Circulating water in dugouts is more efficient than aerating it and promotes natural cleanup, farmers were told during a seminar at the recent Western Canada Farm Progress Show in Regina.
Kathleen Cameron, manager of Sunset Solar SystemsÕ environmental management division, said a circulator can turn over the water in a one-million-gallon dugout seven times an hour.
This action, coupled with the introduction of oxygen at the surface, results in aerobic remediation of the water. It promotes growth of microorganisms that will naturally clean up the environment in the water, decrease solids, create beneficial enzymes and improve plant performance, she said.
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ÒThis creates a nutrient system thatÕs the same throughout the lagoon.Ó
It also increases aquatic species diversity and dissolved oxygen and decreases odours and bacteria such as E coli. Otherwise, anaerobic decomposition takes place at the bottom of lagoons and dugouts where organic matter settles and decomposes, producing odour that in some cases can be toxic.
Energy varied
Sunset Solar Systems manufactures Little River Pond Mills circulators in Assiniboia, Sask., and has been operating for 23 years.
Cameron listed dairy and hog barns among the companyÕs international customers. The circulators, which operate on solar, wind or electric power, can help agricultural operations, municipal waste water systems and commercial food processing plants remediate water to reduce use and improve quality.
In one Alberta dairy lagoon, it took microorganisms five and a half months to reduce a four-metre layer of solids to the point where the liquid could be pumped directly onto the land.
Other benefits include energy savings.
During the winter of 2003-04, an Alberta hog lagoon operated a circulator for $90 per month on three-phase power, compared to $1,100 per month for a seven horsepower aeration system that didnÕt reduce odour or solids.
ÒThis saved the producer over $12,000 Canadian in electricity chargesÓ over the course of a year, Cameron noted.
Circulators can also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, she added, because aerobic digestion reduces or eliminates methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide.
