Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Climate Change and Environmental Issues Indiana Farmer Plagued by Giant "Poop Bubbles"

A now bankrupt Indiana dairy farmer has successfully deflated several gigantic methane gas bubbles that appeared underneath the plastic liner he was using to contain 21 million gallons of cow manure.

This WSJ article fails to detail the many mistakes Tony Goltstein made when he built the dairy farm in 2006.

This 2006 article in The Indiana Prairie Farmer newspaper makes no mention of the many options open to Goltstein either.

For instance, Goltstein could have leveraged green technology to recover the massive amounts of methane gas generated by the liquid manure slurry, and used the power generated by the gas to help offset his energy bills AND prevent the release of the gasses into the atmosphere.

He didn't.

He could have utilized simple gas collection techniques and sold it to a nearby utility.

He didn't.

In fact, Goltstein just lobbied for over a year to just get a simple permit to install a plastic liner to hold the manure while it waits to be carted off and dumped on other farms instead. That plastic liner however, didn't feel cooperative.

Methane is twenty times more damaging to the environment than CO2, but apparently folks in Indiana don't worry too much about issues like greenhouse gasses.
That's the kind of thing liberals worry about.

Oh NO! The world is getting so warm that the earth itself has to fart.

Of all the people who would have missed the payoff from leveraging green tech to maximize revenue, you're the last person I would have expected.
Forget about the danger of releasing huge clouds of methane for a moment. This guy went bankrupt, Ma.

Do ya think maybe, just maybe, if he were able to utilize green tech to offset his bills a little, he might still be in business, AND his neighbors wouldn't be worried about

A) EXPLOSIONS!

B) ODOR
C) BATTLES WITH STATE REGULATORS
D) CLEANUP COST RECOVERY

E) GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION

just to name a few?

The stuff does stink pretty fierce, the stuff IS flammable in a big way, it does tend to destroy groundwater, and several farmers in the area reported that, in the past they had to rebuild/RELOCATE well facilities thanks to nearby pig farming operations mucking up things, and last but not least, the STATE of Indiana is going to get stuck with the bill to clean this mess up because Goltstein doesn't have the money, and he will most likely walk away.

There isn't single aspect of this issue that shouldn't appeal to your free market sensibilities Ma.
There isn't a political system on the planet that wouldn't value at least two benefits that green technology could have provided.

Clearly, pols like Mike Pence are too ignorant to realize this, but I am sure that the state will be more than happy to bill the taxpayers, and Mr. Pence will be blaming liberals for the high cost of running things while ignoring the financial waste in his own backyard, and the cattle waste that threatens to inundate portions of Randolph County.

America if full of unrealized wealth stories, this is just another guy with no imagination. If his neighbors were smart they would buy his property and use that "green tech" (yeah right, remember all of thise green jobs?) and make money off of it.

In other countries cattle waste, or stuff very much like it, is used as fire wood and a heat source for their homes. It is after all just hay. I wonder if that would be legal in our enlightened society.

I guess you don't have to be a responsible farmer, when everyone else can be a responsible farmer for you.

If his state and local government were smart, they would help make green tech easier to access, and the burden on the taxpayers would be lessened, more green jobs would be available, agricultural output would be more efficient, and the environment would be safer.

As it stands now, if you lived in Indiana, you'd be paying part of the bill to clean up this and thousands of other orphaned crap lagoons.
And even if you wanted to just "use it for firewood" it would still cost you OR the state a buttload of money (if you'll pardon the expression) because it's not the same as it was coming straight out of the cow, it's now a slurry and it would cost real money to reprocess it.

In any case, no matter which way you decide to purpose the stuff, it's clear that developing countries seem to have the upper hand on what to do with the stuff and the model is proven as not only workable, but scalable to any size farm.

This is not only a case of a guy with no imagination, it's an entire STATE with no imagination, state legislators with no imagination, and a tax bill with no imagination.

But that tax bill has a real clear price tag, and it's proven that it is a lot higher than it would be if the state provided some small incentives to help farmers "go green".

Which study would you like to look at Ma?
I bet I can find a bunch that show that green saves dough down on the farm.

I invite other ranters who have direct agribusiness experience to contribute what they know about it.
These processes aren't new at all, they've been around for a long time.

Here, I'll start things off...maybe other ranters can contribute too:


http://www.cogeneration.net/Manure_To_Energy.htm

WOW! Here's a farmer in California from 2001 (Enron era) who managed to avoid the rolling blackouts in addition to enjoying essentially FREE electricity!
http://www.pmac.net/AM/no_blackouts.html

Just pop the bubbles! A slingshot or even a BB Gun would do the trick. We are talking about cow droppings here, grass. It is about as biodegradable as anything is in nature.

What, do you suppose, do the cattle farmers in the area do with their cow sh!t? My guess is that they don't follow them around with industrial sized pooper-scoopers. The problem was created by the need to build a cesspool for the droppings and the results should have been realized by all involved in this undertaking. So now, after years, there are 21,000,000 gallons of sh!t sitting on a plastic liner, being allowed to compost. Why, this is about as natural having a bird sh!t on your freshly washed auto.

I know, here is a new industry for anybody who is interested, Holstein Huggies!

I cordially invite you to pop them.
Maybe you'll even learn to FLY in the process.

Ma, I don't know when the last time was that you were near a farm -- but agribidness ain't what it used to be. Dairy farms used to be 200, maybe 300 cows. This guy had 1400. That's a lot of cowshyte.

Many intensive farms out here are much larger, and there have been lawsuits about the damage, which begins with constant illnesses and runs all the way to not being able to sell your farm because no one can stand to live downwind of the piggery near you.

I wouldn't drink a glass of water out of any stream in this state due to ag runoff - that's the chemicals and the animal waste.

If somebody dumped a thousand gallons of cattle manure in your neighborhood, I guarantee you wouldn't think it was as natural as bird sh*t on your car. But if you really think that's what it's like, I suggest you give your address to this farmer. He might even deliver.