When a manure spill resulted in a large fish kill, officials in Dane County wanted to be able to address the issue of manure and water quality without hindering the dairy industry. A public/private partnership led to the creation of a community digester in Waunakee, Wisconsin.
The digester is owned and operated by Clear Horizons, LLC , in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Neither the county nor the partnering farms have ownership in it.
Click here to download an informational diagram of the Dane County Community digester.
Manure is piped in from three adjacent farms with a total of 2,400 cows. The dairies form a triangle a half-mile around the digester.
There is a drive-in barn on the site where solid or liquid materials can be unloaded. Each partnering farm can tractor-haul their bedding pack materials here to unload and it will slowly feed into the digesters.
The county’s main concern was to make this a community digester. “If a farmer is in distress, either had lagoon troubles or knew a spill was going to happen, they wanted him to be able to bring some of the manure here,” explains Monte Lamer, biogas operations supervisor at Clear Horizons, LLC, who manages this site.
With Mother Nature delaying spring’s arrival in Wisconsin this year, Lamer says he received a number of calls from farmers seeking options for their manure storages that were nearing capacity. The weather broke before the farmers needed to haul manure to the digester.
Last year, they did have one area farmer bring in 100,000 gallons in two days that may have helped him avert a manure spill.
“It’s a good safeguard for the farmers and for the community,” Lamer says.
The public/private partnership was critical to this community project. “It pooled available resources to make it happen. It helped with the financing and to spread the risks out,” Lamer says.
He adds that there is still more research needed to optimize digester facilities. He would like to see work done in irrigating effluent, using feedstocks like lakeweed and utilizing waste heat more efficiently.
Dane County is currently working on a second community digester to be located in the Town of Middleton. PD
Karen Lee
Editor
Progressive Dairyman
