Soil & Mulch Producer News Jul/Aug 2021

Vol. XV No. 4

July / August 2021

Serving Soil, Mulch, Compost & Wood Pellet Producers www.SoilandMulchProducerNews.com

NEWS

Worm-based Filtration System Creates a Great Soil Amendment

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everal North American dairy farmers are employing a worm-based filtration system to clean manure-laden wastewater to use for irrigation while producing a marketable soil amendment and potentially earning credits for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The patented BioFiltro BIDA (biodynamic aerobic) filtration system is proving to solve the problem of high nitrate levels in dairy farm wastewater, said Russ Davis, president and founder of Organix, a Walla Walla, Washington based organic residuals management company.

“There are not a lot of good options out there that address the liquid fraction of dairies,” Davis said. “Most of them require chemicals or flocculent, are sophisticated to operate and require a manager with some sort of a degree in engineering or something to operate.”

The BioFiltro system, however, is simple and energy efficient, Davis said.

In the process, wastewater from the dairy operation is sprayed into filter boxes that contain wood chips or shavings, along with thousands of worms that eat the solids fraction of the wastewater, leaving behind clean water for irrigation and castings that can be sold as a soil amendment. According to Chile-based BioFiltro (the developer of the filtration system), the system catalyzes the digestive power of worms and microbes to remove up to 99 percent of wastewater contaminants - such as ammonia and possible greenhouse gasses - within about four hours. Studies, the company said, show a greenhouse gas reduction of 91 percent.

Removing the contaminants from the wastewater allows a farmer to use more of it for irrigation without overloading fields with nitrates. Farmers have been under increasing pressure from state and federal regulators over high levels of nitrates on agricultural fields.

In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed a petition by a

By Ken McEntee Washington dairy farmer who asked that a 2013 science study issued by the U.S. EPA - which was used to justify drastic enforcement action against his farm - be withdrawn because EPA failed to conduct a proper peer review of the study. The report - Relation Between Nitrate in Water Wells and Potential Sources in the Lower Yakima Valley, Washington - purported to prove the dairy farmers in the Central Washington area were responsible for nitrate in the region’s groundwater.

The Washington State Dairy Federation said the EPA report contains false science.

A New Application

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bout 180 BioFiltro units are in operation around the world, including such varying climates as Antarctica and the Atacama Desert in Chile and Peru. Almost all of those are used to clean wastewater from industries like wineries, slaughterhouses and food processors. Only a few are being used on dairy farms, including applications in Washington, California and Canada. The

largest is operating at Royal Dairy, a 6,000-cow dairy farm in Royal City, Washington.

In 2016, Davis received a call from Austin Allred, owner of Royal Dairy.

“Austin had heard about the BioFiltro system and asked my opinion about whether it would work for dairy wastewater,” Davis said.

“I told him I was suspicious that it would work, because most things don’t work.”

After viewing the system, Allred decided to try out a small 2,000 square foot testing unit.

“After testing, Austin told me he thought it was the real deal,” Davis said. “For part of the year we watched it work, and mostly the system worked exactly like it was supposed to.”

Before implementing the BioFilto system, Royal Dairy was storing its wastewater in lagoons like most other dairy farms. After seeing “incredible improvement of water quality after BIDA process,” the dairy expanded its system last year to 320,000 square feet - large enough to process 750,000 gallons of wastewater per day, the company said in a YouTube video posted

by Darigold, the marketing and processing subsidiary of the Northwest Dairy Association, a farmer-owned cooperative. According to Royal Dairy, the two main things that come from the Continued on page 3

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Worm-based Filtration System Creates a Great Soil Amendment Continued from page 1

process are clean water and nutrients that worms strip from the wastewater and leave behind in the form of castings.

The nutrients can be applied to organic or conventional crops, and “because it’s natural, it is in the correct ratios,” for irrigation, Royal Dairy said in the video.

A third component is the carbon offsets, which Royal Dairy called a “short to medium solution to help companies address their carbon emissions.” Keeping the wastewater out of lagoons prevents the formation of methane in the first place, and the dairy can earn six to seven carbon credits per cow per year.

Meanwhile, Organix, which specializes in organic-based soil amendments generated by confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), has entered an agreement with BioFiltro for the rights to sell filtration units in Washington, Oregon and Idaho and the marketing rights to the worms and castings left after a “harvest” of the filters.

Davis believes there is a significant market potential, both for the castings and the worms.

Davis noted that dairy farms generate wastewater that contains nitrates all year long.

But the growing season is generally only a half a year long in regions like Washington.

“So, for the other six months, if you’re lagooning it, you have to store the material in the lagoons where it smells bad and creates methane,” he said.

Similar to vermicomposting

T

he BioFiltro process is similar to a typical vermicomposting system.

