A Biochar Breakout Opportunity

Relatively speaking, Scott Pruitt supports efforts to clean up toxic waste in our land. He only wants to cut the superfund budget by $330 million, which is a 30% cut, as opposed to the 34% cut for the EPA overall. To show even more support, he wants to be briefed regularly on the 10 worst superfund sites. The other 1,300 sites are not going to receive as much attention. At the same time, under Pruitt's budget proposal, the states will have 45% less federal grant money to rely on for some of their clean-up efforts.

Since money is tight for these projects, the EPA and PRP's (Potentially Responsible Parties, but let's just call them "perps") should be happy to know that there is a lower cost method available to remediate heavy metal contamination in soils. Heavy metals are elements of high density (> 5 g/cc) and include Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn. These metals are often left in the soil after manufacturing, mining, and disposal operations have moved on and can also be spread far and wide on the wind, especially from stack gases. They make it into the food chain via plants, and easily transform wholesome food into poison or ruin crops altogether. In some projects, activated carbon is used to sorb the heavy metals, but research has found that some less costly biochars do a better job.

CONTAMINATION by luc borell

With the loss to date of 1 billion acres of degraded, abandoned farmland, recovering that land is important for both the climate and public health. Estimates show the global activated carbon market to be growing exponentially due to environmental needs. Biochar made from animal manure, and then steam-activated, could satisfy 35% of worldwide granulated activated carbon (GAC) demand. It is cheaper than regular GAC and recycles another overloaded waste stream to useful ends. Other processes have used different biochar feedstocks and additives and proven helpful, as well, but manure's high phosphorus fraction seems to give it better heavy metal adsorption ability, according to Dr. Isabel Lima. Lead and mercury are adsorbed particularly well by phosphorus functional groups.

With energy companies like Shell dipping their toe into biochar production, there may be a better chance that their man Pruitt and the EPA will look into this solution.

Drawing Down - 3rd World Style

If  you are the independent type, third world solutions, otherwise known as appropriate technology, can be pretty great. The Drawdown project sees the biggest benefit of small methane generating anaerobic digesters in parts of the world where wood fired cookstoves are commonplace. Distributed digesters in the Drawdown model are fed livestock manure exclusively. Paul Hawkins' group estimates that 36.5% of manure in Asia is currently being run through small digesters and that we can bring that percentage up to 52.6% for all regions of the world where agriculture is dominated by small farms. For the rest of the world, they estimate much greater savings through the use of industrial sized anaerobic digesters. Yet, in marketing their product to the first world, HomeBiogas claims, even without displacing a cookstove, that their food scrap fed digester will save as much GHG emissions as if you stopped driving a car. In my case, it would also save on electricity to run cooking appliances and electricity to cool the house from the heat of those appliances.

Everyone's situation is different, but if you don't rely on a biodigester for recycling your kitchen waste, it may still be better to consider ways to do it yourself - the "it" here being greenhouse gas reduction. Composting of manures, food, and garden refuse are all ways to reduce waste, but they can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions if done properly. The key thing is to keep compost piles aerated. The hard way to do that is by turning the pile frequently enough to avoid anoxia in the pile while also avoiding outbursts of ammonia and methane in the process of turning it. The easy way is by lacing the pile with biochar which is full of microscopic air pockets. I still do some turning and churning of my non-manure compost, but all the piles get about 5 gallons of biochar or more (much more in the case of humanure compost which needs extra pore space in the pile). Sometimes I finish off a pile by giving it time in the tumbler for a few weeks where it gets a lot of air exchange.

If you happen to be a little higher up in the food chain, adding 0.5 to 1% of biochar in the feed for poultry and livestock could reduce enteric methane emissions dramatically. Putting charcoal in feed is not new, but it is being researched more rigorously. The amount of GHG emissions that could be reduced this way is astonishing since it comes with potentially reduced N2O emissions from manure, improved animal health, accelerated feed conversion, as well as biochar's innate sequestration of carbon.

Two solutions you won't find in Drawdown's list are Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and clean coal. Biomass energy is included as a transitional solution, but does not include any carbon capture, which turns out, like clean coal, to be technically infeasible. If the examples of alternative approaches described above are any indication, however, at the grassroots level, we can still drawdown significant amounts of CO2 by using the means at our disposal. It may surprise many experts to see some of these turn out to be major contributors to limiting global warming.

cells by Penfold_xxx

Drawdown - Guidance for Policymakers

In The Humanure Handbook, Joseph Jenkins assails our habit of wasting things.

We have kitchen “waste,” garden “waste,” agricultural “waste,” human “waste,” municipal “waste,” “biowaste,” and on and on. Yet, our long-term survival requires us to learn to live in harmony with our host planet. This also requires that we understand natural cycles and incorporate them into our day to day lives. In essence, this means that we humans must attempt to eliminate waste altogether. 

