Oklahoma City-Agriculture interests say that critics are missing the point when they claim that incentives being paid to farmers for transporting chicken litter out of critical watersheds is just spreading water quality problems to other parts of the state. At issue is an Oklahoma Conservation Commission program that pays farmers up to $8 per ton to transport litter for use as fertilizer out of poultry-growing areas and a similar Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQUIP) sponsored by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, which pays for any kind of animal waste. Effective Aug. 1, the commission has $370,000 from EPA to continue the incentives for hauling the waste out of the Illinois River and Spavinaw Creek watersheds for all interested participants who get their payment requests approved through their local conservation district office. “Our program is intended to develop a market for poultry outside the poultry growing areas,” Dan Butler, director of water quality programs for the commission, told Green Markets. And to date, Butler noted, the state has succeeded, because the skyrocketing prices of commercial fertilizer has created so much interest that now there’s not enough litter to meet all the demands. “At first farmers were not eager to try it,” he added, “but now they absolutely love it.” Eldon Merklin, coordinator of the program, said inquiries about the chicken waste this year are coming from as far away as Lawton in southwest Oklahoma. But that’s not calming the concerns of Oklahomans who worry that that waste from northeastern Oklahoma could pollute their groundwater and drinking water. One unconfirmed report in Lawton City claimed that 40 to 60 tons of chicken litter were dumped on a ranch near a creek feeding Lake Lawtonka, the city’s main water source. But Butler described the incident as “not a big issue and something that was not done intentionally by the farmer.” He said the litter had been left temporarily about 75 yards from a tributary that drains into another stream that ties into the water supply. “He was putting it there until he had a chance to use it, and when advised built a berm around the pile to prevent runoff,” Butler explained. “None of us wants to see the litter run into a reservoir and none of it did.” J.D. Strong, chief of staff for the state secretary of the environment, said trucking waste out of northeast Oklahoma is a good solution – as long as the people who use it as fertilizer are aware of environmental regulations on where waste can be used and how much can be spread on land. “The expanding scope of the program and the fact that they’re able to move this stuff greater distances can only be beneficial in the long run,” Strong said.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain