Dane County Looks For New Way To Reduce Nitrogen, Phosphorus Runoff

Dane County farmers could see an new option for reducing runoff from manure spreading.

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi announced his proposal for a community manure storage program earlier this week, saying $1.1 million would be available to build a manure management system for small and medium-sized producers in the county.

Some in the agriculture industry say the idea of shared storage is an innovative approach to a problem experienced by many farms in the state.

“It would be a really positive step for us to be looking at this as a community instead of each farmer all by themselves and their business is only their business,” said Amber Radatz, co-director of University of Wisconsin’s Discovery Farms.

Radatz works with farmers on nutrient management, and she said it’s often hard for small farms to avoid spreading manure during late winter and spring, the riskiest times for runoff.

“The only thing they can do to protect water resources in that way is to try to find the best places to go each day that are at least risk for runoff,” Radatz said. “They really don’t have the option of avoiding spreading manure because the cows keep producing manure every day and they don’t have any storage to hold it anywhere.”

But Radatz said there are some concerns about how a shared storage facility would work.

“There will of course be a cost associated with the farmers actually transporting it there and then having to transport it again to get to the fields ultimately,” Radatz said.