In Don DeLillo's novel, Underworld, the waste underlying modern life resurfaces throughout the tale. The advocates at eco-cycle Solutions are all about solving the waste problem. They and the folks at Trash-Free Maryland were surely disappointed when Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced an end to Maryland's Plan to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Nearly All Waste Generated in Maryland by 2040.

Stepping away from waste reduction is a mistake. We can benefit both economically and environmentally by improving industrial and residential recycling. According to research in the Drawdown project, household and industrial recycling each have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2.77 GtCO2 eq if practiced globally. They also bring lifetime savings of $71 billion apiece. Those savings do not even include related solutions such as paper recycling, biochar, and composting. The solutions to global warming in Drawdown are posited as

“no regrets” solutions—actions that make sense to take regardless of their climate impact since they have intrinsic benefits to communities and economies. 

Hogan's decision to set aside the zero waste plan may be defensible if he, instead, prioritizes other, higher ranking solutions in the Drawdown list. There are several for him to choose from. They will all be needed soon, so he shouldn't neglect waste reduction for long.

Save up to $100K through this Eco-lifestyle Adjustment

Slums constitute the living arrangement for one-fourth of today's world population. In the least developed countries, those living in slums exceed three-fourths of the population. Any urban area can descend quickly into slumdom when water and sewerage stop functioning. This can happen in any urban environment where the electric supply is lost for a week or where general mayhem prevails. Take Yemen, for instance. Facing a crisis of war, famine, and social collapse, 14 million people there lack access to safe drinking water or sanitation. The conditions are ripe for outbreaks of disease, which is currently appearing in the form of the most massive cholera epidemic this century. 

Cholera is spread by ingestion of Vibrio cholerae, which lives in the water where infected people have released sewage. If not quickly and properly treated, it can cause death in 50 to 60% of those infected. Currently, the number of cases in Yemen is 200,000 carriers of the bacteria. In the 2008 - 2009 Zimbabwe epidemic, the average infected individual transmitted the disease to 1.1 - 2.7 others. Those statistics are the reproduction rate (R₀) of the disease. Predictions of 300,000 new cases in Yemen by August must use the lower of these rates.

It is conceivable that conditions in the U.S. could deteriorate to bring about local outbreaks of cholera or one of the other many diseases associated with lack of clean water and sanitation. Sewer systems are susceptible, but a heavy septic system load in a concentrated area could also become a major source. My own neighborhood is reputed to have 70% of its septic systems in a failed condition (my own included) with a 2000% overload to the watershed due to the concentration of homes. 

If you are one of the approximately one-third of homeowners in the U.S. with a septic system, it would behoove you financially to limit your inputs. The typical septic system fails after 15 to 30 years of service. Replacing it might cost up to $20,000 (not to mention the effect of heavy machinery on areas of your property you never planned for). Extending the life of a septic system by using biodegradable soaps and having the tank pumped every three to five years helps, but an unconventional measure that could allow your system to last a lifetime is to not use it for sewage, period. This simple lifestyle adjustment could save you $100,000 over a lifetime.

Loveable Loo - well worth the $400. Detailed instructions included. (An $18 economy unit also works fine.)

Instead of using your drinking water to flush away sewage, take up meticulous composting with your bodily byproducts. Joseph Jenkins tells you all about it in The Humanure Handbook. In the process, do everything necessary to avoid spreading of pathogens to your environment. Don't let your septic system get to the point that mine is, where it is a major health hazard. Humanure composting, even done half well, is better than this. 

Fortunately, when I found out that my septic system had failed, I was already well along with my humanure collection and composting program. With a little luck, I can restore my drain lines to the point that they will drain "greywater" for several more years and all of our sewage will go into the humanure toilets for composting with the biochar, coffee grounds, and small wood chips that I generously smother it with. If you think that sounds slummy, just wait until your community's water or electricity stops flowing.

Recruiting a Coalition of the Willing

Every person I speak with about the need to clean up dog mess is a likely convert. That is, according to an EPA survey, 56% of dog walkers are likely not to be intransigent poop polluters. However, it may take the threat of fines, or at least awareness of the law, to bring all of the 56% around. In the two encounters I've had with my excursions around Lake Lariat this week, the responses were not supportive. I heard versions of, "I don't leave it where it would offend anyone" and, "Other people are worse offenders than me." This doesn't mean that these two fellows won't eventually come around.

Getting dog walkers equipped needs to be the first step in changing their habits. I'm going to request a grant for buying portable poop bag dispensers that people can carry on their dog leashes. These could be handed out to walkers, giving them one less excuse. Other than that, a plastic grocery bag would be helpful to hold full poop bags until they can find a trash receptacle. I've gotten into the practice of tying this outer bag onto the loop of the leash. It doesn't smell and if a breach were to occur, it would be clear of my clothing. Some poop bag dispensers come with a point of attachment for dangling filled bags. These serve the same purpose as tying it to the leash and would be a way to encourage new converts to show off their compliance.