Wastewater is pumped to and sprayed onto the filter using rotating sprinkling devices that are similar to landscaping sprinklers.

“Normally, if you’re going to make worm compost or worm castings, you would place a substrate down, lay the worms on there and then cover them up a little bit,” Davis said. “After eating the food in there, they leave the castings beneath them. In this process, we put in wood chips or shavings, depending on the application, and you seed it with thousands of worms. As soon as you start adding the dirty water, the chips start to decompose, then the worms have several jobs to do.”

The main job is to eat the suspended solids,

which typically account for about 3 percent of the wastewater, Davis said. While doing so, they keep the filter clean, allowing the water to percolate through. By aerating the filter, the worms keep the system aerobic. The water filters through in about four hours. The clean water is then stored in ponds for irrigation.

After about 18 months of use for dairy wastewater - possibly as soon as 12 months - Davis said, the filter is “harvested,” and the castings can be collected and sold. In some applications, such as wineries, he said, the harvest cycle can be as long as three years. It depends on the types of solids contained in the wastewater.

“After the castings are harvested and whatever’s left of the wood chips are taken out, it’s all replaced with new worms and new chips,” he said. “At Royal Dairy we pulled out about 25,000 yards of material.”

Revenue streams

D

avis foresees two different products that can be marketed.

First is the material straight out of the worm bed - worms, castings and substrate.

“It can go straight into a truck and shipped,” Davis said. “That client would be somebody like an orchard that will apply it beneath the trees and get all the benefits of all of the biology the worms and the chips and whatever else is in there.”

The second product would be screened castings, probably sold in bags. That market is still in the developmental stages, but could be significant, Davis said.

Worm farms, he said, are selling the material for $300 to $400 per yard. While researching sales outlets for the Royal Farm material, Davis said he contacted a worm farm in Washington.

“The owner asked how many yards I was talking about,” Davis said. “I told him we were going to harvest 25,000 yards. He said, ‘I only do 500 yards a year here.’ The market we’re going for is the wholesalers who will buy and resell the material. It gives them an opportunity to significantly expand their existing market without having to add any kind of infrastructure - just basically brokering for us.”

Currently, Davis said, the cannabis industry Continued on page 18

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Sale of Mulch, Soil Decline Unexpectedly

By P. J. Heller

M

ulch and soil sales, that skyrocketed during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, may have dropped to pre-pandemic levels or below at the end of the major selling season in May and June 2021.

Coming out of 2020 with sales increases of 20 percent to 40 percent, there had been predictions of a significant 15 percent to 20 percent rise in 2021 over the previous year.

“It started out gangbusters at the first of the [2021] season.

By March, April and into May, the season looked very good.

Starting late May and June it tailed off significantly. We don’t know where our current high season sales will land,” said Robert LaGasse, executive director of the Mulch & Soil Council.

“We were looking at a very promising increase at the start of the year over 2020,” he said. “Now it looks like it will be more like 2020 and maybe not a significant increase.”

Sales could be flat, or they might rise 3 percent to 8 percent, which is normal in most years. Sixty percent of industry shipments occur from March to June, the high season for sales.

“We don’t know, yet” LaGasse said of the sales figures for 2021. “The rise was sharp, and the drop-off was sudden. We don’t know whether the pipeline was full, if retailers were ordering early expecting demand and then when the demand dropped off, they were overstocked, in which case they’ll catch up and orders will start again.

“There’s a lot of ifs and maybes that we don’t know yet, but we are surveying our members to determine the impact of the market shift,” he added.

The drop in sales appears to coincide with the U.S. opening back up as pandemic-weary Americans began traveling again, shunning face masks, returning to work and gathering in large groups.

LaGasse agreed, noting that when people were no longer forced to stay home and could get out and travel, “their time priorities shifted.

“Their intense gardening may have gone back to normal gardening,” he suggested. “There’s a reason they might decrease from what they were doing last year simply because last year was so unusual and they were forced to stay home.”

Another factor which he said might have impacted sales this year could be abnormal weather, with extremely high temperatures blanketing much of the West. In June, at least 11 states reported triple digit temperatures.

“For some reason, people don’t like gardening in 95-degree heat,” LaGasse said.

Wildfires and resulting poor air quality could also be factors in the drop in gardening. As of Aug. 12, there were at least 104 large fires burning across 14 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Those fires have burned more than 2.4 million acres.

“There’s no way to tell how much that unusual heat and air pollution is affecting [mulch and soil] sales and keeping people from doing what they were doing last year,” LaGasse said.

