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With all the animals planned on site what steps are being taken to protect groundwater from nutrient application? Our current operation, along with most other dairy operations, employs standard manure management practices with all of the odor and environmental concerns endemic to conventional slurry handling methods. The Nutient Control System (NCS) on our new dairy is not a slurry system. It is an agricultural waste treatment system that uses state of the art technologies and patented equipment imported from Europe. With this treatment system, it is possible to increase herd size while eliminating odor problems and decreasing environmental impact. This technology is relatively new to the U.S. but has been broadly accepted by the regulatory and academic communities. For instance, both Virginia Tech and the State University of New York have studied and acquired the NCS manure treatment system for their research and teaching farms. The NCS system creates a dual waste stream that concentrates the nutrients in a small volume of solids that can be composted and selectively land applied. The liquid stream is de-odored using exactly the same technology used in conventional sewage treatment. The liquid is then land applied using the patented PulseJet system. The key to the NCS system and the PulseJet is controlled-rate land application that can be tailored to the terrain and soil composition. The oxygenated liquid is applied to a very large area over a long period of time at an application rate of less than 1/10 an inch maximum. This is far below EPA’s standard guideline rate for application of treated wastewater at .25”/acre/hr. It can’t run-off and it can’t soak through. Indeed, the approved nutrient management plan for the project took into consideration the infiltration rate of the soils at hand. The application rate of the PulseJet does not even come close to exceeding the soil’s infiltration rate. In this manner we can apply the low nutrient liquid material to a large wetted area without the possibility of saturation or runoff. The de-odored liquid never penetrates below the root where it is taken up by the plant. At this low application rate, the material cannot “soak-through” the soil or run off- both rather common occurrences with slurry systems. There is much less impact on ground water with the NCS system even with larger herds- than conventional manure slurry systems.
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