Taking it to the Street

It dawned on me today that to get dog waste picked up around Lake Lariat, it just takes about 13 of me walking my dog with roughly equidistant spacing all around the lake critical area. The best way to evoke behavioral change is with living examples. If I can get full coverage by at least one regular dog-walker throughout the critical area, then the visible example of them picking up after their pets will spread to others in their neighborhoods until it becomes the norm.

No need to spend time preparing signs, announcements, or information booths. The way to directly deal with this is to find people in the act of walking their dogs in their various haunts around the lake and simply walk with them and tell them what I'm trying to accomplish, look for signs of conviction, and obtain commitment. I want to be prepared to offer ideas and tools, if needed, for helping them to make cleaning up after their dog a part of their daily walks.

It will probably take more than 12 others to get full coverage, since I usually walk my dog daily about 0.75 miles and others may not be so regular or wide-ranging, but my initial goal is one in each sector. It looks like I'm in for some walking adventures in the coming months, gaining adherents and monitoring progress.

The Goal: One Dozen Poop Conscious Dog Walkers (Photo by Michael Coghlan)

You Too Can Be A Poop Scooping Pro

My newspaper-lined poop pickup bag method is working fine, but I will admit that, though it works great on a pile of dog biscuits, a fresh specimen of the real McCoy will often deter the most enthusiastic of composters. A day of drying can bring the less manageable nuggets to a condition firm enough to retrieve. Sometimes, when walking Gretchen, I will take a temporary pass on her pungent product and find a firmer one left from another canine in the recent past. It is easy to find these replacements because there are some well known dog latrines on all of our frequent walking routes. In other cases, Gretchen locates them for me.

Leaving my dog's feces on public property, e.g. the right-of-way, is an illegal act punishable by a fine, according to the county animal control regulations, so I would not do this in the public eye. However, if I make a practice of always removing at least one neglected stool from the roadside, I feel like a good citizen. Fines for leaving dog crap lying around in public seem severe, but you could be fined even more (or imprisoned!) for allowing it to accumulate in your yard. I don't know whether these laws have ever been enforced here, but maybe they should.  According to Mr. Dog Poop, the problem warrants even stricter law enforcement.

In order to ensure that I am prepared for my dog walk sanitation responsibilities, I have a kit that should be standard issue for every dog owner. It is easy to assemble, but an enterprising business person could possibly get them out in retail stores, also. The centerpiece is a fanny pack. In it are all of the items that my cleanup method requires. After each walk, I replenish it with the consumable items such as newspaper or bags, as needed. It beats stuffing my pockets with this and that each time I take Gretchen out. With this kit, it's just a quick grab and go.

My dog poop clean up kit includes poop bags, torn newspaper pages, grocery bags, and hand cleaner. A small garden spade or toy plastic beach shovel is also recommended for the impossible grabs.

Saving the Bay, One Turd at a Time

I ran into local award-winning environmentalist, +Nancy Radcliffe and shared with her my new resolve for picking up any of my dog's droppings that might cause problems for the watershed. Nancy, who is a leader in the movement to ban plastic bags, suggested that I use newspaper instead of the dog poop pickup bags so freely available. I told her I would do that, so here is the method I came up with. Easier to grasp this idea through demonstration, so a 3 minute video was made. You can tell I'm a little nervous at first, but my voice slows down to a normal timbre at the end.

I jumped on Nancy's suggestion of newspaper as a collection device because it enables easier composting and doesn't waste plastic bags. It is possible to dump a dog turd from a poop bag into a compost bin, but the newspaper allows it to drop out easily and, if you are careful, the poop pickup bag can be used repeatedly.

In an effort to further reduce plastic bag use, I plan to transition to using paper bags to hold the newsprint protected poop. It's just a matter of being particular where I shop and making sure they offer paper bags. I might have to start buying wine by the bottle :).

Picking up Phosphorus Grenades

It has been shown that the microcystis aeruginosa bacteria that is associated with algal blooms occurring in Lake Lariat (among many other lakes in the U.S.) is responsive to reductions in phosphorus, but not to efforts targeted at nitrogen reduction. Since dog and cat feces contain more than the usual amount of phosphorus (compared to cow manure, for example), and dogs and cats produce manure close to their own body weight every month, there is probably about 20,000 lbs of manure and about 300 lbs of phosphorus being spread by dogs and cats around the "critical area" of Lake Lariat every month, assuming owners are already sending half of their pets' manure to the landfill. That comes close to 2 tons of phosphorus every year. Unlike nitrogen, phosphorus gets consumed slowly in the soil, so it is more likely to end up in the Lake, where it may accumulate to trigger algal blooms.