Those issues and numerous others – from supply chain problems to labor concerns and the ongoing issue of trucks and drivers -- are sure to take center stage when the Mulch & Soil Council hosts its 50th annual meeting, scheduled for Sept. 21-23 at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, TN. In 2020, the council held a hybrid meeting, offering both a virtual and on-site event. Although it expected most people to opt for the virtual event, the vast majority (85) attended the meeting at the Hyatt Grand Cypress in Orlando, FL, where protocols required people to wear face masks and to social distance. The council was one of the few green industry organizations that held an in-person gathering last year, LaGasse noted.

This year, there are no mandatory mask or social distancing protocols in place at the hotel, unlike last year’s meeting in Florida.

“If the Peabody protocols remain the same for our meeting, that is what we will do. But if somebody wants to wear a mask, we’re certainly not going to tell them they can’t,” LaGasse said.

He downplayed concerns that people might be reluctant to travel and to gather in hotel conference rooms, noting that the conference was expected to attract about 175 people and was almost sold out.

He said the conference was an opportunity for members to meet and discuss “everything that’s going on in the industry.”

“It is about getting together in the safest way at an incredible and very safe location to get out of the coronavirus confinement we have experienced for more than a year,” the council said on its website. “It is the opportunity for those who are comfortable traveling to meet with other industry people who are likewise comfortable in making a careful effort to interact with other industry members.”

“They’ll have the ability to see people and sit down with people who understand what they’re going through, the nature of their business, compare notes on what’s happening labor-wise, trucking-wise, supply chain-wise. . . It’s important,” LaGasse said.

The full agenda for the meeting can be found here: https:// mulchandsoilcouncil.org/meetings.php.

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Supreme Court Upholds Property Rights in California

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By Bonner R. Cohen he U.S. Supreme Court ruled a California regulation forcing property owners to allow union organizers access to workers on farms in the state violates the owners’ constitutional rights.

In 2015, organizers from the United Farmworkers of America (UFA) entered the property of Cedar Point Nursery, a strawberrygrowing operation in northern California, in an effort to persuade the 3,000 employees of Cedar Point- and Fresno-based Fowler Packing Company to join their union. Although property owners have the right to exclude trespassers, California’s 1975 Union Access Regulation, created by the state’s Agricultural Labor

Relations Board, required farm owners to allow union organizers onto their property for three hours a day, 120 days a year, to recruit workers.

The regulation was upheld by the California Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision in 1976 and went unchallenged until UFA organizers entered Cedar Point’s property without permission during the 2015 harvest. Cedar Point Nursery owner Mike Fahner didn’t know the regulation existed, because his workforce had shown no interest in unionizing. Represented pro bono by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), the nursery asked the Supreme Court to invalidate California’s regulation and affirm the state cannot force property owners to allow unions to

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enter private property and disrupt commercial operations without paying compensation.

Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas joined Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid finding the California regulation violated the U.S. Constitution’s takings clause. Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a separate concurring opinion. The three other justices dissented. California’s regulation violated the nursery’s property rights protected by the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, said Roberts in his majority opinion, finding the state must compensate the nursery. “The Founders recognized that the protection of private property is indispensable to the promotion of individual freedom,” Roberts wrote. “The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides: ‘[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.’ “The right to exclude is ‘one of the most treasured’ rights of property ownership,” Roberts wrote. “The access regulation appropriates a right to invade the growers’ property and therefore constitutes a per se physical taking.” Such a physical taking requires just compensation, Roberts concluded.

“Rather than restraining the growers’ use of their own property, the regulation appropriates for the enjoyment of third parties the owners’ right to exclude,” Roberts wrote. “The upshot of this line of precedent is that government-authorized invasions of property—whether by plane, boat, cabal, or beachcomber—are physical takings requiring just compensation.”

The Supreme Court ruling affirmed all parties must comply with the U.S. Constitution, said the PLF in a statement. “Today, the Supreme Court … affirmed that the government cannot force people to allow third parties to trespass on their property,” the PLF stated. “[Union organizers] have no special right to invade private property and disrupt commercial operations, and property owners have a fundamental right to exclude trespassers. … Government can’t make a regulation violating that right even if it limits the hours when it applies.” The Court’s ruling is an important win for property owners, says Daren Bakst, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Economic Freedom.

“The Court has made it clear that deciding who can enter your property is a fundamental element of private property rights, and government can’t simply modify this right when it feels like it,” Bakst said.

Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D., (bcohen@ nationalcenter. org) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research and a senior policy analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.

This article was reprinted with permission from heartland.org, a product of The Heartland Institute (https://www.heartland.org/_templateassets/documents/publications/ECN-2021-plus/ Aug21%20ECNvWeb.pdf).

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Sudden Oak Death Spreads Northward, Endangering Douglas Fir

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rescent City, CA – Outbreaks of a new strain of sudden oak death (SOD) in a southernmost region of coastal Oregon have researchers concerned about the spread of the pathogen from Northern California counties, Triplicate.com reports.

