than 1000 animal units. The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation's news release on the topic follows:

The Department of Natural Resources board today adopted modifications to NR 243, DNR’s administrative rule pertaining to permitting livestock operations over 1000 animal units and enforcement of the state’s nonpoint source pollution prevention program.

“We are pleased the DNR made several of the modifications to the rule requested by the Legislature in response to questions raised by the Farm Bureau, Wisconsin Pork Association, Wisconsin Cattlemen’s Association, Dairy Business Association, UW Extension Discovery Farms and DATCP,” said Paul Zimmerman, executive director of governmental relations with the Farm Bureau.

In May of 2006, the DNR Board approved this rule, but in August, the State Senate Agriculture Committee sent the rule back to DNR for modifications to ensure consistency between local, state and federal regulations.

The modifications recognized that producers following NRCS technical standard 590 are in compliance if they have less than 1000 animal units. The DNR modified the definition of frozen ground to allow liquid manure to be spread on frozen ground when frost is less than an half an inch. They changed the definition of saturated soils to be consistent with NRCS 590 and eliminated the prohibition of spreading manure if the weather forecast was a 70% chance of receiving 0.50 inches of rain of more within 24 hours.

The Farm Bureau said the DNR did not make all the changes suggested by the livestock industry. DNR still continues to use a mixed animal unit calculation, which is more restrictive than federal law. DNR still has additional nutrient management requirements for operations over 1000 animal units. Lastly, DNR continues to state that it believes that farms over 1000 animal units storing manure and or land applying it will pollute either surface or groundwater.

Farm Bureau and other livestock groups will monitor NR243 as it is implemented to insure that the rules are working properly.

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Iowa counties can choose more stringent CAFO regulations

2007-01-24T07:25:00.000-08:00

The Iowa, US, Department of Natural Resources, responding to an increasing demand for more local control of the siting of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs, aka factory or industrial livestock farms), now allows county governments to opt in to an additional layer of state regulation. CAFOs have become controversial because of such issues as air emissions, water pollution, odor and animal welfare. Counties that approve a construction evaluation resolution during the month of January are eligible to use a so-called Master Matrix, a series of questions evaluating CAFO proposals on the basis of the extent to which they exceed minimum requirements on setback distances, odor, waste treatment facilities, etc. Proposals must achieve 50% of the total score and at least 25% of the available points in each of the subcategories of air, water and community impacts to pass the master matrix.
Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Wisconsin energy farm scaled-back to meet citizen concerns

2007-01-23T07:31:00.000-08:00

A good example of stakeholder involvement and compromise of interests is reported by the Wisconsin State Journal. In Lafayette County a group of individuals from the local farming community organized Belmont BioAg to create a highly-integrated food, feed, and energy production facility. The company proposed to base its operation on a herd of 20,000 cattle, and took the proactive step of forming a citizen advisory group to evaluate local impacts. As a result of the advisory group's recommendations, BioAg made significant changes. Now the company's facility will house an initial 2500 animals, barely ten percent of the original number, but will still produce its own energy and sell finished beef, ethanol, bedding and potted plants, distillers grain, carbon dioxide, electricity, ammonia products and fertilizer.
Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

EPA releases new guidance on farm greenhouse gas emissions

2007-01-19T17:14:00.000-08:00

Roxanne Smith at US Environmental Protection Agency

EPA and its partners have released guidance that can help farmers manage livestock waste and boost farm earnings while reducing greenhouse gases. Processing livestock manure under controlled conditions can produce biogas, a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers also benefit because the biogas can be used to generate electricity.

"Using biogas has multiple benefits; it decreases greenhouse gas emissions, produces renewable energy for rural communities, and safeguards local air and water quality," said Bill Wehrum, EPA's acting assistant administrator of Air and Radiation. "This guidance will help farmers and potential investors make informed choices about which systems work best for farms, for profits, and for our environment."

Biogas is made up of methane and carbon dioxide. Because methane is more than 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, capturing biogas provides significant environmental benefits. Also, farmers and project developers can increase their incomes by using biogas for on-site electricity generation or delivery to a local electric utility.