Photo by Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

One thing to note about picking up dog crap in one's yard is that it should be done frequently, but at least prior to rain events. Letting it dry for a day or so is OK, if no rain is forecast. I like to time my pile pick-up rounds to coincide with rain-barrel draining when a storm is due the next day. As for dog walking, I've learned to take a couple of poop pickup bags and to have a plastic grocery bag to drop those into. The bigger bag gets tied on my belt until I can dump the contents in a trash can. I would consider composting these, but dog poop bags on the market aren't made for compost piles. Even the vegetable-based bags don't break down quickly or thoroughly enough. (Exceptions exist, e.g. Bio Bag)

For cat owners, the eco-opportunity is greater since cats are often given to going in a litter box. The key is finding a compostable litter. The late Gene Logsdon addressed this idea in chapter 3 of Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind. A great odor absorbing material to mix into the litter is ground up biochar. It is not going to break down much in the composting process, but it should enhance composting temperature and time. I'm thinking about hosting an Amazon giveaway with Logsdon's book as the prize. It could be a way to get agriculturally oriented people in my community thinking about manure composting.

Clean Yard, Clean Lake

While septic systems are the major contributor to water pollution in this area, we humanure machines also have dogs that contribute in a more distributed fashion. Normally considered an urban problem due to runoff often being quickly shunted to stormwater drains rather than directed onto the landscape for infiltration, it also warrants attention in suburban settings with less impervious surface.

Taking the Maryland fertilizer law single application limit for lawns as a reference point, a dog contributes about 0.75 pounds per day, so every 25 days or so will drop enough manure to exceed the 1,000 square feet nitrogen and phosphorus limits in the fertilizer law. Nobody fertilizes that frequently, so leaving dog waste to decompose in one's yard violates the principle of the fertilizer law (aside from the fact that it makes a mess out of your lawn). However, when a person walks their dog instead of leaving it in a yard all the time, a lot of their pet's droppings get distributed over an area much greater than 1,000 square feet, so it's probably not excessive and needn't be collected, except in urban areas, or where it is clearly destined to be washed into a storm drain, or when required by rules.

If the fertilizer law is valid, nowhere is it more so than in the critical area, to include around inland lakes and streams. I traced out a line 1,000 feet from Lake Lariat on a topographic map and found that my house is inside that self-imposed buffer. Fortunately, I already collect and compost my dog's waste. Using that compost in a project that can demonstrate its efficacy is going to be one way that I gradually accustom others in my area to the idea of humanure compost. I think the project will be a conservation landscape in front of my house.

Part of my campaign could be spent encouraging dog owners in the target area to pick up the dog shit in their yards, especially from November 15th to March 1st when no fertilization of lawns is allowed. Dog poop will tend to wash into runoff more during those months because the ground is less pervious due to freezing.

September is for Septic Systems

Though I am a septic skeptic, I still depend on my septic system and want to become a responsible system owner even as I wean us off the practice of dumping in our drinking water. I want to encourage others to be responsible septic system owners, too, so I will do what I can to put together an awareness-raising drive with the help of materials in the toolkit provided by the EPA for septic-smart week (Sept. 19 - 23). At least I can put up some posters; maybe do some door-to-door handouts, making initial contact with homeowners who may be good candidates for conversion to humanure composting.

One thing I've never done that the EPA recommends is hire an inspector every three years to see if my septic system is developing problems. Since I have violated several other guidelines over my 11 years of ownership pertaining to protecting the integrity of my system, I may actually have a failed or failing system and not even know it. Most homeowners are probably in the same boat, not even thinking of having an inspection done until it's time to sell. An inspection now may be timely for us in that regard, as well.

Just looking into the topic of septic systems has given me some other useful awareness. I was planning to plant some shrubs over my drain field, and now, having learned better, I'm looking forward to planting self-seeding annual flowers there instead. There might also be a good area near the end of the drain field for my humanure compost bins. If that somehow negatively affects the capacity of the septic system, the reduced load in the tank may be enough to compensate.

The #1 Source of Pollution in Our Watershed

The 7 million or so gallons of sewage that spilled from wastewater treatment plants into a couple of the Chesapeake Bay's tributaries two weeks ago turned my head in a new direction. It redirected me on my capstone project for the Watershed Stewards Academy to focus on humanure in my neighborhood. Septic tanks are the current locus of the problem. Particularly problematic are failed septic systems in which sewage resurfaces and then gets washed by storm runoff into surface water.

The environmental impact of failed septic systems can be estimated using a figure from Purdue University stating that one failed system will discharge 76,650 gallons of sewage to the surface in one year. Extending that to an estimate of the number of homes in the critical area of the Chesapeake Ranch Estates, and applying a factor of 10%, which is the EPA's estimate of the proportion of septic system failures, and the annual amount of sewage flowing overland from this 1,000 foot wide zone stretching about 1 mile along the Chesapeake Bay comes to 3.8 million gallons. It could be double or triple that, depending on the actual failure rate, which has be estimated at over 30% in some states. Project that kind of problem all along the coastline of the bay and its tributaries and the wastewater treatment plants end up smelling like a rose.