When a U.S. Forest Service researcher noticed hundreds of tanoak trees and close to 400 acres along Highway 101 infected with SOD, an emergency quarantine immediately was placed on the area around Port Orford.

State and federal forestry and local government officials are working to prevent SOD from spreading and threatening the timber industry throughout the whole region. Although SOD does not kill Douglas Fir, the most cut tree from the timber industry, it infects the species. The infected trees then become vectors of the disease. Export losses are a big concern.

Asia, which bars imports from places where SOD has been reported, is a prime customer for timber from the region.

Sudden oak death is caused by a fungus-like plant pathogen, Phytophthora ramorum. First recognized in the mid-1990s, the disease kills some oak species (primarily coast live oak, Quercus agrifolia, and an oak relative, tanoak, Notholithocarpus densiflorus), The pathogen also infects rhododendrons, camellias, and other common horticultural plants, causing ramorum blight.

In the past, a SOD strain called NA1 has attacked the trees. This is the first time a new variant, NA2, has been found in the forest, although NA2 has been in nurseries since 2012. The incidents in nurseries have been

declining, a U.S. Forest Service pathologist told reporters.

The NA2 now being observed in the forests is believed to have come from the county transfer site, which sits just feet from the earliest outbreaks.

While mostly home garbage is dumped there, the site has accepted yard waste, including tree clippings for years.

The Oregon Department of Forestry, which has been surveilling the area aerially, has spotted the tell-tale red-brown discoloration of tree foliage. The groupings indicate a northward movement of the disease, likely following the wind patterns. Hot, dry summer weather slows Phytophthora, but it gains momentum in the cooler, wet months of the year.

Trees can be sick for up to four years, after which they go leafless and fall over, a state forestry official said. The only way to treat an outbreak is to cut down and burn infected trees, the official explained. Generally, all tanoaks and rhododendron trees near an outbreak are also destroyed.

Property owners can safely cut down their own tanoaks and use the wood for burning.

It costs about $5000 an acre to treat and destroy infected trees. Officials say $1.7 million from the state will be needed just to slow the spread near Port Orford. Use of an air-curtain incinerator contains fire and limits smoke and other particulates from entering the air.

Oregon State University Forestry and Natural Resources Extension in Coos and Curry counties are holding public education sessions about the disease this summer in Port Orford to help residents identify sudden oak death symptoms so they can report any signs of it on their property.

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Scientists in Siberia Use Pyrolysis to Convert Wood Waste to Fuel

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info@faltechusa.com 10 Soil & Mulch Producer News July /August 2021

omsk, Russia – Scientists at Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) in Siberia have demonstrated an efficient – and environmentally friendly – way to recycle sawdust, wood shavings, and chips into burnable fuel, according to a paper published in the The experiment involved pyrolysis, or high-temperature decomposition, of wood waste in an oxygen-free environment. Pyrolysis has been used to convert wood waste to semi-coke, combustible gas, and pyrolysis oil. Of the three products, pyrolysis oil has been the least valuable because it contains pyrolysis ‘ballast water” and is not an efficient fuel and isn’t easy to dispose.

Yet pyrolysis oil can become very useful. By extracting the pyrolysis water through an oil settling method, the scientists increased the heat value of coal-water fuel by 2.1 MJ/kg and increased the reactivity of the fuel.

Pyrolysis water, the study authors wrote, can be used as a liquid-phase component of coal-water fuel (CWF). This is a liquid composite fuel that can include various combustible components – for example, lowgrade coals, coal enrichment waste, liquid combustible components, and municipal solid waste.

By increasing the heat of coal-water fuel combustion, it is possible to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels by 15-20%, depending on their type and the pyrolysis process, the scientists said. This could potentially increase the resource efficiency of the technology.

The study was carried out by Tomsk Polytechnic University in cooperation with industrial partner “Siberian BioUgol” LLC. Funding came from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

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Administration Proposes Rescinding Endangered Species Reforms

By Kevin Stone

T

he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service announced they are rescinding or revising multiple regulatory reforms of the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Expanding Government Control

T

he Biden administration’s announcement proposes rescinding reforms the FWS made during the Trump administration that treat species listed as “threatened” differently from those listed as “endangered,” limit how indirect factors such as climate change are considered when deciding whether species are listed as endangered and restrict critical habitat designations to areas that “currently or periodically” house an endangered species. Under President Donald Trump, the FWS was barred from listing lands as critical habitat if they were unable to house an endangered species in their current condition. The two agencies propose rescinding the regulations that altered the conditions for designating critical habitat and have specified ESA decisions would be made “without reference to possible economic or other impacts of such determination.”

