Got Manure?

Enhancing Environmental and Economic Sustainability Conference

Anaerobic Digester Site Tours, Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Prior to the start of the conference there are two options to tour New York on-farm integrated manure handling/treatment systems with anaerobic digesters: a full day or a half day bus tour. Both tours visit the Cayuga County Soil and Water Conservation District Community Digester and Patterson Dairy Farm. The full day tour also travels to Synergy Farm.

Tour Overview: Cayuga County Soil and Water Conservation District Community Digester, Auburn, NY:
The facility is a newly constructed centralized anaerobic digester system built to process manure from several nearby dairy farms, food waste from food processing industries, and waste fats from local sources. It has a generation capacity of 625 kilowatts and will produce 25 tons/day of postdigestion separated solids, and 31,000 gallons/day of separated liquid. The combined heat and power system will power the district campus buildings and excess power will be exported to the grid. The heat produced will meet most of the campus buildings needs. The anaerobic digester system is an aboveground mesophilic hydraulic-mix system that features blending without internal moving parts, an integrated sediment removal system, and fully automated operation. The facility may be operational by the time of the tour.

Patterson Dairy Farm, Auburn, NY:

Patterson Dairy Farms, Inc., a family farm for the past seven generations, commissioned RCM International, LLC to develop an anaerobic digester system in 2005 to minimize the odor from farm operations and to take advantage of the combined heat and power that would be produced. The digester is a 1.2 million gallon mixed digester with a hydraulic retention time designed to be approximately 20 days, based on manure from 1,000 dairy animals and co-digestion of whey, waste onions, and potato starch water. They have extensive experience operating their Caterpillar and Guascor engine-generator sets.

Synergy Farm, Covington, NY (Full Day Tour Only):

CH4 Biogas and Synergy Dairy formed Synergy Biogas, LLC to build, own, and operate a Bigadan biogas facility. The facility, located on the Synergy Dairy, has the capacity to digest manure from the 2,000 milking cows at the dairy (2/3 of the volume) and food grade organic waste transported to the facility (1/3 of the volume). Biogas from the digester fuels a 1.4 Megawatt GE-Jenbacher engine-generator set. In addition to producing enough renewable electricity to power 1,000 homes, the facility will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 8,500 tons of CO 2 each year, produce 16,000 cubic yards of bedding for the dairy, and reduce manure odors. The digester began operations on December 30, 2011.

Itineraries for Full and Half Day Tours:

Full Day Tour 7:30 AM 8:00 AM 8:45 AM 10:00 AM 10:30 AM 12:00 AM 2:00 PM 3:30 PM 5:30 PM Half Day Tour 12:00 PM 12:30 PM 1:15 PM 2:30 PM 3:00 PM 4:30 PM 5:30 PM Assemble at Holiday Inn Depart to Cayuga Digester Cayuga Digester Tour Depart to Patterson Dairy Patterson Dairy Tour Return to Holiday Inn Arrive back at Holiday Inn Assemble at Holiday Inn Depart to Cayuga Digester Cayuga Digester Tour Depart to Patterson Dairy Patterson Dairy Tour Depart to Synergy Dairy Digester Synergy Dairy Digester Tour Return to Holiday Inn Arrive back at Holiday Inn

Registration:
To register for the Conference and AD Site Tour please go to http://www.epa.gov/agstar/newsevents/events/conference12.html. Be sure to indicate on the online registration form that you would like participate in one of the tours. Tours are free and box lunches are available to purchase for $20 for both the full and half day tours.

Questions:
If you have any questions about the Conference, please e-mail agstar@erg.com or leave a message with our contractor, ERG Conference Registration Services, at 781-674-7374.