Maryland's laws pertaining to poop aren't all that stringent. Farmers are allowed to dump manure on their fields. Homeowners are allowed to spread it on their lawns. If the fertilizer limits on nitrogen are applied to manure (phosphorus is actually the more limiting element), you could legally put 40 pounds of horse manure on a 1,000 sq. ft. lawn in a single application. Not that anyone would, but you could instead apply 20 pounds of humanure to the same lawn and remain under the nitrogen limits. A failed septic system used by a family of four would expel roughly 700 pounds of excrement (assuming toilets outside the home are used 50% of the time) to the land. That amounts to over 35 times the nitrogen limit for lawn fertilization (humanure contains 5% - 7% N). And that's just the poo! There is also a lot of urine and other nasty liquids in the mix with a whole lot more nitrogen.

It is hard to say whether the nutrient-laden runoff or the 100 or so pathogens in the sewage are a greater problem. Research published in 2015 from leading experts in the field of water sustainability shows that pathogens from septic systems make it into surface water much more than what authorities had believed. The pathogens are pretty scary, but to fish and other marine life, nutrient overload can quickly become deadly.

Keep in mind that all septic systems, working or not, tend to pollute the environment. The total amount of nitrogen loading to the Chesapeake Bay watershed from septic systems in Calvert County exceeds that from every other category,

Photo by Jim Barter

which includes agriculture, urban runoff, forests, and wastewater treatment plants. On average, the amount of nitrogen entering the watershed from a septic system is 19 pounds per year, based on calculations using figures from the Calvert County Watershed Implementation Plan. That is equivalent to dumping lawn fertilizer for over twenty 1,000 sq. ft. applications straight into the bay.  Every house.  Every year. The pathogens (including certain bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and other parasites)  in the effluent from working septic systems also make it into groundwater to one degree or another. In areas where septic systems are greatly concentrated, such as the Chesapeake Ranch Estates, both pollutant types will make the surrounding waters inhospitable to man or beast.

Anti-Septic Solutions

Clivus (pronounced "cleevus") Multrum toilets are a brand of composting toilets that have received the "best available technology" (BAT) designation in Maryland, which means they could be used as alternatives to septic tanks if combined with greywater systems on new construction. They could also allow reduction of septic tank sizes by 30% when installed without a greywater system. If folks want to bypass the 5-year recurring requirement for a groundwater discharge permit, they might try using the composted urine from the toilet as a nitrogen booster to compost high carbon material in a separate long-term, thermogenic compost pile. One drawback to this and other types of waterless toilets that require a vent fan is that you might want to include a backup source of power to keep the fan running during power outages. Another is that it may cost you more to heat and/or cool your home due to the continuous venting through the toilet.

All of this is particularly relevant to someone who has a home in the critical area (within 1,000 feet of a tidal waterbody or wetland) in Maryland. Structures outside the critical area will probably not be subjected to the expense of a change to their septic system, now that Gov. Hogan has announced a turnabout on the mandate for denitrifying septic systems. Homeowners who must still upgrade could take the Multrum toilet/greywater route, though it is not clear whether regulations would still require them to own a septic system and if it would still need to be upgraded. The new tack being taken by the Hogan administration may favor the composting toilet/greywater system option in lieu of costly septic system upgrades. One person I know with a house in the critical area told me his septic system would cost him $20K to upgrade due to the very deep leach field it requires.

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) does not condone the use of compost that is harvested from composting toilets and says that it should be bagged and sent to landfills. There are no laws that specifically prohibit use of this compost on one's own property, though the low composting temperature of Clivus Multrum toilets means that owners should limit the compost use to ornamentals (roundworms being a possibility, and all).

What MDE and the general public need to wrap their minds around is that we must get comfortable with humanure composting. Once you get into compost gardening, you start to realize how valuable and scarce compost is. Compost is also valuable outside of gardening. We are not going to be able to continue the highly polluting practice of synthetic fertilizer production from natural gas if we want to keep from burning up the planet. Christophe Pelletier lays it out for us in economic terms,

In the future, we are going to see a new look at fertilization. The economics of agriculture will change. This is inevitable, because the cost of inputs will increase. This will be a direct consequence of the increase of the price of oil, and of the depletion of phosphates reserves. This change of economics will drive renewed interest for manure, and for sewage. These sources will become attractive and competitive, as they contain large amounts of minerals directly available. Because of their nature, they have a high content of organic matter. One of the most efficient ways to remove nitrates from water is to grow plants with it. One of the main sources of phosphates will be manure.

Now, if manure is going to be so important to growing food in the future, let's not rule out humanure until after a thorough investigation of its appropriateness.

