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							           Fiscal Year 2010 Conservation Innovation Grants Pre-Proposal
Entity Name:            Lafayette County Economic Development Corporation
Address:                627 Washington St., P.O. Box 133, Darlington, WI 53530

Project Title:          Sustainable Farm Management in the Pecatonica River Valley: A Systems Approach to
                        Innovative Nutrient Reduction, Riparian Enhancements, Energy Production, and Manure
                        Transportation

Category:               Mississippi River Basin
Sub-Category:           Nutrient Management

Project Start Date:     October 1, 2010
Project End Date:       September 30, 2013

Project Contact Information
              Name: Ken Harwood
               Title: Executive Director
             E-mail: ken@futurelafayette.com
Telephone Number: (608) 776-8080

Project Contact Information Names and Affiliations of Project Collaborators
Tim Zauche            Department Chair & Professor of Chemistry and Renewable Energy, UW-Platteville
Lisa Trumble          County Conservationist, Lafayette County Land Conservation Department
Local Contact         USDA – Natural Resources Conservation Service
Ela Kakde             Community, Natural Resource and Economic Development Educator, UW-Extension
                        Lafayette County
Steve Loheide           Assistant Professor, UW Madison, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Ben Webb                Associate Planner/GIS Analyst, Vandewalle & Associates
Bev Anderson            Council Member and Former Mayor of Darlington, Wisconsin

Project Purpose:
To develop and deploy an innovative new approach toward obtaining low-lying grazing easements by developing a
collaborative network exchange of farmers, landowners, university, local government, and economic development
entities in which low-lying grazing rights easements are exchanged for access to a regional anaerobic digester. The
approach will reduce nutrient loading into the Pecatonica River directly by removing low-lying lands from pasture
use, as well as by further reducing manure spreading across a variety of lands within the Pecatonica Watershed. As
additional benefits, the project will generate energy and anaerobic digestion by-products for which valuable uses
may be developed. The project builds upon proven technology (anaerobic digestion) and well-utilized conservation
strategies (wetland restoration and easements) while leveraging strong existing regional partnerships and expertise
in the Lafayette County area to develop an innovative approach toward implementing these proven strategies and
technologies for sustainably managing producer waste and protecting and improving water resources.

Project Scope/Area:
The project will be located in the Pecatonica Watershed (HUC 07090003), a priority watershed identified under the
Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative. The Pecatonica Watershed includes a portion of
Southwestern Wisconsin and North Central Illinois, including most of the land area within Lafayette County, WI.
Lafayette County is at the heart of a highly-productive agricultural region known for its cheese, milk, and meat
production.

This project will primarily address those farms and pasture lands within low-lying areas of the watershed that are
contributing most significantly to nutrient loading the Mississippi Basin. The project will focus on 7-12 dairy farms
within a subwatershed of the Pecatonica Watershed. The research findings of the Wisconsin Buffer Initiative
revealed that the Pecatonica Watershed has some of the highest potential for nutrient reduction through
conservation practices in the state.

Project Summary:
The proposed project seeks to develop and demonstrate in the field a network in which easements for low-lying
land, manure, energy, and by-products are transferred between parties, providing benefits to the variety of
stakeholders. The project would demonstrate the potential for a closed-loop system in which farmers and an
environmental conservancy partner, supported by university expertise and outreach and local government, operate
a largely independent, scalable, economically and environmentally sustainable network for the ultimate goal of
reducing nutrient runoff and improving impaired waterways.

The organizational lead for the demonstration project would be an environmental conservancy organization such
as The Nature Conservancy, which, through communication with Steve Richter, has strong verbal interest in the
proposed project. The Nature Conservancy is already an active partner in the region, working with the University
of Wisconsin, farmers, and public agencies to implement a pilot project in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin
immediately northeast of Lafayette County. This project is the first of the Wisconsin Buffer Initiative, which seeks
to improve water quality by targeting conservation efforts at fields and pastures having the most significant impact
on nutrient loading in streams. Practices being employed at the targeted farms include different types of tilling,
crop rotations, and manure handling, and the costs associated with transitioning to new practices are being
evaluated.

The project proposed in this pre-application would leverage these and other established partnerships to develop an
effective approach to cost-effectively deploying manure digesters in the region and engaging additional critical
farms in wetland easement purchases. The organizational lead would serve as the managing entity with the role of
helping organize and working with identified farmers on transitioning farming and grazing out of the most critical
low-lying areas. Furthermore, the farm partners will work with other partners to develop a nutrient management
plan. (Not many farms in this watershed have developed a nutrient management plan yet.)

