Waste Management
Since the late 1980s, animal agriculture in Texas has experienced a shift from small animal feeding operations (AFOs) to highly concentrated confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that can produce large amounts of animal wastes as byproducts. These wastes include liquid and solid manure, process-generated wastewater, spilled feed, bedding materials, and mortality.
Currently, land application of animal wastes to supply nutrients for plant growth or as an organic amendment to the soil is the most common practice for utilizing these materials. When managed and applied properly, they can be an excellent source of all essential plant nutrients. The added organic matter from manure helps promote soil aggregation and increases soil structure, water holding capacity, plant available water, aeration, water infiltration, and nutrient cycling. All of these promote plant growth and reduce soil erosion. Composts from animal manures also are used in gardens and nursery potting mixes.
However, repeated application of animal manure in quantities greater than recommended rates and accidental spills from waste holding structures can result in degradation of water resources. Research is underway and policy is being developed to address the results of changing meat, milk, and egg production practices. Final EPA CAFO rules are available for review.
Conditions in Your Watershed
There are numerous water body segments in Texas that are on the 303d list (a biannually updated inventory of impaired streams and water bodies according to section 303d of the Clean Water Act) because of pathogen or nutrient impairment possibly associated with animal production. Water bodies unable to perform any one or all of their designated uses are considered impaired and Texas must develop a TMDL for improving the condition of those water bodies.
CAFO discharges are regulated by the Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. For a list of regulated facilities in your watershed, click on Texas from the previous page and then click on your county. Next, click on the EPA Waters link in the bottom window and then click on the yellow map in the resulting page. Finally, scroll down the page and select Water Dischargers.
Resources and Programs
The Texas A&M University System provides research, education and extension resources to assist state and federal agencies, businesses and industries, communities and individual citizens in addressing water quality concerns. These programs are designed to provide information for specific audiences, such as agricultural producers, homeowners and youth.
Texas A&M University has established programs designed to provide waste management assistance. Below are some key links to information and resources available to assist you.
Extension Outreach
The Texas Cooperative Extension develops and delivers programs designed to provide educational outreach into all counties of the state. Outreach education enables the research developed at colleges and universities and from other sources throughout the world to be interpreted and delivered to the end user, which is often a home or business owner or agricultural producer. Some of the major Extension education programs addressing waste management are:
Programs addressing livestock waste management target beef, dairy and poultry production systems in the High Plains, Cross Timbers and East Texas land resource regions of Texas. Marketing Composted Manure is an innovative project designed to facilitate distribution and effective use of dairy manure (as compost) outside a nutrient impaired watershed. Compost use for forage and row crop production, and as a soil amendment in construction and landscape management are potential applications.
Texas Cooperative Extension served as a lead agency in the Upper North Bosque River Project and the Lake Fork Creek Project. Rivers and creeks in these watersheds flow through high density dairy production regions and had been identified as water quality problem areas where nonpoint sources contribute to excess loadings of nutrients and fecal coliform bacteria. The objectives of the projects were to achieve rapid, voluntary adoption of best management practices and systems by agricultural producers and other citizens to significantly reduce the potential for pollution of surface and ground water.
Many Texas Cooperative Extension publications about animal waste best management practices are available through the Texas Animal Manure Management Issues website, an excellent source of information regarding animal waste regulations, research, and management techniques.
The Feedyard Manure Management Handbook has been prepared by Texas Cooperative Extension for feedyard managers, manure haulers, and producers utilizing feedyard manure as a crop nutrient source.
The Poultry Waste Management Handbook has been prepared by the Texas Cooperative Extension Service for poultry producers utilizing dry litter management systems.
The Dairy Waste Management Handbook for the East Texas Dairy Outreach Program Area (DOPA) and Central Texas DOPA has been developed by Texas Cooperative Extension to meet the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) 8 hr training required of every CAFO dairy operator in the eight county area (Central Texas DOPA: Bosque, Comanche, Erath, Hamilton and Johnson Counties. East Texas DOPA: Hopkins, Rains and Wood Counties). These handbooks are also applicable to other dairy producers throughout the state, but concentrate on major dairying systems and cropping systems in these areas. The handbook focuses on nutrient management, odor management, manure management, and dietary management as they relate to air and water quality, dairy cow performance, and cropping systems. Distributions of all the handbooks are coordinated through Ms. Missy Vajdak, h-vajdak@tamu.edu and 979-862-3796.