Pelletier weighs the value of manure against the future cost of synthetic fertilizer, but the carbon cost could also be factored in. Compost, in general, can be helpful in reducing greenhouse gasses. The points made by the U.S. Composting Council could be easily extended to include humanure compost.

If the least expensive and most effective method (using a bucket and manually adding your scat to a compost pile) seems too undignified or time-consuming, composting toilets are another option better than sticking with the sewer or septic systems that are currently harming our environment. In Maryland, we are fortunate to have an authorized distributor of Clivus Multrum toilets with plentiful experience.

Compost Fit for a Prince

Local Legalities wrt Reducing Septic Tank Usage

The Chesapeake Ranch Estates (CRE), where I live in Lusby, Maryland is a good place to promote humanure composting. Every one of our 4,000+ unique single-family dwellings is connected to a septic tank. About one-tenth of our residences are in the critical area, magnifying, manyfold, their potential for polluting the Bay. The EPA standard for septic system density is at 40 systems per square mile, an area's groundwater is most likely being overly contaminated. CRE's septic system density is around 900 systems per square mile.

"Stoplight, Septic Truck, and the Sea" by C.C. Chapman

Calvert County's phase II Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) to help reduce pollution of the Chesapeake Bay watershed is relying on a few demanding measures to improve the nitrogen removing performance of septic systems. By installing denitrifying septic systems, they can eliminate up to 93% of nitrogen discharge to the watershed from those sites. The government's cost to execute the WIP will require double the current budget, but a lot of the cost will be borne by homeowners who would have to install the improved systems at costs up to $12,000. Failed septic systems, new systems, and existing systems belonging to homes being sold would all require the expensive new technology. The WIP says nothing to encourage alternatives such as composting toilets.

The Maryland Department of the Environment makes the composting toilet alternative only mildly attractive by allowing a dwelling's septic system to be sized about 1/3 smaller.  The regulations only address waterless toilets in the context of waste disposal. In particular, they address “On-site disposal” which they define as "the disposal of sewage effluent beneath the land surface." They also levy additional permitting and inspection requirements on owners of waterless toilet systems that dispose of the sewage on-site. The whole process would appear to drive the on-site disposal alternative into the loss bracket for most homeowners.

The regulations do not delve into the possibility of recycling the manure through thermogenic

Photo by Scot Nelson

composting in bins above the ground. With that approach, once it is fully composted and cured, the material is no longer "sewage" and applying it to gardens can't be properly described as "disposal." The absence of regulation on this topic leaves it up to the citizenry as to whether they recycle their excreta, though there may also be local rules to deal with. My guess is that the county would jump at the opportunity to take nitrogen credit for hundreds of households that have stopped flushing toilets into their septic tanks and, instead, make water purifying compost out of humanure.

A Campaign Wrought In Extremis

Social marketing (ne: social media) stems from the field of public health. A lot of it involves consciousness raising. My consciousness about our utterly disastrous approach to wastewater recycling was recently piqued by overflow incidents in Howard County which allowed over 7 million total gallons of untreated sewage to discharge into the Patuxent and Patapsco Rivers.

Photo by DrewsTheOne

Former state senator Bernie Fowler, a long-time champion of cleaning up the Patuxent ever since a historic sewage overflow incident spurred him to the cause, lamented that he probably won't live to see a restored Patuxent after last week's incident. Sewage overflows into our waterways are a public health nightmare, as well as environmentally devastating.

The root cause of the problem of sewage in our rivers is not a matter of how well we operate wastewater treatment facilities, nor is it flooding brought on by increased stormwater. The root cause is that we treat sewage as waste and not as a resource, because, if we did, we would not dispose of it, but recycle, i.e. compost, it. Composting is best done as close as possible to the source and point of final application. People should, wherever possible, compost their excrement hyper-locally.

Other than the general public and wildlife, the beneficiaries of adopting humanure composting would be gardeners and foresters. Humanure compost can be used wherever standard compost is used, provided it is made with care pertaining to temperature and curing time. It is also a good fit for biochar.

Culturally, there is a great challenge to getting USAnians to adopt humanure composting. One of the precepts of social marketing is that culture trumps strategy, so adaptation to culture is necessary in all cases. The audience to target in this campaign is going to have to be avid composters who have no worries about personal injury liability stemming from their methods and inputs. Not that thermogenically composted humanure is unsafe, it's just that most here can't shake their fecophobic preconceptions.

Permasoil

Weeds like cypress spurge can establish themselves where nutrients are scarce, but most horticultural plants require more care and feeding in order to grow to their full potential. Nitrogen is the macronutrient in highest demand by vegetables, requiring most gardeners to supplement their soils with fertilizer at certain times in a plant's lifecycle. Farmers typically use aged manure as a nitrogen source, which may put their customers at slight risk of pathogens in their produce. Synthetic fertilizers are used by most non-organic farmers and gardeners, leaving a large carbon footprint and upsetting soil microbial communities. Compost adds some nutrients, but the nitrogen is typically consumed within six weeks.

