Dairy Farming
500+ milking cows; 400 heifers; 3,000+ acre dairy farm. Manure from the barns is taken to a screw press which reduces the percent solids from 14% to 6%. (solids are then composted in a greenhouse). Liquid manure is then pumped to a geo-covered anaerobic lagoon (#1) where methane is automatically flared. The liquid manure is gravity-fed into a series of 3 additional lagoons with aerators. Field application.
Lagoon #1 (2 million gallons, geo-covered) anaerobic
Lagoon #2 (135,000 gallons) aerobic
Lagoon #3 (121,000 gallons) aerobic
Lagoon #4 (435 gallons) aerobic (Bioreactor) – discharge to farmland.
Application Task
Eliminate odor and reduce BOD.
Methodology
Installation of the Bioreactor System In Lagoon #4 (clarification lagoon).
Impact: (following an operation period of five months)
- DO levels increased from “0.0 mg/L” to 4.2 mg/L through the clarification lagoon
- Increased microbial diversity. Flourishing protozoan and metazoan communities. [installation + 5 months]; high MLSS
- Significant odor reduction; essentially “zero.”
- Significant biological nutrient removal (BNR)
