Aerobic waste treatment for CAFO discharge

[spud22]

Dairy CAFOs are having a major problem with odors in area, particularly if they use flush system. Recently worked on aerobic treatment system for dairy waste which seemed to help the odor problem once the bugs got working. After one season they went to direct land application in the summer at the insistance of the ag dept and we have never gotten the system up and running again. My question: Why are not aerobic systems more widely accepted for this application, as they seemed to do a good job at moderate 1st cost and operating expense.

 

[Muggle]

Morning Spud22 - aerobic and anaerobic systems have been tried to resolve the issue for over 40-50 years. They have major problems in the winter, due to reduction of microbial metabolic rate, and they are susceptible to rapid changes in their alkalinity, salinity, phosphate,metal and pH level.

The aeration (rapid) of dairy lagoons assit in odor removal quite a bit, but are not a silver bullet, depending on the sludge layer and level of organic solids. Where solids are heavy (not removed) or only reduced by 70=80%, then use of a catalytic enzyme to the lagoon speeds the liquification of the solids, breaks carbon-hydrogen bonds by several logs, and can reduce odor of even large lagoons by 90% within a few days or a week. But must be added on a regular basis to ensure continued odor removal where additional wastewater is added.

The State of Colorado is testing a new partable manure wastewater treatment unit on their manure wastewater over-flow lagoon. Lagoon is 1.2m gallons and is the overflow lagoon for a 1100 head dairy. They expect to reduce odor, ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, and metal content to municipal discharge standards within 17-21 days. They are submitting wastewater samples to an outside lab every 7-days for BOD5, e.coli, and manure land application (which covers about 40-different analysis's) to plot the reduction rate. You may want to contact Dave Block - the supervisor overseeing the project - at dblock@cijvp.com to receive test results and additional information. He can also be reached by telephone at 719-429-5044. That's his cell phone - he just moved his office and I can't remember what that new extension is - but you can reach him by cell phone pretty much all the time, and he's pretty good about answering his email within 48-hours of receipt.

Good luck - Dave/Aquatic Technologies (aquaticonsult@yahoo.com)

 

[envscout]

I was involved in design work for a floating cover over a pond that we had an odor problem with during the warmer months. Had a company in Alabama build and install a floating cover over the lagoon a couple of years ago and it did eliminate the odor problem. Am not sure if this would be applicable to your application or not. Quality Lining Company has a website so should be able to type in their name on search engine and find them.