Animal Manure Storage
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Animal Manure Storage Fact/Worksheet
How will these materials help me to protect my drinking water?
How do I complete the worksheet?
Why should I be concerned?
Farmers store animal manure so they can spread manure when crops need the nutrients. They save money because they don't need to purchase as much fertilizer. Accumulating manure in a concentrated area, however, can be risky to the environment and to human and animal health. Poorly designed or mismanaged manure storage systems can allow contamination of surface or ground water sources by the nutrients and disease-causing organisms contained in animal wastes.
Facilities which store manure in liquid form on the homestead may leak or burst, releasing large volumes of pollutants. Manure in earthen pits under some soil conditions form a semi-impervious seal of organic matter that does limit leaching potential, but seasonal filling and emptying can cause the seal to break down. Short-term solid manure storage and abandoned storage areas can also be sources of nitrate contamination of ground water.
If nitrate concentrations in drinking water are greater than federal and state drinking water standards of 10 mg/L,* nitrate-nitrogen can pose health problems for infants younger than six months of age, including the condition known as methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome). Young animals are also susceptible to health problems from high nitrate-nitrogen concentrations. Concentrations of 20-40 mg/L in the water supply may prove harmful, especially in combination with high concentrations (1,000 ppm) of nitrate-nitrogen from feed sources.
Animal wastes are potential sources of approximately 150 diseases. Illnesses potentially transmited by animal manure include diseases such as typhoid fever, cholera, tuberculosis, and polio. Organic materials that lend an undesirable taste and odor to drinking water are not known to be dangerous to health, but their presence suggests that other contaminants can be flowing into ground water. The detection of any coliform bacteria in a drinking water sample is considered as "bacteriologically unsafe."
The goal of Home*A*Syst is to help you protect the environment and your drinking water.
*means milligrams per liter, equivalent to parts per million for water measure
How will these materials help me to protect my drinking water?
- It will take you step-by-step through your fertilizer storage, handling, and disposal practices.
- It will rank your activities according to how they might affect the ground water that provides your drinking water supply.
- It will provide you with easy-to-understand rankings that will help you analyze the risk level of your fertilizer storage, handling, and disposal practices.
- It will help you determine which of your practices are reasonably safe and effective, and which practices might require some modification to better protect your drinking water.
How do I complete the worksheet?
After reviewing the information provided, select Go To The Worksheet in links at the left. It should take you about 15 to 30 minutes to complete the worksheet and summarize your risk rankings.
Information derived from Home*A*Syst worksheets is intended only to provide general information and recommendations to rural residents regarding their own homestead practices. It is not the intent of this educational program to keep records of individual results.