Western Wisconsin farm turns manure into water

EMERALD, Wis. (AP)--The owner of a large, western Wisconsin dairy farm is turning manure into purified water.

Emerald Dairy in St. Croix County has hundreds of cows and generates a lot of waste.

Owner John Vrieze says his separation system filters and purifies water in the manure so it's clean enough to drink.

Because Emerald Dairy is the first agriculture operation to try this, Vrieze has been trying for 30 months to get the state permits he needs to discharge the water into the environment instead of his manure lagoon. It would reduce by half the amount of manure that has to be spread on fields.

Department of Natural Resources water specialist Dan Bauman says that because it hasn't been done before on a dairy farm, they're trying to identify the codes they need to make a decision.

11/3/08
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Date: 10/24/08

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