Picture
Caption: _______ Handling Manure Adam Rodewald
Picture
Caption: Jim Ostrom, a partner in Rosendale Dairy, invited me to tour his operation in response to my investigative report on manure spills.
Video
Caption: Rosendale Dairy in Pickett is one of Wisconsin's largest farms with over 8,000 cows. Using EPA calculations, a farm that size produces about 1 million pounds of manure per day.
Picture
Caption: The cows live in two massive barns like this one.
Picture
Caption: The manure is cleared out of the barn using a skid steer.
Video
Caption: It is then processed at this facility into solid and liquid forms that are able to be spread on fields.
Picture
Caption: This is one of the farm's lagoons, which can store six months worth of manure at a time.
Picture
Caption: During non-winter months, the manure is trucked or piped to fields for spreading. This map illustrates the amount of acres Rosendale Dairy spreads on.
Picture
Caption: This digester, owned by the UW-Oshkosh Foundation, turns some of the manure into electricity.
Picture
Caption: Ostrom agrees manure poses an environmental risk if not handled properly, but he argues the concern lies with small, unregulated farms operating under old standards. Only the largest farms are required to have manure management plans.
Picture
Caption: Read more about this issue at http://gbpg.net/1zoWEsR