Manure Contaminants

Amy Schmidt Author

03/29/2021 Added

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Manure Contaminants presentation from 2021 Land Application Training program

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[00:00:01.080]Hi, everyone, welcome
[00:00:02.180]to the 2021 Land Application Training.
[00:00:05.500]My name is Amy Schmidt,
[00:00:06.900]and I'm gonna be starting us off today
[00:00:09.860]talking about just manure contaminants in general,
[00:00:14.430]why we should care about those,
[00:00:16.040]what the risks are, the transport mechanisms
[00:00:20.260]after the manure's been land applied
[00:00:22.180]and some of the practices that we know
[00:00:25.510]that can help control losses of these contaminants
[00:00:28.300]to surface water.
[00:00:31.430]I am an associate professor
[00:00:33.770]in biological systems engineering
[00:00:35.640]and a livestock manure management specialist
[00:00:38.810]on campus at Lincoln.
[00:00:40.470]And I have my contact information at the end of the slides
[00:00:45.360]and welcome you to reach out to me if you have questions.
[00:00:48.500]So when we talk about manure contaminants,
[00:00:56.400]we typically think of nitrogen and phosphorus.
[00:01:00.160]Those are the two main nutrients in livestock manure
[00:01:06.200]that are, that we try to control
[00:01:11.260]with our nutrient management plans.
[00:01:14.050]But there's other contaminants
[00:01:15.930]that aren't necessarily regulated per se,
[00:01:18.700]but they're concerns if they reach water bodies.
[00:01:22.930]And so a lot of these are associated
[00:01:27.450]with any kind of fecal waste material,
[00:01:30.330]whether it's livestock, or human,
[00:01:32.080]or domestic or wild animals.
[00:01:36.620]What I want you to take away from this discussion
[00:01:39.880]is kind of a general understanding
[00:01:41.860]of why these different contaminants matter,
[00:01:45.560]which ones are actually regulated
[00:01:47.750]under your operating permits,
[00:01:49.860]and why the way we handle manure
[00:01:53.860]contributes to the potential
[00:01:57.260]for contaminants to reach surface water.
[00:02:04.520]So we know what nitrogen and phosphorus are.
[00:02:07.090]We work with those all the time,
[00:02:08.900]so I'm not going to talk about those.
[00:02:12.280]But I would like to talk about E. coli.
[00:02:15.560]If you look at the Environmental Protection Agency's list
[00:02:19.030]of impaired water bodies,
[00:02:21.150]you'll likely find several water bodies,
[00:02:23.500]both within and outside of Nebraska
[00:02:26.290]that are listed as impaired because of E. coli.
[00:02:29.350]So most strains of E. coli, and there's a bunch,
[00:02:34.180]E. coli lives in the intestinal tract
[00:02:37.210]of all warm-blooded animals,
[00:02:39.100]so people and livestock and wild animals and domestic pets.
[00:02:45.680]And so while most of the strains
[00:02:48.020]of E. coli that exist are not pathogenic,
[00:02:51.430]meaning they don't pose a risk of making us sick,
[00:02:55.300]there are some dangerous strains of E. coli,
[00:02:58.770]and they're capable of causing severe illness in people
[00:03:02.330]and even death, if they can't be treated.
[00:03:09.040]So E. coli, the presence of E. coli in water
[00:03:13.640]indicates that there's some contamination
[00:03:16.310]of that water by fecal material.
[00:03:17.970]So we call this an indicator organism.
[00:03:20.450]So obviously contamination of water
[00:03:23.950]with fecal material is a health problem,
[00:03:26.870]whether it's in a drinking water reservoir
[00:03:29.640]where it could be adjusted,
[00:03:31.620]or in a surface water body
[00:03:34.210]that's used for recreational activities,
[00:03:38.530]we want to keep manure, fecal material,
[00:03:43.090]out of these water sources.
[00:03:45.630]And the easiest way for regulators to test
[00:03:49.520]to see if that contamination has occurred
[00:03:51.580]is by testing for E. coli presence in those water bodies.
[00:03:59.540]Okay, so what other pollutants do we think about in manure,
[00:04:03.990]or maybe we haven't thought about, but they are a concern?
