July 25, 2008

Weekly Update is a publication of Western United Environmental Services (WUES), designed to bring you valuable information and helpful tips for compliance with the Waste Discharge Requirements of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. Each week you will find features on compliance issues, regulatory changes or common questions, as well as workshop notices and introductions to the WUES Technicians. If you have missed any of our past issues, they can be found on our website at www.wuenvironmental.com

Brittany Bosma

With one deadline behind us and another one ahead, it is crucial to keep up on the nutrient monitoring for complete and thorough information. A question I have experienced lately is regarding plant tissue sampling on different types of crops.

What part of a cotton crop needs to be brought into the lab for analysis? What about a wheat crop which is harvested for grain and baled later for straw? Or an almond crop?

According to the WDR General Order, all “harvested material” needs to be sampled and analyzed. This can be a little tricky to understand when it comes to some crops. Since the cotton fiber is the only part of the cotton plant harvested, it is the only part needed to be sampled and analyzed. The grain harvested from the wheat crop and the baled straw both need to be sampled as two separate harvested materials from the same field. All three parts of the almond (meat, shell, and hull) need to be sampled separately as well as they are all technically harvested materials.

Regional Board Q & A

The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board maintains a list of Frequently Asked Questions regarding compliance with the General Order. This FAQ can be viewed at http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/water_issues/dairies/index.shtml.  Periodically we will feature some of the questions and answers that we believe to be of broad interest to our clients.

Q. I rent just the dairy production area. My landlord handles all the solid manure and wastewater applications and all the cropland. Do I need to have a manifest for manure going to the cropland? Do I need to have a wastewater agreement with the property owner for wastewater going to the cropland?

A. The biggest question in this situation is “Who will be preparing the Nutrient Management Plan?” for the cropland. If the dairy operator will be preparing the Nutrient Management Plan, the manifest is not necessary because the operator will know how much manure and wastewater were transported to the cropland, and applications will be incorporated into the NMP. However, it is more likely that the landlord will prepare the NMP since the landlord handles all the applications of manure and wastewater. In this case, the manifests will provide documentation for the dairy operator that all manure and process wastewater generated at the dairy is transferred to the control of another person. Similarly, in this case wastewater agreements will help to formalize the times and amounts of wastewater applications for that the dairy operator can ensure that the wastewater lagoon has the required amount of free-board.

Q. If I ship manure off to lots of different locations, do I need to test manure for each off-site destination?

A. You will need to determine the total volume (cubic yards) exported and density (grams per liter), or determine the total weight (tons) exported and percent moisture, for all the manure that leaves your property. This information is necessary to quantify the amount of manure solids that leave your facility and therefore do not need to be included in the cropland application portion of your Nutrient Management Plan. If one pile of manure from a single source, such as corral scrapings, is going to three separate people, the information can be collected one time for the single pile. If manure is from different sources, such as manure separators and corrals scrapings, each source needs to be quantified as the density/moisture content will be different for each.

CALENDAR OF MONTHLY MONITORING ACTIVITIES

JULY

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