2007 PROGRAM WORK TEAM
ANNUAL REPORT
Managing
Wastes: Composting and Land Application
PWT
Co-Chairs:
*Ellen
Harrison, Director, Cornell Waste Management Institute
100
Rice Hall,
607
255-8576
EZH1@cornell.edu
Keith
Severson, Association Executive Director
607-334-5841
kvs5@cornell.edu
Activities, Accomplishments,
Outcomes and Impacts:
The
Managing Wastes PWT continues to engage diverse stakeholders including
government agency personnel who are responsible for managing waste residuals,
regulating wastes and fertilizers, assisting the agricultural community and
funding waste-related research and outreach; livestock farmers; compost
producers; government agencies, NGOs, private consultants, waste management
companies as well as Cornell Cooperative Extension educators and Cornell
faculty and staff from several colleges and departments.
One
of the important roles CWMI plays is convening people interested in waste
management so that they can work together to affect change. Throughout the year, new and old issues
surface. We can deal with easy issues quickly while others take a group of
people to look at all aspects of the problem and give it direction. With old
issues, we might take another track or re-energize that part of the program. In
the past 8 years, we have been working more on agricultural waste management
than municipal issues. There are indications
from our constituents that there is need to re-energize our education programs
in municipal composting. It has been 10
years since our last educational push in that area. Fifty people participated
in a compost course in cooperation with the state recycling organization (NYSAR3),
and Dr. Rynk from SUNY Cobleskill. It
was a beginner course that trained composters, municipalities, regulators,
extension educators and farmers.
Participation
in meetings and projects helped to reach hundreds of NYS farmers,
veterinarians, agency staff, educators, students, composters and others with
up-to-date research-based information and also served to help set direction for
research, policy and outreach activities. The PWT played a significant role in
developing two national conferences (manure management; mortality management)
that engaged stakeholders from farmers to government agencies. Our website continues to be a very important
part of our outreach receiving over 625,000 hits per year (http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu). With the help of our stakeholders and a lot
of staff time the site was reorganized and now has a new “skin.”
Substantial
progress was made on numerous PWT goals including answering research questions
on mortality composting, continued outreach on composting of mortalities and
butcher residuals, helping farmers produce better quality composts to sell or
meet farm needs. A current identified need and research area is using manure as
bedding. The questions being asked were; Do we need to compost it,, and if so,
for how long, and how often should manure bedding be changed?. Funds were
secured for research and outreach and data are being analyzed now.
Managing
mortalities through composting continues to be a focal point for research and
outreach. In April 2007, Northern New York and parts of
A
project that links NYS Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), CWMI, the Cornell
College of Veterinary Medicine, faculty with the workplace health and safety
program in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) Extension,
NYSDEC, NYS Department. of Health and Woods End Research Laboratory has been
completed. As a result of trainings and educational materials, more than 170
highway personnel and regulators are ready to implement composting as an option
to manage road-kill. This project will
protect water quality and health and save the state money by improving
management of the 25,000 road-killed deer that NYSDOT manages annually. DOT had another question that stemmed from
their implementation, so CWMI is assisting in a study to look at the quality
and quantity of leachate that is emitted from deer compost piles. Extensive
media coverage and web-based training materials have broadened the impact so
that highway personnel across NYS and the nation are equipped to change carcass
management practices.
The
use of dried manure as dairy barn bedding is of increasing interest to farmers
in NYS. Four collaborative projects involving
Assisting
compost producers in making quality compost in an environmentally and
economically sound process is a PWT goal.
A new fact sheet on composting liquids is posted on our web site and
elaborates on a method that can help manage manure, blood, whey, milk house
waste, and residuals from bio-diesel production.
Neighbor
and siting issues for large-scale composting facilities are an increasing
concern. The 2006 PWT annual meeting concentrated on this issue with affected
citizens, regulators, educators and composters in attendance. Research-based
information was gathered on air emissions and health impacts and compiled into
a document that is posted on the web site and was published in BioCycle
Magazine. It is already being used in permit hearings and planning for new
facilities.
Concerns
about soil contamination range from impacts of the use of treated lumber or
pesticides to the impact of spills of fuel oil or gasoline. To help address these concerns, a 3 year CWMI
project is coming to completion involving CCE educators across NYS, as well as
many faculty and agencies in identifying contaminants of particular concern and
in developing guidance materials addressing what to test for, how to test soils
and how to interpret test results. Dr. Murray McBride, an environmental
toxicologist and chemist with Department of Crop and Soil Sciences will take
over the directorship of CWMI with the retirement of Ellen Harrison and will
continue to explore aspects of soil quality.