[00:04:07.240]You know, there's pharmaceutical compounds,
[00:04:09.120]anything that is given to the animals as medication
[00:04:13.600]that's not completely metabolized by the body is excreted.
[00:04:18.120]There's natural and synthetic steroid hormones,
[00:04:20.510]so our bodies, any living creature
[00:04:22.700]has steroid, has hormones in their body.
[00:04:25.960]And again, we all excrete those compounds
[00:04:30.380]in feces and urine, so it's a given
[00:04:34.470]that those would be in livestock manure as well.
[00:04:38.300]Cleaning products, disinfectants and surfactants
[00:04:40.970]that are used to sanitize or clean livestock facilities
[00:04:45.160]are going to be in that manure, that stored manure as well.
[00:04:50.630]And then there's antimicrobial resistant organisms
[00:04:55.080]and the the genetic elements
[00:04:58.230]that cause a bacteria to be resistant to an antibiotic.
[00:05:02.510]You've probably heard about these, you know,
[00:05:05.590]antimicrobial resistant, antibiotic resistance
[00:05:08.430]in recent years, and that's getting to be a bigger deal.
[00:05:11.620]So again, there are a lot of things in manure
[00:05:14.450]that aren't necessarily regulated per se.
[00:05:18.240]They don't get included in your nutrient management plan.
[00:05:21.730]But controlling losses of nitrogen and phosphorous,
[00:05:26.930]which is part of your nutrient management plan,
[00:05:29.650]also can help limit losses of these other contaminants
[00:05:33.530]to the environment.
[00:05:38.130]So let's think about how contaminants move.
[00:05:42.050]Essentially, there's two ways, right?
[00:05:43.500]Once manure is applied to the soil surface,
[00:05:47.780]the only way that manure or any contaminants in it
[00:05:50.100]are going to leave the site
[00:05:51.530]is one, if there's runoff from that site
[00:05:55.150]and two, if there's erosion.
[00:05:56.770]So liquid runoff, there's different contaminants
[00:06:01.490]and pollutants that dissolve in liquid
[00:06:04.300]and are carried in the liquid form.
[00:06:06.150]Others absorb to soil particles.
[00:06:08.670]And so they're only going to move
[00:06:10.270]if the soil particles move.
[00:06:11.580]So erosion and runoff are kind of our two issues
[00:06:15.850]that we have to battle
[00:06:16.700]as far as keeping these compounds out of water.
[00:06:20.890]So when we think about our strategies
[00:06:23.490]for reducing surface water pollution,
[00:06:26.020]we wanna, essentially we wanna keep any runoff
[00:06:29.210]or erosion out of surface water bodies.
[00:06:32.450]And one of the ways we can do that
[00:06:34.170]is just by slowing down the flow of any runoff
[00:06:40.640]or any erosion, any movement of soil
[00:06:44.200]and liquid off of that site.
[00:06:46.960]We could do this by protecting the soil surface,
[00:06:51.260]creating a barrier between the production area
[00:06:54.260]or the cropping area and water.
[00:06:58.320]And as your nutrient management plan lays out,
[00:07:03.120]we deliver nutrients when and where
[00:07:05.640]and how they are needed so that we're not
[00:07:08.490]putting excess into the environment
[00:07:10.510]that's then going to end up leaving the field
[00:07:13.720]or the production area with runoff and erosion.
[00:07:19.190]So let's think through some of the best management practices
[00:07:24.130]that we currently have in place.
[00:07:25.540]And these aren't new, but, you know, residue cover,
[00:07:31.090]why do we leave residue cover on the soil surface?
[00:07:34.140]Well, one of the reasons
[00:07:35.090]is that it protects the surface of the soil.
[00:07:38.630]So unprotected soil is going to have particles
[00:07:42.980]of soil displaced when there's a rainfall,
[00:07:44.840]there's the impact of rainfall or irrigation.
[00:07:49.250]And when we have residue cover,
[00:07:51.150]we kind of protect the surface of that soil,
[00:07:53.250]so we reduce soil erosion.
[00:07:56.140]We reduce the losses of contaminants
[00:07:58.150]that are attached to those soil particles.