Waste methane recovery systems, also known as anaerobic digestion systems, are estimated to be feasible at about 7,000 dairy and swine operations in the United States. In 2005, about 110 systems were operational or under construction, and another 80 were in the planning stages.

The standardized guidance was developed jointly by EPA's AgStar program, the Association of State Energy Research and Technology Transfer Institutions, and USDA. The guidance will provide a standardized method that will allow farm operators and investors to compare the effectiveness of available waste methane recovery systems.

AgStar is a voluntary program that encourages the use of waste methane recovery systems on dairy and swine farms. Each year, these systems have reduced methane by about 1.5 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, while providing enough renewable energy to power over 20,000 average American homes. The program also assists countries throughout the world in developing biogas recovery projects through the Methane to Markets Partnership.
Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Wetlands Curb Hog Hormones in Waste Water

2007-01-19T14:03:00.000-08:00

Jan Suszkiw, Agricultural Research Service

Constructed wetlands may help reduce hormones in wastewater from hog farms, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-led team reports this month in Environmental Science and Technology.

Recently, hog-farm operators have begun incorporating constructed wetlands into their wastewater treatments to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus in the effluent so that it can be spread onto crop fields without causing environmental harm. But little, if any, research has investigated the system's potential to diminish hormones that hogs excrete into wastewater.

The paper's authors are Nancy Shappell and Lloyd Billey with the ARS Biosciences Research Laboratory in Fargo, N.D.; Dean Forbes and G.P. Reddy of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University at Greensboro; and Terry Matheny, Matthew Poach and Patrick Hunt at the ARS Coastal Plains Soil, Water and Plant Research Center in Florence, S.C.

The work dovetails with increasing concern that hormones from livestock waste and other sources are accumulating in the environment and disrupting the endocrine-system function of fish and other aquatic life.

The team's 2004-05 study, conducted at a Greensboro hog-farrowing facility, checked for reproductive hormones—estrogens and androgens (including testosterone) and their metabolites. First, wastewater from the facility went into a manure pit, then into a series of lagoons for microbial degradation. Next, the effluent was pumped into one of four wetlands, then into a storage pond. To close the circuit, some of the "gray" water was flushed back into the barns. The wetland consisted of marsh areas with cattails and pond area, which was either open or covered with floating mats of vegetation.

The researchers took water samples over three seasons in 2004, and weekly in July 2005. They analyzed them for hormones, including a naturally secreted estrogen called estradiol, using liquid-chromatography mass-spectrometry analysis and the E-screen. The latter contains human mammary cells that multiply when exposed to estrogenic compounds.

By analyzing the effluent both before and after passing through the constructed wetlands, they determined the wetlands reduced estradiol activity by 83 to 93 percent. This reduction included estrone, the most prevalent of the estradiol metabolites.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.
Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Prairie grasses emerge as rich source of biofuel

2007-01-19T10:18:00.001-08:00

Deane Morrison, University of Minnesota News Office:

A University team led by David Tilman, Regents Professor of Ecology, found that diverse mixtures of native prairie grasses yield more net energy than either ethanol from corn or "biodiesel" fuel from soybeans. Grass-based fuel can even lead to a net decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide, whereas ethanol and biodiesel increase it. The study is the cover story in the Dec. 8 issue of the journal Science.

For many years, renewable fuels from plants ("biofuels") have been seen as beacons of hope because the carbon dioxide released in burning them can be absorbed by the next year's crop. But in a report earlier this year, Tilman, Hill and others showed that corn grain ethanol and soy biodiesel do little to offset carbon dioxide emissions because it takes so much fossil fuel to produce them.

"Biofuels made from high-diversity mixtures of prairie plants can reduce global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere," says Tilman. "Even when grown on infertile soils, they can provide a substantial portion of global energy needs, and leave fertile land for food production."

