Posted: 08.04.2010

The weather was hot and sticky - but judging by the smiles on people's faces - they never noticed.

Tuesday, Dane county officials along with three Dane area dairies, finally turned dirt on the first-of-its-kind manure digester.  The project has been in the works since 2005.

Chuck Ripp, of Ripp Dairy Valley farm, (family pictured above) is one of the three cooperators in the new venture.  The other two dairies are White Gold Dairy and the Richard Endres Dairy. Chuck Ripp told Pam Jahnke that they're excited to actually see the project going forward after hours and hours of meetings.  "Everything from traffic to safety - we had to discuss it all, and educate not only the farmers but our neighbors." 

Ripp says it helps that they're all good neighbors that know and respect each other.  It also helps that each of the cooperating dairies has another generation of family members ready to carry on this new energy generation project. 

The way the community digester will work, according to Ripp, is that the digester will pull manure from about 2,500 cows total on the three farms.  There will be a valve system and computer monitor that will turn on and pump manure from each farm on an "as needed" basis.  "No one farm will have to contribute more then any of the others." 

What about the out-of-pocket cost to the operations involved?  Ripp says,  "You know we invested a lot of time in this project - and there's a value on that too.  As far as the pumping and that -  we're pumping manure 600 feet right now to our lagoon.  Now we'll be pumping maybe 1400 feet at the most.  You know, that'll still be our expense, but that's just the cost of doing business."

What's Chuck Ripp's biggest concern that still remains - "I'm hoping this  project reduces the phosphorous in our water shed as much as they say it can.  It would be disappointing if it didn't - but we have to start somewhere."

Listen to Pam's conversation with Chuck Ripp by clicking HERE!

Dane County Exec., Kathleen Falk, said she doesn't expect this to be the last community manure digester that the county helps facilitate.  "We're now working on digester two!" Falk told Jahnke.  She says there may be three, four, five projects like this in the future. The overall goal, according to Falk, is to keep Dane counties dairy industry strong and growing.  Cleaning up lakes and rivers, and restoring them to clear, blue water is another goal - and generating green energy, jobs and reduction of green house gases are other obvious benefits of the project.

Falk says they expect completion of the Dane area digester by the end of the calendar year. Falk says Dane county residents should start getting power on their grid from the manure source by March of 2011.

Kathleen Falks conversation with Pam Jahnke can be heard HERE!

« back to news articles