Thursday, May 12, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
PCE Application
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
PCE Small Boat in Cement Lagoon
I went to visit Jason Arp at a hog site north of Dunlap, IA yesterday. The weather has been very rainy and overcast in this area the past few weeks, but we finally saw some sun over the weekend. I caught some footage of PCE's small boat that Jason was running in a cement lagoon....until it once again started raining:
PCE agitation boats are fully remote controlled. Start, Stop, Throttle, Steering. This small model was designed with this purpose in mind - for use in cement lagoons. It had to be light enough to easily lift in and out of the lagoon, and very well balanced so it was easy to handle. Jason was pretty nervous handling the boat like this for the first time, but said it went really well and he even agreed to let me come video the process next week at another cement lagoon.
He's been agitating this pit for the last several years with two lagoon pumps that he would move around the pit to really work it up - but he still knew they were leaving piles of solids on the bottom that those pumps just wouldn't reach. Not long after placing the boat yesterday did they see the solids boiling off the bottom. They just couldn't believe it. Pretty soon the boat wasn't moving quite as fast. As he was driving the boat around the lagoon it would drag a bit over piles of solids, and slow down as it was trying to push solids that were floating. He's pretty sure it will take another year before they really get this lagoon cleaned out - that's a lot of solids!
A confession - I'm a bit of a wuss, I really hate standing at lagoon sites when they are being agitated. You all know why. It stinks. Yesterday I was really surprised at how much better it was to tolerate. The boat isn't sending any liquid into the air, and I think it really helps.
I'm working up more of the video from yesterday. It will be on YouTube soon, and also on the Agitation Boat -Video page of our website.
Please post questions and responses - I'll pester Dad for answers, and those of you with boats, we'd love to hear how they are working - good and bad!
Nancy
PCE agitation boats are fully remote controlled. Start, Stop, Throttle, Steering. This small model was designed with this purpose in mind - for use in cement lagoons. It had to be light enough to easily lift in and out of the lagoon, and very well balanced so it was easy to handle. Jason was pretty nervous handling the boat like this for the first time, but said it went really well and he even agreed to let me come video the process next week at another cement lagoon.
He's been agitating this pit for the last several years with two lagoon pumps that he would move around the pit to really work it up - but he still knew they were leaving piles of solids on the bottom that those pumps just wouldn't reach. Not long after placing the boat yesterday did they see the solids boiling off the bottom. They just couldn't believe it. Pretty soon the boat wasn't moving quite as fast. As he was driving the boat around the lagoon it would drag a bit over piles of solids, and slow down as it was trying to push solids that were floating. He's pretty sure it will take another year before they really get this lagoon cleaned out - that's a lot of solids!
A confession - I'm a bit of a wuss, I really hate standing at lagoon sites when they are being agitated. You all know why. It stinks. Yesterday I was really surprised at how much better it was to tolerate. The boat isn't sending any liquid into the air, and I think it really helps.
I'm working up more of the video from yesterday. It will be on YouTube soon, and also on the Agitation Boat -Video page of our website.
Please post questions and responses - I'll pester Dad for answers, and those of you with boats, we'd love to hear how they are working - good and bad!
Nancy
Monday, March 14, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Iowa Commercial Nutrient Applicators Association - 2011 Annual Meeting
A Few Notes from: A Legal Update by Mike Blaser
A Need to Put Environmental Performance in Perspective:
1. There are well under 800 municipal sewage systems in Iowa
2. There are well over 10,000 livestock operations that need professional custom applicators to apply manure to land in Iowa
3. The Iowa livestock operations produce multiple BILLIONS of gallons of manure to be used as fertilizer.
***Manure utilized as nutrient allows Iowa crop producers to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars of fertilizer costs - fertilizers made from natural gas, coming in part, from countries that don't like us very much. Be proud Iowa!
4. Producers and Custom Applicators do not have taxpayer-funded resources available to them to deal with manure production
5. In 2010 there were 116 reported bypasses (releases) from municipal systems, no fish kills. Every bypass (release) had a "surface water impact" as reported by DNR
6. In 2010 there were 49 total reported "incidences" involving manure for the Iowa livestock industry. 13 of these "incidents" had a surface water impact. Only 21 of the reported incidents in 2010 involved transport of manure or land application of manure, down from 24 in the prior year.
Livestock Operations and Commercial Applicators are doing a fantastic job of being environmentally responsible, and have improved dramatically over the past decade. There is still room for improvement, and we hope to see even less "incidences" in future years.
We'd like to encourage manure applicators in Iowa to join ICNAA - Iowa Commercial Nutrient Applicators Association go to:
http://iowacnaa.org/
http://iowacnaa.org/pdfs/membership.pdf
A Need to Put Environmental Performance in Perspective:
1. There are well under 800 municipal sewage systems in Iowa
2. There are well over 10,000 livestock operations that need professional custom applicators to apply manure to land in Iowa
3. The Iowa livestock operations produce multiple BILLIONS of gallons of manure to be used as fertilizer.
***Manure utilized as nutrient allows Iowa crop producers to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars of fertilizer costs - fertilizers made from natural gas, coming in part, from countries that don't like us very much. Be proud Iowa!
4. Producers and Custom Applicators do not have taxpayer-funded resources available to them to deal with manure production
5. In 2010 there were 116 reported bypasses (releases) from municipal systems, no fish kills. Every bypass (release) had a "surface water impact" as reported by DNR
6. In 2010 there were 49 total reported "incidences" involving manure for the Iowa livestock industry. 13 of these "incidents" had a surface water impact. Only 21 of the reported incidents in 2010 involved transport of manure or land application of manure, down from 24 in the prior year.
Livestock Operations and Commercial Applicators are doing a fantastic job of being environmentally responsible, and have improved dramatically over the past decade. There is still room for improvement, and we hope to see even less "incidences" in future years.
We'd like to encourage manure applicators in Iowa to join ICNAA - Iowa Commercial Nutrient Applicators Association go to:
http://iowacnaa.org/
http://iowacnaa.org/pdfs/membership.pdf
Friday, January 21, 2011
Building a NEW Boat
We're building a new style of Agitation Boats for testing this spring. How the boat works is still the same with 3 outflow nozzles that agitate vertically fed by a Cornell Redi-Prime Pump. We are updating the frame to be lighter-weight and goal-winging the floatation for even faster set-up and clean-up. Call to discuss various sizes and set-ups, visit the video pages on our website or YouTube to see footage from last fall. ...and place your order soon!
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