USDA, King County celebrate partnership to design Enumclaw Plateau dairy waste system

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and King County today celebrated a new partnership to design a system that would help manage manure waste on the Enumclaw Plateau and help keep family dairy farms in business.

Jackie Gleason, USDA Rural Development Business and Cooperative Programs Administrator, visited Enumclaw to present King County with a Rural Business Enterprise Grant of $93,900.

The grant will be used to design a system to collect and process tens of thousands of gallons of dairy cow waste and transform it into energy and other useful byproducts.

"This is an exciting time for new energy development and King County is at the forefront of developing these new energy technologies," Gleason said. "We're happy to be partners with you in this pilot project."

The focal point of the collection system is a manure "digester" that converts methane gas from cow manure into electricity. The digester also creates a marketable fiber that is an excellent composting material, while the remaining liquid that is separated from the gas and solids during processing would continue to be used as fertilizer for farmers' crops but with significantly less odor.

"If this pilot project comes to fruition, we would successfully create a new source of energy from waste - all while protecting the environment and enhancing King County's rural economy," said Jim Lopez, Deputy Chief of Staff for King County Executive Ron Sims. "I'd like to thank USDA for coming to King County's dairy country today. Thanks to this grant, and the pilot project that we hope to build as a result of it, we have new hope and optimism for the future of our family dairies."

Lopez said the federal grant funding will be used to identify which manure digester system is most appropriate for the Enumclaw Plateau, to map out a system to aggregate the manure, and to identify the best site for such a facility. The work is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Dairy cow manure is currently stored in lagoons or large tanks on individual farms and later sprayed onto fields as a fertilizer. This practice can lead to complaints from neighbors about excessive odors. Runoff from sprayed fields can also deteriorate local ground water and create problems for salmon and other fish species.

King County has had a number of important partners during this initial stage of the manure digester project, including the dairy farmers of the Enumclaw Plateau Energy Northwest and its team, Washington State University, Seattle City Light, the USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service, the King Conservation District, and the Department of Community Trade and Economic Development.

The King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks (DNRP) is already involved in projects to turn methane gas from its wastewater treatment plants and solid waste landfill into electricity. The dairy biogas digester project builds on those successes.