[00:08:01.100]And of course there's a number of other benefits
[00:08:03.230]of residue cover.
[00:08:04.063]But from a nutrient standpoint,
[00:08:05.560]this is kind of our main focus is limiting erosion
[00:08:11.330]and allowing liquid to soak in and stay in place
[00:08:16.310]where the plants can use it,
[00:08:17.330]rather than running off of a surface that's not protected.
[00:08:23.950]We talked about a couple slides ago,
[00:08:25.870]I mentioned creating a barrier
[00:08:27.350]between the production area and water sources.
[00:08:30.810]So conservation buffers are a pretty simple
[00:08:34.020]and straightforward practice, been around for a long time.
[00:08:39.050]Anytime we can create some vegetation,
[00:08:42.120]some buffer area of vegetation between our crop field
[00:08:47.035]and a stream, which is not shown on the screen here,
[00:08:49.480]but anything that's leaving this crop field
[00:08:53.540]as soil erosion or liquid runoff
[00:08:56.220]has to pass through this barrier
[00:08:58.020]in order to get to the surface water.
[00:09:01.370]So again, we're slowing that flow down
[00:09:05.380]by creating a barrier.
[00:09:06.850]And when we slow down the flow of water,
[00:09:09.520]sediment is more likely to settle out,
[00:09:12.090]and liquid is able to infiltrate.
[00:09:14.720]And so we can kind of control both the liquid
[00:09:18.580]and solid fractions of runoff
[00:09:23.290]that contribute to carrying contaminants
[00:09:25.460]from the field to a water body.
[00:09:30.220]Reduced tillage, again, is similar
[00:09:32.840]to the residue management.
[00:09:34.590]You leave residue, crop residue
[00:09:36.220]on the surface of soil when you don't till.
[00:09:40.330]And so that, again, is a barrier
[00:09:42.600]that protects the surface of the soil
[00:09:44.140]from wind and rain erosion effects.
[00:09:52.220]But the other thing that reduced tillage does
[00:09:55.990]is it keeps the soil more stable,
[00:10:00.670]you get more stable soil aggregate,
[00:10:02.570]so you're not breaking up the soil
[00:10:04.180]every time you go through and till.
[00:10:06.560]And when you have better soil structure,
[00:10:09.720]you again reduce erosion because your soil particles
[00:10:12.540]are heavier, more connected together, larger aggregates,
[00:10:16.750]and that is harder to be carried
[00:10:19.850]off of the field as erosion.
[00:10:21.280]So reduced tillage is another practice
[00:10:24.750]that wasn't necessarily developed
[00:10:28.840]to control contaminant losses from manure application,
[00:10:35.440]but it controls nutrient losses,
[00:10:37.710]therefore it controls losses
[00:10:39.420]of these other contaminants as well.
[00:10:44.760]So application timing, we know that the longer you wait,
[00:10:49.730]the longer period that there is
[00:10:51.270]between when manure is applied to a soil
[00:10:53.140]and when a rainfall event occurs that causes runoff,
[00:10:57.300]the less chance you have of losing contaminants
[00:10:59.930]from the soil surface due to that runoff.
[00:11:03.190]So just, you know, using the forecast
[00:11:06.520]and trying to identify a day for manure application
[00:11:12.710]that gives you a window of at least 24 hours
[00:11:17.360]before there's any rainfall expected.
[00:11:25.670]So manure setback, application setbacks,
[00:11:28.930]these are applicable to all animal feeding operations
[00:11:34.340]that are operating under a permit in this state.
[00:11:39.810]Again, this comes back to leaving some barrier
[00:11:43.810]between where manure is applied
[00:11:45.730]and where it can leave land and enter surface water.
[00:11:50.370]So the farther you stay back,
[00:11:52.720]doesn't mean water's not going to run across that land
[00:11:56.420]that hasn't had manure applied.
[00:11:57.730]It just means there's more opportunity
[00:11:59.680]for anything that's carried by the water uphill from there
[00:12:03.450]to settle out or be absorbed into the soil
[00:12:07.800]as it moves across the soil that hasn't had manure applied.
[00:12:12.200]For a large animal feeding operation,
[00:12:14.250]the state requires a hundred feet setback
[00:12:16.850]from a surface water body.
