In 2004, Pennsylvania was faced with an estimated $8.2 billion capital cost of meeting U.S. EPA's total maximum daily load mandates for its share of the Chesapeake Bay clean-up. That's not all. Another $665 million in annual costs would have been required for Bay's largest nitrogen contributor.
But based on a ground-breaking nutrient credit trading pilot project results involving three Keystone State farms, taxpayer costs may be reduced as much as 80%. That's the bottom line of a recent report released by Pennsylvania General Assembly's Joint Legislative Budget and Finance Committee.
In a nutshell, the policy initiative enables low-cost verified nitrogen reductions from agriculture, primarily livestock, to replace high cost municipal and storm water reductions to comply with the federal Chesapeake Bay federal mandate.
MANURE SYSTEM RETREOFIT: First stage development of Bion's project at Kreider Farms was retrofitting this manure storage tank for bacterial separation of N and P.
"Local livestock operations have already been approved to provide verified nitrogen reductions from livestock," confirms former U.S. Ag Secretary Ed Schafer. "They could produce a significant impact on lowering the costs to Pennsylvania tax and rate payers for watershed clean-up efforts."
Nonpoint-source agriculture and urban runoff from impervious surface account for about 80% of Pennsylvania's total required nitrogen reductions. The cost to achieve N reductions called for under the federal Watershed Improvement Plans for agriculture and urban runoff were projected to be 80% to 85% lower under a competitive nutrient trading bidding program than if achieved through best management practices.
Two years ago in January, American Agriculturist's cover story shared a technological ground-breaking project at Kreider Farms of Manheim, Pa. Bion Environmental Technologies overhauled the farm's dairy At Hillandale Farms of Gettysburg, Pa., EnergyWorks BioPower has constructed a gasification energy and nutrient recovery facility capable of processing all the manure produced by 5 million layer hens.