Reversion to Obama-Era Limits

T

he announced rule changes signal a return to Obama-era policies that increased restrictions on extractive industries through expansion of ESA actions. Obama’s FWS expanded lands designated as “critical habitat” of the northern spotted owl from 6.8 million acres to 9.5 million acres, much of it in prime logging areas. The change resulted in lumber production in the region declining from four billion board feet to 687 million board feet per year.

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Not Saving Species

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he ESA has not protected species but is instead being used largely to limit economic development, says Daren Bakst, a senior research fellow in the Institute for Economic Freedom at The Heritage Foundation. “The ESA has been a failure,” Bakst said. “Over its nearly 50 years, only about 3 percent of species listed as threatened or endangered have been removed from the list due to recovery. “The Trump administration issued numerous rules to improve species conservation, like a rule ensuring the government follows the law by treating threatened and endangered species differently,” Bakst said. “If the severe property-use restrictions that exist for endangered species don’t apply for threatened species, private property owners will have an incentive to ensure that threatened species don’t become endangered.”

Controlling peoples’ property use, not species protection, seems to be the real goal of the Biden administration’s rule changes, Bakst says. “The Biden administration’s proposals to get rid of these changes makes no sense if species conservation is truly the goal,” Bakst said. “Such actions genuinely make one wonder if species conservation or blocking development, even at the expense of species conservation, is really the goal for environmental extremists.”

Kevin Stone (kevin.s.stone@gmail. com) writes from Arlington, Texas. This article was reprinted with permission from heartland.org, a product of The Heartland Institute (https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/ publications/ECN-2021-plus/Aug21%20ECNvWeb.pdf).

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Gypsy Moth Infestation Hits Pennsylvania

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radford, PA – Gypsy moths are busily defoliating trees in Northwestern Pennsylvania this year, reports.

Gypsy moth caterpillars prefer oak trees, though they will also feed on various other trees and shrug species, such as alder, apple, aspen, basswood, birches (gray, white and river), boxelder, hawthorn, larch and witch hazel.

According to the PA Bureau of Forestry, the Forest Service and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of Forestry were able to complete several aerial suppression treatments across 203,569 acres of state forests, parks and game lands across Pennsylvania this year. Such spray treatments are performed in spring when the caterpillars are small and before extensive damage from defoliation occurs.

Signs of gypsy moth caterpillars: Defoliation of branches or entire tree (at first noticeable at the top of the tree); Tan egg masses on the trunk or underside of large branches; Gypsy moth caterpillars up to 2½ inches (63–64 mm) long; Reddish-brown pupal cases hanging from trunk, and Adult moths in midsummer.

Michigan State University Integrated Pest Management offers advice on home-based efforts to mitigate the damage. The first is scraping egg masses into a container filled with soapy water or by burning or burying the egg masses. Do not leave eggs or bits of egg mass on the ground, as those can often hatch the following spring.

Another weapon is Bt (Bacillus Thuringiensis var. kurstaki) to protect landscape trees and shrubbery from defoliation. It’s applied by spraying leaves one to two weeks after the eggs have hatched. Bt is not harmful to humans, birds, fish or other animals.

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NC Logging and Sawmill Industries Grapple with Demand, Supply Chain Snags

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he dramatic increases in lumber prices across the country have not benefitted loggers, a Carolina Public Press (PCC) article reports.

A Carolina Loggers Association representative says that logging and sawmill operations across North Carolina are struggling to adjust to an unexpected scenario. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, sawmill managers shut down, responding to workplace safety guidelines and expecting a decrease in demand for wood.

The opposite happened.

For the past year or so, loggers have been pressured by strong, unrelenting demand for wood as homeowners, contractors, and builders quickly consume wood supplies. Home renovations and construction took off around the same time mills shut down, causing available supplies to dissipate and lumber prices to escalate.

Loggers have seen very little if any financial gain because their orders are tied to mill quotas or specific bid requests (which can change week by week depending on weather, demand, and supply). Instead, many of them are facing financial difficulties caused by a shortage of truck drivers, stagnant prices from sawmills and increased maintenance costs, the trade group official said. Furthermore, even though lumber prices are up, increased payouts would have to come from the sawmills or timber buyers who purchase lumber.

A North Carolina State University professor interviewed for the PCC article said the quota system helps ensure that no excess lumber is being harvested and helps guarantee that loggers will be able to sell some lumber across the state. But some loggers said they are at the mercy of the mills. Costs, such as equipment and expensive repairs are draining their coffers. One Carolina Loggers Association official estimates loggers are losing between 10% and 15% of gross sales on the cost of trucks alone.