[00:12:21.920]That's quite a bit to take out of production, right?
[00:12:24.170]So an alternative to that is to have a vegetative buffer
[00:12:28.510]around those sensitive areas that's 35 feet wide.
[00:12:32.330]And we talked about vegetative buffers a few slides ago.
[00:12:36.560]It doesn't really make sense,
[00:12:38.020]but small and medium operations have a setback of 30 feet,
[00:12:42.210]whether there's a vegetative buffer or not.
[00:12:44.340]So not all regulations are based on science necessarily.
[00:12:49.700]This is a good example of doesn't necessarily make sense
[00:12:54.290]that manure from a small operation
[00:12:57.560]can be applied within 30 feet of a water body,
[00:13:00.260]but manure from a large operation
[00:13:02.090]can't be applied within 100 feet,
[00:13:04.620]but that's the regulation,
[00:13:05.880]and that's what we have to follow.
[00:13:07.270]And so those values need to be kept in mind
[00:13:11.410]during manure management activities.
[00:13:16.090]The method of application is another factor
[00:13:19.675]that can affect contaminant movement.
[00:13:23.120]Obviously when we put manure below the soil surface
[00:13:27.340]via injection or incorporation,
[00:13:31.830]we're protecting some of those manure components
[00:13:35.130]from wind and water erosion.
[00:13:38.600]And so, you know, a surface application, again,
[00:13:42.320]leaves those chemicals or those contaminants exposed
[00:13:45.090]and more likely to leave the field via runoff or erosion.
[00:13:50.750]So if surface application is used
[00:13:53.370]and there's no tillage involved,
[00:13:54.730]which we talked about no till being of benefit,
[00:13:58.430]then you need to look
[00:13:59.780]at do I have some vegetative buffer areas?
[00:14:02.650]Do I have setbacks that are appropriate
[00:14:05.190]so that even though I'm not tilling this in,
[00:14:07.590]and I'm leaving it on the soil surface,
[00:14:12.390]if there's a rainfall event,
[00:14:13.560]it's less likely to reach surface water
[00:14:17.500]because of other practices that are in place.
[00:14:24.660]So I mentioned earlier, you know, we have two ways
[00:14:28.590]that these contaminants move.
[00:14:29.860]So we have those that are dissolved in water
[00:14:33.070]and move as runoff from a field.
[00:14:36.870]And then those that are absorbed to soil particles,
[00:14:39.800]and therefore they're going to move when there's erosion.
[00:14:44.050]So what we've talked about the last,
[00:14:45.930]you know, 10 minutes or so here
[00:14:47.370]is ways to reduce erosion, ways to reduce runoff.
[00:14:51.010]And if we're practicing these methods
[00:14:54.810]to reduce losses of nitrogen in runoff,
[00:14:57.670]phosphorus in erosion,
[00:14:59.930]we're also helping to control losses of microbes
[00:15:04.090]and other dissolved chemicals,
[00:15:07.170]chemicals that are absorbed to soil particles,
[00:15:10.210]the sediment itself, our topsoil.
[00:15:12.630]So what I want you to take away from this
[00:15:15.670]is that practices that are recommended
[00:15:17.460]in your nutrient management plan
[00:15:18.970]to control losses of nitrogen and phosphorus
[00:15:22.370]from your crop production area
[00:15:27.230]and from the animal production area,
[00:15:29.910]those are also helping control a lot of other contaminants
[00:15:33.380]that we may not hear a lot about,
[00:15:36.290]but they're really important to water quality.
[00:15:38.060]So I just want that to be something
[00:15:41.390]that you keep in the back of your mind
[00:15:43.230]as you're implementing these practices,
[00:15:45.240]that they're doing more
[00:15:46.550]than just what may be clear at the moment,
[00:15:50.280]as far as the nutrient contamination reduction.
[00:15:55.980]So I'm gonna wrap up with that.
[00:15:58.950]As I said, my contact information is here.
[00:16:02.400]I welcome you to send an email or give me a call
[00:16:05.090]if you have questions or comments.
[00:16:06.650]And otherwise, thanks so much for your time.

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Manure Contaminants

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