By Courtney Swyden
Going into its second year of evaluating new technologies, Texas Cooperative Extension and Texas Water Resources Institute are collaborating to reduce high levels of phosphorus runoff from two Central Texas watersheds. The New Technologies for Animal Waste Pollution Control project, funded through a 319 grant from the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board (TSSWCB), has completed year one technologies and final reports and fact sheets are available now at TWRI’s Web site.
Dr. Saqib Mukhtar, an Extension specialist in animal waste management, and his team are providing third-party evaluation of technologies aimed at reducing phosphorus by an average of 50 percent from dairy lagoon effluent applied to waste application fields in the North Bosque and Leon River Watersheds.
Lucas Gregory, TWRI project manager, said that in 2005, they evaluated the Geotube® de-watering system on a 2000-head lactating cow open-lot dairy in the Leon River watershed and evaluated an Electrocoagulation system on a 700-head lactating cow dairy in the Bosque River watershed.
“Results showed that the Geotube® dewatering system and the Electrocoagulation system were highly effective in reducing phosphorous from dairy lagoon effluent,” he said. “Additionally, the Geotube® system did an excellent job of removing total solids from the effluent.”
For the project’s second year, one technology demonstration is being conducted by EnviroLink and uses a bacterial approach to try to meet the goal of 50 percent total phosphorus removal. The other technology demonstration, conducted by Envirotech Inc., proposes the use of an aluminum mining by-product known as Bauxsol to bind and precipitate phosphorus. Both tests are in early stages of development and results are yet to be released.
Year three technologies are currently being reviewed and are scheduled to be chosen soon. For more information about the project or to view fact sheets, final reports, or quarterly updates, visit TWRI’s Web site at http://twri.tamu.edu/project-info/NewTechnologies/.