Healthy soil has the ability to cycle nitrogen to plants from the activity of microbes with no outside supplementation. Healthy soil requires the presence of live plant roots throughout the year, e.g. cover crops, with no more than three weeks dead space. If one added compost at a high rate every year, the soil could become nutrient sufficient after many decades. In the meantime, a grower needs to fertilize in addition to using compost.

The missing piece from this discussion is biochar. Biochar raises the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of soil better and more permanently than compost, meaning more nutrients will be available to plants for a longer period. If small portions of biochar are added annually to a plot of land, poor soil health can improve to a self-sustaining level in only a decade or two because it harbors a plethora of soil biota. Once soil reaches that state, it becomes a treasured renewable resource rather than a recurring receptacle. Biochar that is pre-charged with nutrients and inoculated with microbes can bring soil to a regenerative state most quickly.

Photo by Willi Heidelbach (CC BY 2.0)

You can be a successful grower by relying on synthetic fertilizers, or you can be even more successful by following organic practices, including natural fertilizers and compost, but unless you grow on prime farmland already, you can only be fully successful in your lifetime if you use biochar. Until your soil gets to that point, keep the fertilizer handy (but please hot compost the manure).

Oyster Farms on Land

Let me clear up some common misconceptions about mushrooms. We used to have a saying in the Navy, that the Combat Information Center (CIC) watch was like being a mushroom, since we were always kept in the dark and fed sh*t. The truth about mushrooms is a little more nuanced. Yes, they do enjoy shade, but most tolerate a bit of direct sun, and most grow in the soil or on wood, though some are cultivated in manure or compost.

It's the manure part that bothers people, leading them to eschew mushrooms. In fact, I'm not particularly thrilled about buying button mushrooms from the store, seeing all the growing media residue still clinging to them. Thing is, the manure, if used, was probably composted and possibly topped by a pasteurized,non-fecal casing soil to remove pathogens and interfering fungi in the process of being implanted with the fungus you'd be eating. That's better than you can say for the soils that grow many of your vegetables. Farmers often apply manure to their soil, allowing as little as 3 months for natural processes to kill off pathogens before harvesting the crop. So, wash your vegetables, as well as your mushrooms, before cooking or consuming them.

We could do better by the Bay than to spread manure on farmland. About 20% of Maryland farms are restricted in the types or amounts of manure they can use now because of the Phosphorus Management Tool (PMT) regulations. Phosphorus is an important pollutant to manage, but Nitrogen is also a growing concern, having negative impacts on at least 5% of affected ecosystems' endangered species. Much of the sandy soils in the Coastal Plain don't accumulate nutrients and pass them through quickly to aquifers and waterways. Rather than base manure application limits on soil phosphorus content, we should be looking at nutrient flows.

One of compost's key characteristics is that it holds on to chemicals, such as phosphorus, acting as a filter in the soil to limit the amount of nutrients that make it through to the Bay. The same can be said of biochar and mycelium, but to an ever greater degree. Blaming the PMT on the decline in the number of Maryland farms ignores the whole issue of nutrient pollution, while the PMT ignores the flow of nutrients from the soil. Adopting a more rigorous protocol for reducing nutrient pollution seems to be warranted, but we need to avoid burdening small farms with added costs and management effort. Options in the PMT for measuring reductions in actual pollution to waterways, rather than strict limits on fertilizers, could be the way to go.

Of all the methods mentioned, I think mycelium is the most promising (though farming with biochar would do enormous good). In Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, Paul Stamets discusses implanting bunker spawn in trenches to filter runoff from areas of concentrated pollution. I'm starting to do this on my own property as I acquire mycelium in my various experiments.
Oyster mushroom mycelium is supposed to be good for this use. Once the mycelium is established it can flourish, if fed new wood chips occasionally. The great thing about it is that farmers could harvest and sell the highly nourished oyster mushrooms that would grow out of these mycofilters.

Accelerating Eden

Biochar will accelerate formation of topsoil, but ten years is a long time to wait. In my ignorance, five years ago I set up two garden beds using the native loamy sand that remained after our property addition was leveled. The results were so meager that forest vermin weren't even stopping by for lunch. The next few years were progressively more productive after successive additions of compost and biochar enriched the channery soil. Last year, I decided to expand with a new bed by using a method known as lasagna gardening. Also known as sheet mulching, lasagna gardening entails putting down layer after layer of organic matter on top of a poor growing surface, then waiting six months for it to break down enough to plant.  The up front work was considerable, but I was well rewarded with a bed that was more bountiful than the two that had been enriched year-by-year with biochar and compost.  (Biochar and compost were also ingredients in the lasagna garden.)  The takeaway is that, with poor soil, you don't have to wait ten years for a productive garden. You still have to add layers to a lasagna garden every year and dig it all in, but if biochar is included, even that can cease after ten years.

