The News Article No One Wants To Read

Kevin Brown, Ag Resource Specialist, BCCD
I have batted around the idea to write an article on this for quite some time.  It is quite controversial, to say the least.  Not only is it controversial, but it will probably “lean” away from the direction most people would like it to.  Sorry.  The topic, biosolids.
I had the idea a couple months ago to write an article on this subject.  As I started my research, I got wind of some negative things going on around the county and I chickened out.  Last week I received a letter in the mail asking me to write one on the subject.  Part of my job is education; educating the general public on all things conservation oriented.  I started to do some research on the subject so I could give you the best information that I could.  Wow is there a lot to this.  I will have to consolidate as much as I can.

I am going to start my approach a completely different way than what you are probably thinking.  What are biosolids?  I mean exactly what are they?  In the most basic form, they are really nutrients.  We eat nutrients (food), and the ones our bodies don’t use get excreted.  This is true for all living things (I think?).  The biggest task the Conservation District is faced with is reducing the level of nutrients getting to the Chesapeake Bay, or really even to the stream right out behind your house.  I work on the Ag side if things.  Guess what the real problem is for doing my job?  Too many nutrients in the area.  How did they get here?  Well, let me explain.  Again, we need to think of things in their most basic form.  What do we have a lot of on the Eastern Seaboard?  Chickens, cows, hogs, and PEOPLE.  Where is a lot of the food made to feed ALL these entities?  In the Midwest for animals, and all over the world for people.  Now, I want you to think of food not as food, but as nutrients.  That is what food really is.  So, we take thousands and thousands of tons of food (nutrients) from around the world and we ship it here for consumption by chickens, cows, hogs, and PEOPLE.  What our bodies don’t use, gets excreted.  Sending corn and soybeans and vegetables and fruit to the population centers is easy, right?  We do it all the time.  Those nutrients feed our bodies, and we excrete the extra.  Now those nutrients that used to be called food are, well, let’s say waste.  LOL  And, at this time it is in a form that is slightly less “shipping friendly”.  So, what do we do with it at that time?  In the circle of life (for a nutrient) you would try to recycle that to grow another plant, and turn it into food, and the cycle would continue in perpetuity.   It is not food, or waste, or muscle, or fat, or anything else.  It is just nutrients in different forms.

The problem with where we live is that we have WAY too many humans and animals in one place consuming, and then excreting, nutrients.  So “what is a boy to do”?  Well, we are going to use those nutrients to fertilize the next crop.  And, we are going to use those nutrients as close to where the “product” is made as we can (shipping costs).  For this reason, we spread chicken litter, cattle manure, hog manure, and biosolids on fields as close to where it is produced as we can to fertilize the next crop.   Is that ideal?  Maybe not all the time, but what is the alternative?  Ideally, we would send it back to where the food (nutrients in another form) was made.  Who is going to pay for that?  I mean, if and when it happens, WE will have to pay for it in the price of food and sewer treatments.  It seems to me that using it this way is better than sending it down the river or filling up landfills with it.  This was (and still is at times) the destination for nutrients for a long time.  (next week, part II). 
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The Bradford County Conservation District is committed to helping people manage resources wisely. You can visit the Bradford County Conservation District at 200 Lake Rd in Wysox across from the Wysox Fire Hall. Contact us at (570) 485-3144 or visit our web page at www.bccdpa.com.