According to the research, biofuels from mixed prairie grasses could replace about 13 percent of global petroleum consumption for transportation and 19 percent of global electricity consumption. This could eliminate 15 percent of current global carbon dioxide emissions. . . . Read the rest of this article

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

MIT engineers yeast for improved ethanol production

2007-01-19T09:48:00.000-08:00

Anne Trafton in the MIT News Office writes:

MIT scientists have engineered yeast that can improve the speed and efficiency of ethanol production, a key component to making biofuels a significant part of the U.S. energy supply. The research was funded by the DuPont-MIT Alliance, the Singapore-MIT Alliance, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Currently used as a fuel additive to improve gasoline combustibility, ethanol is often touted as a potential solution to the growing oil-driven energy crisis. But there are significant obstacles to producing ethanol: One is that high ethanol levels are toxic to the yeast that ferments corn and other plant material into ethanol.

By manipulating the yeast genome, the researchers have engineered a new strain of yeast that can tolerate elevated levels of both ethanol and glucose, while producing ethanol faster than un-engineered yeast. The work is reported in the Dec. 8 issue of Science.

Fuels such as E85, which is 85 percent ethanol, are becoming common in states where corn is plentiful; however, their use is mainly confined to the Midwest because corn supplies are limited and ethanol production technology is not yet efficient enough.

Boosting efficiency has been an elusive goal. . . . Read the rest of the press release

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Cellulosic ethanol promotion manipulated by US congress

2006-12-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

Renewable Energy Access reports how the US congress arbitrarily redefined "cellulosic ethanol" to accommodate special interests, potentially delaying development of technologies to create transport fuel from sources such as switchgrass, bagasse, and stover. A predictable case, we suppose, but nevertheless disappointing:

"To attract investors, Congress guaranteed a significant market years in advance. By not establishing financial incentives, Congress expected competition to minimize any price premium. And the second wave of cellulosic ethanol plants should be cost competitive with grain ethanol.

"Then, at the last minute, Congress seemed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The Conference Committee added a sentence to Title XV, Section 1501 that expanded the legal definition of the term "cellulosic ethanol". "The term also includes any ethanol produced in facilities where animal wastes or other waste materials are digested or otherwise used to displace 90 percent or more of the fossil fuel normally used in the production of ethanol."

"The addition was the result of a single, well-connected entrepreneur who is constructing an ethanol plant fueled by methane generated by the digestion of manure produced in a nearby cattle feedlot.

"This single sentence changes everything. The average person reasonably would assume that a cellulosic ethanol mandate requires the production of ethanol from cellulose. That was clearly Congress' objective. But the new definition allows a corn-derived ethanol to be defined as producing cellulosic ethanol if waste materials supply 90 percent of the ethanol facility's energy needs."

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Midwestern US counties struggle with local impacts of CAFOs

2006-12-04T07:50:00.000-08:00

Wood County in Ohio, US, forms renewable energy commission to promote electricity production from manure-generated methane, The Toledo Blade reports.

"In Ohio, some three-quarters of all electric power is generated from the burning of coal, a paradigm that must change in order to curb greenhouse-gas pollution of the atmosphere that threatens the environment.

"And innovative and effective methods for disposal of agricultural wastes must be employed if the low-cost food production we've come to enjoy is to co-exist safely and comfortably with the growing exurban population.

"Tapping the natural - and virtually inexhaustable - power of dairy cattle won't eliminate these twin problems, but it could lead to solutions that will make life better for all in Wood County."

In Lenawee County, Michigan, US, officials warn that public roads could be destroyed by traffic from a proposed 5000 cow dairy, The Daily Telegram reports.

"[T]he road commission has seen large dairy operations in Medina Township destroy roads as they hauled in feed crops and trucked away manure for application on fields. The road commission had to follow a drawn-out and expensive court procedure to recover the expense of fixing the damaged roads. . . .

"The problem with mega-dairies is not residents moving out of cities and trying to interfere with existing farms . . . but from city-sized farms moving in and disrupting existing residents."

An editorial in The South Bend Tribune, Indiana, US, encourages the public to take advantage of opportunities to express their views on state & local regulation of animal agriculture.