Driver salaries and a job-ready pool of qualified truck drivers are other pain points. Some logging companies have increased salaries and added fringe benefits to attract qualified truck drivers with salaries now ranging between $50,000 and $60,000. But they can’t compete with Walmart, which offers sign-on bonuses, and other enticements. Companies that allow drivers family-friendly day shifts also have an edge.

Fayetteville Rolls Out New Food Waste Collection Sites

F

AYETTEVILLE, AR – Having spearheaded a successful composting program in 2016, Arkansas’ third largest city is adding a slew of food scrap drop-off locations, a Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette article reports.

In 2017, the state granted Fayetteville a permit to process food waste compost. A study used to devise the recycling plan found 66% of the city’s residential waste could be diverted. Recyclable paper and containers made up the largest portion at 27%, with food waste coming in second at 18% and other potential recyclable and compostable material each making up 10% of the total.

The city’s pilot food waste composting program resulted in more than 50 businesses, such as restaurants, participating before the Covid-19 virus prompted closings across the state. Reactivated this year, the city collected 380 tons of scraps in the first six months with thirty-four businesses and schools participating.

Meanwhile, Fayetteville received a $73,870 federal grant that supported community education and awareness programming, along with the purchase of a dedicated trailer for food waste collections at events such as the Farmers Market and festivals.

The funds also made it possible for the city to buy lidded scrap collection buckets available free of charge to residents. People can pick up buckets every second and fourth Saturday at the Farmers’ Market and drop off food scraps there in addition to three more city-owned locations – the community compost site and two recycling drop-off sites – plus two private property locations (a church and food truck parking lot.)

According to the Gazette, the city wants to add another five drop-off sites. Recycling and trash employees are working with the city’s geographic information system staff to identify parts of town where collection points are needed so that residents have easy local access.

In 2017, the city adopted a plan to divert 40% of the city’s waste from the landfill by 2027. The compost pilot, which is part of the plan, began in January 2016. The pilot utilized a composting method called “modified static aerobic composting,” which used enzymes. During the several-month pilot, the Recycling and Trash Collections Division analyzed the ability to conduct a city-wide program.

Soil

&

Mulch Producer NEWS

Product / Equipment Profiles The New EDGE TRT620R - All the Expected Benefits of 620 Class Trommel and More

U.S. Pride Products Releases the Newly Upgraded HF-100 Mini Cone Screw Log Splitter

DGE Innovate has Introduced its latest trommel offering with the launch of the EDGE TRT620R. The new 620 class trommel will take its place in EDGE’s popular trommel line up.

Designed for maximum productivity and superior screening efficiency, the new EDGE TRT620R tracked trommel has a heavy-duty construction design coupled with high manoeuvrability. This ensures that the TRT620R is the perfect screening solution for a wide range of applications including compost, mulch, soil, biomass or construction and demolition waste.

The EDGE TRT620R has uniquely combined a remote operated, 180° radial fines conveyor with the ability to track, screen and stack material simultaneously. This functionality allows for enhanced production capacities, reduced material handling and the ability to create large radial or windrow stockpiles. The positioning of the radial fines conveyor whether at 0° or 180° allows the TRT620R to have the same small footprint of a side conveyor trommel format but with a much superior product separation and reduced material contamination.

.S. Pride Products, a U.S. manufacturer of cone screw log splitters, recently announced the release of the newly upgraded HF-100 Mini Cone Screw Splitter. To meet the performance demands of larger mini skid loaders that are being produced today, upgrades have been completed to further improve the durability and productivity of the attachment. Engineers increased the main shaft diameter and used a larger carrier bearing group, along with a larger splitting cone. The new splitting cone is now 12” in diameter and 26” long, which increases the splitting capability of the mini skid steer attachment. These new upgrades will allow the HF-100 Mini to keep splitting productively all day, and maintain its legacy of durability, even on the largest mini skid steers.

U.S. Pride Products designs and builds U.S.A. Made cone screw splitters for the land clearing, tree service, firewood processing, Biomass, mulch production, recycling and landscaping industries. Founded in 2010, U.S. Pride equipment is widely known for rugged and productive wood splitting attachments.

E

U

Further information can be found at www.edgeinnovate.com.

For more information, contact Charlie VanDusartz at charlie@usprideproducts.com or 715-760-0907.

Celebrating 50 Years

Memphis

Join us in the birthplace of Rock ‘n Roll to celebrate MSC’s 50th Annual Meeting!

Covering topics for everyone from owners and plant managers to account and marketing managers to industry suppliers.

