Annapolis, Md. — Ecocorp Inc., Arlington, Va., has an agreement with the state of Maryland to build a anaerobic digester plant using chicken manure and agriculture waste on a 4.2-acre site at the Eastern Correctional Institute near Princess Anne for $100 a year, and to provide the prison with electricity while producing both solid and liquid fertilizer. According to Dr. John Ingersoll, Ecocorp president, that’s just the beginning. “We should be breaking ground at the earliest next spring and be in full operation by the summer or early fall,” Ingersoll reported. “At the same time, we’re working on a number of projects, including one in Virginia that will be slightly different. At the Maryland facility we expect to be producing 3,400 tons of solid and 7,800 tons of liquid fertilizer.” He said plans are to sell the liquid to local farmers and provide the solid for use on vegetables, fruit trees, or other special crops such as soybeans, or perhaps bag it and sell the product through private outlets. Ingersoll said the state has been trying to promote the technology as an answer to the chicken manure problem. The plant will generate 8.06 million kilowatts from the methane produced by the digester – part will be used to operate the system, with the rest for the prison. "This will really be a grand pilot demonstration project," said James Harkins, director of the Maryland Environmental Service, which put the deal together with the help of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and other state agencies. "It will be one of the first in the nation that’s run with chicken litter." Disposal of manure from the Eastern Shore’s poultry industry has long been a serious environmental problem because many farmers have no easy way of getting rid of it.
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