EPA, USDA to help livestock producers capture methane gas by RITA JANE GABBETT, www.meatingplace.com SDA and the EPA announced the agencies will provide up to $3.9 million over the next five years to help farms recover and use biogas. The collaboration will expand technical assistance efforts, improve technical standards and guidance to construct and evaluate biogas recovery systems, expand outreach to livestock producers and assist them with pre-feasibility studies. The agreement expands the work of the AgSTAR program, a joint EPA-USDA effort that helps livestock producers reduce methane emissions from their operations. Biogas is composed primarily of methane, a greenhouse gas the agencies said is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Biogas emitted from manure management systems called digesters can be collected and used to produce electricity, heat or hot water. About 150 on-farm manure digesters are now operating at U.S. livestock facilities. In addition, EPA estimates there are about 8,000 farms across the United States that are good candidates for capturing and using biogas. If all 8,000 farms implemented biogas systems, the agencies said methane emissions would be reduced by more than 34 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, roughly equal to the annual emissions from 6.5 million passenger vehicles. In addition, these projects could generate more than 1,500 n megawatts of renewable energy.
U
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Jaguar’s Death
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ture a jaguar,” Arizona Game and Fish said in a statement. “McCain’s admission of guilt supports the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s longstanding assertion that agency personnel did not set out with intention to capture a jaguar. “Until the Department has access to the federal investigation, the Department’s own internal investigation continues to be open and ongoing.” McCain’s lawyer, Alfred Donau, said his client has already taken a job out of the country as a wildlife biologist but wouldn’t disclose where. Donau told The Associated Press Friday that while McCain was remorseful the jaguar had died, the trapping would have had much different results if the cat had lived because he was seeking scientific data for conservation purposes. “If this jaguar hadn’t been the equivalent of 100 years old human age and he lived it would have been a huge boon to scientific research, because we would have known with a collar on him whether or not he was from Mexico or the native range was Arizona,” Donau said. “If the cat hadn’t died, there would have been a much different point of view of what took place here. This isn’t a case where somebody went out and tried to kill n an animal.”
Calendar of
EVENTS JUNE 11–12 – Dairy Producers of New Mexico Trade Show, Ruidoso, NM 12 – Escalon Livestock Market Special Feeder Cattle Sale, Escalon, CA 17-19 – Western Limousin Exposition, Klamath Falls, OR 15 – Ad copy deadline for July Directory of New Mexico Agriculture 27-29 – N.M. State University Short Course / N.M. Cattle Growers’ and CowBelles Mid- Year Meeting / N.M. Wool Growers Annual Meeting, Inn of the Mountain Gods, Mescalero, NM
SEPTEMBER 1 – Ad copy deadline for September Livestock Market Digest 10-26 – New Mexico State Fair, Albuquerque, NM 15 – Ad copy deadline for October New Mexico Stockman
FARMERS/ RANCHERS You can help the ALBUQUERQUE CHRISTIAN CHILDREN’S HOME with food for needy children ... HERE’S HOW: Deliver animals w/broken legs, cull bulls, extra steers, heifers, or pigs to your local processor
ACCH WILL PAY FOR PROCESSING Call Dave Jenkins 505-604-7985 Get a tax benefit, too!
JUNE 2010
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