This year’s meeting topics will include: • A look at the new administration & policy changes • Consumer insight & gardening trends • The Art of Innovation: helping uncover the next big breakthrough

Mulch & Soil Council 2021 Annual Meeting Celebrating 50 Years September 21 - 23, 2021 The Peabody Hotel Memphis, TN For more info, go to www.mulchandsoilcouncil.org

Keynote Speaker: Erica Orange

Executive VP & COO of The Future Hunters July /August 2021 Soil & Mulch Producer News

17

Soil

&

Mulch Producer NEWS

Arthur Arthur B. B. Robinson Robinson Center Center on on Climate & Climate & Environmental Environmental Policy Policy

A

The center is named in honor of, and chaired by, Arthur B. Robinson, Ph.D., a distinguished chemist, cofounder cofounder of of the the distinguished chemist, Oregon of Science Science and and Medicine Medicine Oregon Institute Institute of (OISM), editor of of the the influential influential (OISM), and and editor newsletter Access to to Energy.

Energy. newsletter Access

“The Heartland Institute Institute “The Heartland has published the work of of has published the work many excellent scientists many excellent scientists ... [and] has has taken taken the the ... [and] fight right to the enemy fight right to the enemy with aggressive and with aggressive and highly effective campaigns highly effective campaigns aimed at elected aimed at elected officials and civic and officials and civic and business leaders.” business leaders.”

tt the the Arthur Arthur B. B. Robinson Robinson Center Center on on Climate Climate and Environmental Policy at The and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Heartland Institute, Institute, we we are are producing producing the the research research and and conducting the effective advocacy conducting the effective advocacy needed needed to to help help restore sound science and common sense restore sound science and common sense to to efforts to protect the environment. environment.

The Center promotes pro-energy, pro-energy, proproenvironment, and pro-jobs policies policies based based on on sound sound science and economics, not alarmism alarmism or or ideology. ideology. publications, social social media, media, and and Through events, publications, we have have changed changed government relations programs we change and and other other public opinion on climate change environmental topics. We have have changed changed public public policy not only in the United States but in other policy not only in the United States but in other countries as well. countries as well.

In 2017 2017 and and onward, onward, we we are are focusing focusing on on In winning the global warming war and repealing winning the global warming war and repealing bad legislation legislation and and regulations regulations adopted adopted during during the the bad height of the global warming scare. height of the global warming scare.

With your your help, help, we we can can win win the the global global warming warming With war. Please contact us at 312/377-4000 or war. Please contact us at 312/377-4000 or think@heartland.org, or visit our website at think@heartland.org, or visit our website at heartland.org/Center-Climate-Environment. www.heartland.org/Center-Climate-Environment FREEDOM RISING heartland.org/Center-Climate-Environment.

Worm-based Filtration System Creates a Great Soil Amendment Continued from page 3

is probably the largest user of worm castings, but at $300 to $400 per yard, the price is too high for agricultural markets. Bringing that price down to around $200 per yard would make the product more in line with poultry manure prices.

Blended products, he said, could be the key to growing the market.

“If you could take 10 yards of compost to a yard of castings, then you’re starting to create a large-scale potting soil type applications for agriculture,” Davis said. “The long-term goal is to grow the worm castings market because we know that worm castings are a great soil amendment.”

Dairies that utilize the BIDA system, Davis said, may generate additional revenue through greenhouse gas reduction credits.

“The methodology and the protocols to capitalize on methane reduction credits are all now established and what’s coming next are the carbon sequestration credits,” he said. “Because we are producing essentially a premium sequestration product, we feel like this might really take off a lot larger than we thought.”

The capital cost of the system varies depending on a variety of variables, but Davis said a ballpark estimate would equate to about $1,000 per cow.

“It’s something that a farmer would want to look at if he’s getting ready to put in a new lagoon or having trouble with a regulator over nitrates,” he said. “Farms are under increasing pressure to deal with nitrates in their fields and the worm filter does a really good job of managing contaminant, including ammonia and all the dissolved nitrogen. A byproduct of that is that it really reduces odor significantly. Hydrogen sulfide is the primary odor that you would smell at a dairy - that kind of sulfur smell. This filter eliminates that because hydrogen sulfide is an anaerobically produced contaminant. So, once you aerate the water, that odor is taken away.”

<Based on 12pt ITC Caslon 224 bold

<Based ITC Caslon Caslon 224 224 medium bold <Basedon on12pt 7pt ITC horizontally scalled to 105%

FREEDOM RISING

Arthur B. Robinson, Ph.D. Arthur B. Robinson, April Ph.D. 2017 April 2017

<Based on 7pt ITC Caslon 224 medium horizontally scalled to 105%

<Based on 12pt ITC Caslon 224 bold

FREEDOM RISING FREEDOM RISING

<Basedon on12pt 7pt Frutiger; light horizontally scalled to 105% <Based ITC Caslon 224 bold

The author is editor/publisher of Composting News (www.compostingnews.com).