Year One of the proposed project will include a feasibility analysis which would leverage the work of the
Wisconsin Buffer Initiative and additional previous studies regarding farm-scale ecological benefits of wetland
restoration to identify the best feasible location for the regional digester, considering transportation alternatives for
the manure, topography, and the locations of the most critical low-lying areas with engaged farms. The work will
build directly from UW-Platteville’s 2009 feasibility study (Tim Zauche, Chris Baxter) which considered the
installation of a small scale and a community scale digester by the University. As part of this work, an open house
was held which found a large amount of interest in anaerobic digestion existed throughout the region. Deployment
of anaerobic digesters more broadly was hindered by a lack of local knowledge, need for an organizing entity,
transportation costs and concerns, and other issues, which our approach proposed herein seeks to address
comprehensively. The largest driving force for this interest was the lack of the small to mid-size farms in the area
to have any manure storage capabilities. Year One’s work would build off this research and established
connections to follow up and enter into agreements with farmers in the highest priority areas.

Year Two of the proposed project focuses on securing business partners, including coordinating with farms and
the other partners, including the University, County government, the organizational lead/conservation entity,
engineers, Focus on Energy, the State of Wisconsin, and private investors. Additional waste streams which could
contribute to the digester (e.g. groceries, institutions, food industry) will also be considered.

Year Three will focus on installation and monitoring of the facility. UW-Platteville will monitor and adjust the
process on an ongoing basis to develop a marketable product at this scale. The digester will function as a regional
amenity managed cooperatively by the farmers involved. The organizational lead/conservation entity will manage
the corresponding implementation of easements and/or purchases of the prioritized low-lying lands.

Throughout the project, documentation will be ongoing and publicized. The project will also look to implement
new opportunities for utilizing anaerobic digestion wastes. For instance, Zauche has worked to develop a potting
mix as well as fiber boards using separated solids after digestion.

We believe our proposal achieves NRCS’s objective of innovative conservation approaches and technologies in
our approach toward developing an exchange mechanism and partnership for implementing the well-demonstrated
technology of digesters on medium-sized dairy farms while also reducing the area waste stream. The approach also
innovatively addresses the untapped interest of farmers in this technology, as identified by UW-Platteville in their
worksessions with farmers. Wisconsin, which leads the nation in installations of digesters for managing dairy
manure, is a natural location to demonstrate this next iteration of the technology. The critical opportunity for the
region to improve water quality in the Pecatonica Watershed and greater Mississippi River Basin, while restoring
some of the most flood-prone and least productive agricultural land to wetlands, provides an immediate economic
benefit to farmers, an opportunity to more sustainably manage their wastes, and new potential to increase the
efficiency of their operations and the profitability of their farms.

Project Deliverables/Products:
The chief deliverable will be the development of a highly collaborative network of farmers, landowners, university,
and local governmental entities participating in an innovative exchange of grazing rights on low-lying lands for
sustainable, cost-effective means of handling livestock manure. The collaborative partnership will also facilitate
related ongoing idea-sharing, innovation, and on-the-ground deployment of new approaches toward agricultural
best practices between the area’s universities, producers, and local governments.

The project will be conducted as a well-documented pilot demonstration. Data, progress and “lessons-learned”
reports will provide a well-documented experience that NRCS may choose to leverage in developing policy,
conservation approaches, and technical assistance materials. Our intention is for a development and demonstration
project that will be highly transferable to other productive agricultural regions with impaired surface and
groundwater resources, particularly those in the Mississippi River Basin.

In addition to the demonstration of the innovative approach toward low-lying grazing and manure management,
the project will directly result in reduction of nutrient loading in the Pecatonica River, restoration of valuable low-
lying wetlands, and improved water quality. These quantifiable results will provide valuable data with which we,
NRCS, and other interested regions can analyze the effectiveness of our project approach. Additional impacts of
our project will include the production of energy from agricultural wastes and further analysis of opportunities for
anaerobic digestion by-products.

Declaration of EQIP eligible producer involvement:
The local County Conservationist stated that there is strong local participation in EQIP programs. He estimated
over 50 enrolled farms with 19 new contracts alone this year. It is expected that interest in this program will be
high.

Declaration of beginning/socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher:
Our project will not involve socially disadvantaged farmers exclusively. Initially, all area dairy farmers will be
invited to a “town hall” meeting where they can learn more about the project and initial interest can be
determined. Follow up phone calls and meetings with the interested dairy farmers will lead to a core number of
farmers. This may lead to one or multiple digesters installed as was done with the UW-Platteville study.