Dirty Water in an NVZ .. How do you cope?

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
With the likelihood that all of Wales will be entering an NVZ (despite opposition from Plaid Cymru - I know, I've been in contact), I am set to wondering how to cope with dirty water.
Currently our parlour washings go in to a sump where there are two options:

1) pump to a lagoon. Great but it's comparatively small and would need clearing x2-3 during the closed period

OR

2) Spray it out using a Rotarainer but it's fairly useless bit of kit as it bungs up at the rotor arms if there is any thing greater than a mm of silage in the dung AND it's NBG when the crops start growing as the wheels bog. Fixing it in place causes too much damage.

So how do you cope with dirty water?
 

vantage

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Pembs
With the likelihood that all of Wales will be entering an NVZ (despite opposition from Plaid Cymru - I know, I've been in contact), I am set to wondering how to cope with dirty water.
Currently our parlour washings go in to a sump where there are two options:

1) pump to a lagoon. Great but it's comparatively small and would need clearing x2-3 during the closed period

OR

2) Spray it out using a Rotarainer but it's fairly useless bit of kit as it bungs up at the rotor arms if there is any thing greater than a mm of silage in the dung AND it's NBG when the crops start growing as the wheels bog. Fixing it in place causes too much damage.

So how do you cope with dirty water?
I spoke to Keith Owen on this very subject yesterday. I was concerned I’d have to store it with slurry, which would make a new pit enormous, but if I separate it, which I plan to do then I can spread year round, together with clamp runoff. I’ll use a gravity fed scroll and stator pump to a PulseJet in the field.
 

Bramble

Member
When I went through this I was told ANYTHING in contact with slurry/muck could not be spread in the closed period, including stuff like parlour washings, wash/rinse cycle water, any water off silage clamps, silage effluent, any effluent from muck heaps stored on stone/concrete. Also told we couldn’t use a pulse jet (it was above 4m and due to atomisation of the water).

This was in in England 10 years ago, just be very sure what you can and can’t do before you start spending money. For us a big earth banked lagoon was the simplest option, along with a couple of slurry separators. Still cost £100k but there was some grant on the separators.

Looked briefly at biobeds, but EA were very discouraging, plus no one could guarantee the water coming out of them would be clean enough all year round. EA at the time would want to come a sample the output weekly, I couldn’t be doing with the hassle/stress
 
what they were saying on the webinar last night dirty water and fym can be spread all year
slurry has a closed period
the 250kgN a hectare only applies to organic nitrogen, bagged will have different limit
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
Out of interest purely for yard run off etc has anyone got or had experience of a Reed bed? Used for filtration?
Looked briefly at biobeds, but EA were very discouraging, plus no one could guarantee the water coming out of them would be clean enough all year round. EA at the time would want to come a sample the output weekly
Talk about reed beds being a solutionif you can keep run-off separate from slurry. Problem is you need a reasonable area


From my conversations with EA guys, they work really well in the growing season, and not at all in the non growing season......when you actually need them!
 
The argument is the definition of dirty water. Different EA inspectors seem to have different definitions. Much of what we call dirty water can also be described as dilute slurry. The code of good agricultural practice says: Dirty water is a waste containing washings from milking parlours, farm dairies, cleaning work and run-off from open concrete areas that are dirtied by manure or silage.

However I have been clearly told by an EA inspector that run off from out door loafing yards where cows are fed is dilute slurry.
 
It is quite important that you establish what qualifies as dirty water and what is slurry.
In UK weeping wall juice started as dirty water and was changed to slurry.
I imagine water from a separator will be slurry not dirty water, (but I'm not going to read your regs. to find out!)
edit, farmer on a bike beat me to it!
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
It is quite important that you establish what qualifies as dirty water and what is slurry.
In UK weeping wall juice started as dirty water and was changed to slurry.
I imagine water from a separator will be slurry not dirty water, (but I'm not going to read your regs. to find out!)
edit, farmer on a bike beat me to it!
EA inspector said we can spread dirty water from the lightly soiled yards as DW.

The gallon of leachate from the dung store has to be stored during the closed period and can not join the dirty water.


We pump out the dirty water with a submersible .
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,292
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top