Links to other waste management publications produced by Texas Cooperative Extension are available.
Texas Cooperative Extension, in cooperation with TCEQ and the Texas Department of Agriculture, conducts regional waste pesticide collections as part of the Agricultural Waste Pesticide Collection Program. The collections provide agricultural producers who apply pesticides in Texas with an opportunity to dispose of unwanted products at no expense and with no questions asked. The program is strictly voluntary and no one is required to participate. This program also accepts household hazardous wastes.
Scientific Research
Scientific research is the basis for development of new technologies to improve waste management. Researchers at Land Grant Universities work to develop these new technologies and evaluate their economic benefits. The Texas Agricultural Research Database has information about waste management research in Texas. The database allows you to browse or search, and researchers can submit their information online. The Texas Water Resources Institute also provides links to water-related research funded through the Institute. Some examples of major research efforts in Texas include:
- Upper North Bosque River Project – research included evaluation of large-scale, in-stream constructed wetlands for removing contaminants, validation of watershed and hydrologic models, and enhanced stream monitoring. Some projects were done in cooperation with other agencies.
- Bosque River – the goal of this study is to ascertain the water quality benefits that may result in impaired watersheds by exporting manure nutrients in turfgrass sod grown with composted dairy manure. The project will also determine the water quality impacts of manure nutrients in the importing watersheds.
- Lake Fork Creek Hydrologic Unit Area Project – research included evaluation of new forage species and cropping systems to enhance nutrient utilization, evaluation of new livestock manure management systems to improve beneficial reuse, validation of watershed and hydrologic models, and enhanced stream monitoring. Some projects were done in cooperation with other agencies.
- Water Quality Responses to Import and Export of Manure Nitrogen and Phosphorus on Watersheds. The principal goal of this interdisciplinary and multistate program is to inform debates, decisions, and plans related to manure and nutrient management and environmental quality on watersheds in the southern U.S. A learning organization comprising research, teaching, and extension functions will evaluate the environmental and economic impacts of exports and imports of manure nitrogen and phosphorus on watersheds.
Nutrient Management Projects
- Phosphorus (P) Benchmark Soils Project. This is a multistate, multiagency, interdisciplinary project across the U.S. The goals of the project are to determine an extraction method(s) that is correlated to runoff P for all soils, determine chemical characteristics of the soils and how they relate to runoff P, determine P adsorptive capacity of the soils, and determine the contribution of organic and inorganic P to runoff P. Approximately 200 to 250 soils will be selected across the U.S., with six to ten of these in Texas.
- Nutrient Management. Texas Cooperative Extension in cooperation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has developed and is offering a Nutrient Management Certification Short Course. The purpose of the certification short course is to equip individuals with the knowledge and tools to write NRCS Nutrient Management Plans and TCEQ Nutrient Utilization Plans. The short course includes four hours each of training in soil testing, soil fertility, and soil environmental issues, rules, and guidances, and eight hours of training in the NRCS Nutrient Management Practice Standard and Policy and Waste Utilization Practice Standard, followed by an exam.
- Poultry Litter Best Management Practice performance in reducing nutrient runoff to surface water was evaluated by a joint research project between Texas Cooperative Extension, USDA-Agricultural Research Service and the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board. A poster regarding this research is available for download.
A table of links to other animal waste research projects is available at the Texas Animal Manure Management Issues Research page maintained by Texas A&M University. The page links to summaries of animal waste research projects conducted at the various campuses of the Texas A&M University System.
Bacterial source tracking to identify nonpoint human and animal sources of fecal pollution impacting Lake Waco and Lake Belton and to facilitate proactive development of water quality protection strategies is being conducted by the Texas A&M El Paso Research and Extension Center.
College and University Education
Youth and continuing adult education are critical to develop new talent and human resources to address the water quality issues of the future. Educational curricula in waste management are available within several departments at Texas A&M University. Graduate and undergraduate programs in key departments include: