Manure
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Pits and buffers
In response to previous questions from the ERC, county conservationist Kirstie Heidenreich and conservation analyst Matt Repking presented the committee with information about the 94 idle manure pits in the county. Repking said CPZ believes 44 of those are suitable to be used again by farmers who currently don’t have enough storage capacity to get through the winter.
Heidenreich said it’s estimated that these 44 manure pits could hold up to 25.1 million gallons of manure, which is well over the estimated 9.2 million gallons generated over two months by the 62 farms in the county that currently have to haul manure on a daily basis because they do not have their own storage facilities.
Maps displayed by Repking showed the distances between daily hauler farms and useable manure pits, with some of them falling within a one or two-mile radius. Heidenreich noted that CPZ has not yet reached out to the owners of idle manure pits to see if they would be interested in renting them out.
“We do not know who would be interested in that and who wouldn’t,” she said. “I think it’s safe to assume that not everyone would say ‘Sure, yes, absolutely.’” Based on feedback from public hearings, however, Heidenreich said one idea that seems to generate a lot of support is planting vegetative buffers along creeks, streams and rivers to slow and stop runoff. She said encouraging more of them could be part of a larger phosphorus reduction plan.
“I feel like that is something that this entire county has agreed on at this point, is a general love of buffers,” she said. Heidenreich also asked the committee for permission to form a working group of farmers and other stakeholders who could meet on a regular basis for several months before making recommendations to the ERC and, eventually, the full county board. Based on initial conversations, Heidenreich said she has a list of about a dozen people so far who would be interested in joining the group.
Committee members seemed generally receptive to the idea, with chairman Jacob Langenhahn saying he would prefer something informal that doesn’t need to be approved by the full board and could come up with any recommendations they saw fit. “It might not even necessarily need be the adoption or amendment of any ordinance,” he said. “It could just be something that requires outreach and education so that we encourage best practices in the county.”
Kirstie Heidenreich
