Cattle feeders seem to always get unfairly blamed for hurting the environment.  There are well organized groups that spread false evidence about what really happens out here.   They even get the news media to believe their story.  Then millions of people see it and just accept it as truth without questioning the source.  I’m going to narrow my focus on this topic to ground water.  The fact is nobody cares more about this natural resource than a cattle feeder.  I am one, and the reason it is so important to me is because we get all our water from a private well.  That well provides the water that my pregnant wife drinks, and the water that she cooks with.

So what did I do to ensure it will be safe?  I built my feedlot from scratch, so I sought the advice from some engineers from the University of Nebraska Lincoln.  These guys had a different approach to the project than myself.  I would have designed pens for the cattle first then retro fitted how I was going to handle runoff water.  These guys designed how we were going to handle the runoff water then designed the pens.  Location was also a big consideration.  We had to make sure we were a safe distance from our well, and we had to determine the risk of contact with surface water.  Soil type was also considered to be sure no leaching would take place.

What we have in place now is a Vegetative Treatment System (VTS).  My pens are built with a slope to get all the runoff water to flow out the back of the pens where we have built a settling basin.  In the lowest point of this basin we have an outlet structure to filter out any solids in the water.  There is a terrace that has an underground line buried in it that goes from the outlet structure to some gated pipe on the other side.  This underground line has a shut off valve.  We keep this closed until after a rain event.  Usually after a short period of time the solids settle out of the water that has been held up in the settling basin and then  I can open this valve and release the run off through the gated pipe.

The water runs out of the gated pipe across an area where we planted grass.  This area has some slope to it as well so the water will flow away from the pipe.  This area is completely contained.  We have dikes that run along the pens and the grass area, so no water can escape, and come in contact with other surface water.

The grass is the main component  of the VTS.  The grass takes up nutrients from the runoff water; by utilizing the nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium contained in the water, this grass allows us to make sure that these nutrients do not reach the ground water.  We then get these nutrients off that area by harvesting hay off the grass area.  I usually get two cuttings of hay a year off of it, and the tonnage per acre is double what my hay fields produce.

I have hosted tours that were attended by people from the NRCS, EPA, and DEQ.  All were amazed at how easy the VTS system is to maintain and how simple the concept is.  Soil and plant growth are a natural filter for keeping contaminants out of ground water.  In fact, that is where the idea of filters came from years ago.

Since this was one of the first of it’s type built in the state, I have some monitoring equipment set up that the University uses to collect data.  We built this in 2005 and have had absolutely no problems.  We even experienced a fifty year rain event and still managed 100% containment.

The Vegetative Treatment System was a simple and effective way to manage water quality in my feeding business and I know when my daughter is born, I won’t have to worry about the water she drinks.