Livestock sewage dumping on farm fields continues in the Western Lake Erie Basin.  Today, we have two more examples of manure application on snow, thawing, saturated ground.  Snow from last week is melting, freeze/thaw soil conditions, ground is saturated.  The roads around these fields are a mess, with a trail of manure and mud on Beecher Rd. in Hudson Township.

Cash crops won’t be planted until next spring, so there’s no need for fertilizer.

First up – Last week before roughly 8″ of snow fell here, Hartland Farms applied liquid manure on corn stubble.  It wasn’t incorporated.  If this field is designated as “no-till” (and many of them are), they don’t have to incorporate this within 24 hours; in fact/ they don’t have to incorporate it at all.  (This is true both in Michigan and for Ohio’s “not-a-ban” rule.) East side of Hughes Hwy., south of Beecher Rd., Bear Creek/Raisin watershed.

Today, more than a week later, Hartland is applying dry solids on a different part of this same field.  The sludge you see along the bottom of the picture is actually the road itself, a mixture of mud and manure and runoff.  Southeast corner of Hughes and Beecher, Bear Creek/Raisin watershed.  Hughes Highway just south of Beecher is a mess right now.

Moving west, Hartland is also applying dry solids on the west side of Dowling Highway between Beecher and Cadmus Rds., Bean Creek/Tiffin/Maumee watershed.  Poop wagon dropping its load just went over the top of the hill, out of view, as this photo was taken.

Farther south on Dowling, same application. You can see the snow hasn’t entirely melted yet.

We promise you, this isn’t just happening here.  Our CAFOs aren’t the only ones who have to dispose of their waste in these conditions.

The one sure thing about manure farming is that production never stops, and it has to go somewhere.  Just like flushing your toilet, except instead of going through the appropriate wastewater treatment, this sewage goes right onto farm fields.