Article photos courtesy of BioFiltro (www.biofiltro.com).

<Based on 7pt Frutiger; light horizontally scalled to 105%

<Based on 12pt ITC Caslon 224 bold

FREEDOM RISING

<Based on 7pt Frutiger; light horizontally scalled to 105% <Based on 12pt ITC Caslon 224 bold

FREEDOM RISING

<Based on 7pt Frutiger; light horizontally scalled to 105%

Hamer-Fischbein

<Based on 12pt ITC Caslon 224 bold

FREEDOM RISING

FREEDOM RISING

nVenia.

has changed its name to

<Based on 7pt ITC Caslon 224 medium horizontally scalled to 105% <Based on 12pt ITC Caslon 224 bold

<Based on 7pt ITC Caslon 224 medium horizontally scalled to 105%

Our name is different, but the US-built machines, quality, and service you trust are the same. You depend on our well-built, best-in-class equipment to deliver your products on time to your customers. We provide consultative, engineered-to-order solutions out of our 256,000 sq ft Chicago-based headquarters, with expanded engineering and production capabilities. The Hamer and Fischbein brands just got stronger as part of nVenia, where we deliver next level packaging solutions.

nVenia and these brands can be found in booth #4425

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18 Soil & Mulch Producer News July /August 2021

800.253.5103

C of A is short for Certificate of Analysis. Just as nutritional information on food labels helps people control their diets, an AgriCoatings C of A provides information to assist mulch manufacturers control colorant costs.

Density and Viscosity.

Although mulch colorants are purchased by the pound, they are consumed by the gallon. When a mulch producer sets the desired color, regardless if by a peristaltic pump or a mixing chamber, it is imperative to know how much color is being applied and the cost associated with it. By using a product with uniform density and consistent viscosity batch to batch color costs can be more accurately established.

Tint Strength and Filter Checks Consistent tint strength helps the mulch producer make consistent colored mulch. Tint strength is determined by comparing a specific batch against a liquid standard. While processing pigments, AgriCoatings periodically takes color readings, examines the mill filters for particle size and then adjusts the color; maximizing pigment efficiency.

The dispersion of the pigments allows the color system to adequately cover the mulch. Some people refer to this as “hide”.

C of A’s offer the mulch producer important data and assures, with relative certainty, that the next batch will be the same as the last. An AgriCoatings Certificate of Analysis is a straight forward document, easily understood and is provided with every shipment...at no charge. Publicizing this report requires us to be ever vigilant in our practices and procedures.

If your colorant supplier does NOT provide a Certificate of Analysis, ask WHY?

Page 1 10/01/2019 at 8:57 am

AMERICAN COLORS USA

Certificate of Analysis /QC Results Customer PO # 2453478 Packaged Product:

WMC82523-YP1 Bently Black

TEST VISCOSITY BROOKFIELD 8/20 DENSITY TINT STRENGTH PH TEST FILTER CHECK LOT#

51768

MADE

09/01/2019

EXPIRES

07/01/2020

TARGET/UOM

RANGE

RESULT

500 CPS

200 - 800

200

10.00

9.50 -10.50

10.00

100.00 PERCENTAGE

95.00 - 105.00

102.25

10.00

9.50 -10.50

10.00

DIRT

Y/N

Y

OHIO | TENNESSEE | TEXAS

615-443-0345 Ext 103 info@agricoatings.com www.agricoatings.com

OHIO | TENNESSEE | TEXAS

615-443-0345 Ext 103 info@agricoatings.com www.agricoatings.com

Our Vision Colors Yours!

July /August 2021 Soil & Mulch Producer News

19

6075 Hopkins Road • Mentor, OH 44060 Ph: 440-257-6453 • Fax: 440-257-6459 Email: downassoc2@oh.rr.com www.SoilandMulchProducerNews.com

VOL. XV NO. 4

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Cleveland, OH Permit #1737

JULY /AUG 2021

Inside This Issue Worm-based Filtration System Creates a Great Soil Amendment PAGE 1

Sale of Mulch, Soil Decline Unexpectedly PAGE 4 Supreme Court Upholds Property Rights in California PAGE 6 Scientists in Siberia Use Pyrolysis to Convert Wood Waste to Fuel PAGE 10 Gypsy Moth Infestation Hits Pennsylvania PAGE 14 NC Logging and Sawmill Industries Grapple with Demand, Supply Chain Snags PAGE 16

www.MulchColorJet.com 978.465.7222  MulchColorJet.com

WE DELIVER Brighter Mulch Colors We focus on your needs, delivering freshly packaged liquid and powder mulch colorants, superior customer service and valuable industry knowledge.

At T.H. Glennon, our customers come rst. Give us a call and learn how we can help your business grow.

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