"However the great CAFO debate turns out, it's a certainty that some people won't be happy. But, in all fairness, even they will have to admit that there has been no shortage of public input. As the opportunities to comment continue, we hope everyone with an opinion on the CAFO permit and regulation processes will make a point of expressing it."

Grant County, Indiana, US, has finalized a long-debated ordinance on local regulation of livestock CAFOs, says this article in the Marion Chronicle-Tribune.

"[C]ommissioners passed 3-0 an ordinance that is much more restrictive for the operations, enacting setback distance of between a quarter-mile and two miles from homes, towns, schools and food-processing centers."

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Monday potpourri

2006-11-27T07:10:00.000-08:00

Choices Magazine, a publication of the American Association of Agricultural Economics, has a series of articles on The Future of Animal Agriculture in North America. The Prairie Star has an editorial from the North Dakota State University Extension Service about the articles here.

Residents object to a proposed dairy CAFO near up-scale subdivisions in the central Oregon town of Madras but have little recourse in the absence of local controls. The dairy developer is unsympathetic with neighbors' concerns: "We're zoned to do it," she said. "There's nothing they can really do."

The Des Moines Register in Iowa, US, editorializes on the need both for consistent state-wide environmental regulations for livestock operations, and county-scale zoning regulations to appropriately site such businesses to minimize negative impacts on neighbors. "Iowa needs large-scale commercial agriculture. It's the core of the agricultural economy. At the same time, it would be nice to see the countryside repopulated and the vitality of rural life restored."

The Detroit Free Press editorializes against federal US and State of Michigan legislative efforts to exempt CAFOs from environmental regulations that apply to other industries. "That includes giving the operations known as CAFOs, or confined animal feeding operations, less scrutiny on air emissions, even though some put more ammonia into the air than any manufacturing plant ever would be allowed to do if it occupied the same property."

Microgy continues to attract a lot of attention for its manure-to-methane projects. CattleNetwork.com interviews a Microgy official about its technology and processes.

Las Cruces Sun-News reports on early research at New Mexico State University to investigate producing hydrogen fuel from manure. "In the first stage, hydrogen will be produced through anaerobic hydrolysis and fermentation. In the second stage, additional hydrogen will be produced through photo-fermentation of the products of the first stage."

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Do lax state CAFO rules attract bad actors?

2006-11-21T07:41:00.000-08:00

In Michigan, US, The Muskegon Chronicle has published a long background piece on that state's efforts to deal with growth in the number, size and density of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). As has been suggested in the neighboring State of Indiana, the article says that some of the new development comes from businesses that have relocated from places with stricter environmental rules:

"State records show that many of the CAFOs operated by farmers who moved here from California and Europe over the past decade already have run afoul of Michigan laws that prohibit the discharge of manure into lakes and streams."

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

Will that frog ever jump? Grant County, Indiana inches toward CAFO ordinance

2006-11-21T06:56:00.000-08:00

For months we've watched the efforts in Grant County, Indiana, US, to develop a local ordinance regulating location and operation of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to address environmental and human health concerns that are not under the purview of state or federal regulators. It's beginning to look like one of Zeno's Paradoxes: imagine a frog on a log, who hops each time half-way to the end of the log, and consider if the frog will ever actually hop off the log. The Marion Chronicle-Tribune editorializes on the incremental progress here; a related news article is here.
Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence

More manure + more noses = more complaints

2006-11-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

The Manitowoc Herald Times has made a calm call for greater mutual understanding and accommodation among CAFO-debate opponents in Wisconsin, in this editorial. Summing-up the situation:

"Many farmers are feeling persecuted for doing what they have been doing for generations – providing dairy products that consumers demanded.

"Manure probably doesn't smell any worse today than it did 100 years ago.

"What has changed is now there are large dairy farms with many more cows concentrated in small areas, which changes the odor from mildly unpleasant to unbearable for some people.

"With more people living in the country than ever before, there are more noses to be offended by the odors."

Livestock & Ag Waste Intelligence