This year, I made two beds using sheet mulching and a very deep compost bed, following the same approach, in which I plan to grow mushrooms. My future forest garden patches will be grown out of sheet mulch, also. Perhaps the hardest part about lasagna gardening is getting enough of the right ingredients, green material, in particular. I've had to reach out to acquire enough of this high nitrogen material for my beds. I collect buckets full of used coffee grounds from a local doughnut shop and tons of horse manure from a local stables. It is best to pre-compost manure with straw or other brown material, before adding to the lasagna garden, in order to kill pathogens by the heat of composting. I'm looking at integrating my acquisition of green material onsite through raising chickens. Geoff Lawton explains how.

Chicken Shit

Turning our gaze across the Chesapeake Bay where chicken factories are one of the salient features of the landscape, a group of activists called Food & Water Watch has raised protests against the incineration of chicken manure.  You might think, with my advocacy of using chicken litter to make biochar, I would take exception to that position.  The truth is, incineration is not how you make biochar.

F&WW seems to mainly want to make CAFO's go away, but their agitation against the Renewable Fuel Standard inclusion of manure as a Tier 1 renewable fuel is ostensibly based on increased air pollution from incineration.  A long and twisted tale leads to the current state of dissatisfaction over the way we deal with this resource.

We can begin with Martin O'Malley who, back in his days as Maryland Governor, made a deal with Exelon Corporation to fund $50 million of a project to convert chicken litter to energy in exchange for allowing them to merge with Constellation Energy.  The company that got the award to head up the manure power project, Green Planet Power Solutions, failed miserably.  Now, other players are hoping the money is still there for a more competent outfit to give it a try.

In the meantime, the Maryland Department of Agriculture has begun to assist poultry farmers with a much smaller pot of money under the Animal Waste Technology Fund.  A company called Renewable Oil International MD, LLC has been granted $1.2 million in support of developing a manure-fed energy system that makes biochar as a by-product.

The major action, however, is where a company called AgEnergy USA is talking with Perdue about making a $200 million manure-fired energy plant.

Biochar has been little but an afterthought to some of these projects, which leads me back to the F&WW argument.  Biochar is not made by incineration, but by pyrolysis, of which a particular method is gasification.  Pyrolysis involves heating material in a oxygen-deficient environment.  That means less NOx is produced and particulate matter is also kept low, depending on the speed of the process.   F&WW should like that.  I hope they do, because I think I like Food & Water Watch and would like to link arms with them to work for more local agricultural systems.

(Sh)it's All Good

Avian flu is not the only disease that might come from raising chickens.  The common concern is e.coli. Some 60,000 cases of e.coli infections get treated every year in the U.S. and a few deaths do occur, but, though those rates are low, who wants to be sickened by some nasty bug?  Nasty, because the main source is animal excrement.

I could say "shit," but that's not what it is to me.  I treasure it and all other excrement because, in a display of nature's alchemical capabilities, crap can be transformed into black gold through the phenomenon of composting. There are several types of dung I currently collect. We have a backyard chicken owner in our church who lets us take their droppings to our community garden for fertilizer. I regularly visit a riding stables about 3 miles away to fill bags with horse dung and cart them home for composting.

Anyone who has pets can also compost their caca with a little forethought.  I bought a cheap, versatile Geobin composter for the sole purpose of composting the dog mess I clean up weekly. I now look forward to making those weekly rounds, especially with the handy, lightweight poop scooper my wife got for my birthday present. The warnings you hear about keeping pet poo out of your compost bin are valid.  However, once the segregated pet droppings undergo thermogenetic composting at 140 F or higher, and then remain in a pile for a year, they are safe to use in ornamental gardens.  It's this short heat and long cure cycle that keeps the risk of e.coli and numerous other pathogens low. In order to keep the pile from reeking, I simply layer sawdust on top of each week's deposit. I also add meats, fats, and bones from our kitchen scraps to the middle of this bin - another no-no for general composting.

The same approach can even be used for humanure, which requires more planning, preparation, and particularity.  The bins should be built to higher standards, a collection system is needed, and odor control must be thorough.  I'm not there yet, but am headed there.  It's not just about making better soil, it is also about protecting the environment.  Our current sewage systems don't do a good job of this.  Less is more when it comes to giving doo-doo the treatment it deserves.

Maryland's big business-friendly governor doesn't make those Eastern Shore farms compost chicken fecal matter before spreading it on the land.  Yet, another way to deal with pathogens from poultry litter is to make biochar out of it.  There is actually some governmental funding being applied to building up this capability for the sake of the Chesapeake Bay.  Biochar has also recently been ascribed the ability to sequester not only carbon, but e.coli as well.  Simply adding biochar to the soil can protect crops from carrying such pathogens.  It seems that combining thermogenic composting of any form of manure with only 10% biochar by volume would make the resultant product quite safe and result in a double win for the environment.