Green Fuel & Milk And Manure

The new ethanol boom… is gonna have to wait.

This is The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.

Cellulosic ethanol is supposed to be a green fuel for cars - greener than conventional ethanol made from corn.

The government wanted industry to create loads of cellulosic ethanol next year.

Shawn Allee reports industry might provide ... just a trickle.

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The fuel industry's supposed to create 100 million gallons of cellulosic-ethanol next year.

But industry leaders say they might create 12 million gallons.

Wes Bolsen is with Coskata.

His company can create ethanol from wood chips and even household trash.

Bolsen says companies like his found some investment money - but the financial crisis created delays.

BOLSEN: We're building refineries - 300, 400 million dollar assets and that's a lot of money to come together. We're two years delayed, the whole industry. we can't open them in 2010. faccilities will start opening in 2012.

The federal government might have to shift mandates for cellulosic ethanol into the future.

That could mean the country uses less efficient ethanol from corn ... or keeps using more gasoline.

For The Environment Report, I'm Shawn Allee.



(((STING)))

This is The Environment Report.

At big dairy farms… cows aren’t usually grazing in the pasture… thousands are penned up in huge metal pole barns. The mechanization of dairies makes for cheaper milk at the grocery store. But in many places around the country, it's also meant a lot of pollution. Mark Brush visited one state where they say big dairies are doing it right:

(farm sound)

Tom Crave says when he and his brothers first started this dairy… they were single, they had 80 cows and a used car. Now, they have around a 1,000 cows and families to look after. He says they had to get big to survive:

"It takes a lot of money to live. That's what's… that's what's driven this here. It's just basic economics."

So they make a lot of milk here.

But milk is not the only thing cows produce. They also produce millions of gallons of liquid manure.

Sometimes these big dairy farms have problems. Liquid manure spills – causing huge fish kills or polluting well water.

But regulators here say the Crave Brothers, and other big dairy farms in Wisconsin, are doing a good job taking care of their manure. That's in part because they're actively regulated in the state.

Gordon Stevenson is the Chief Runoff Manager for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

"It is not coming from these largest farms for the most part. The manure management on our 30,000 other smaller farms can be a good bit worse."

Dairy farms that have fewer than 700 milking cows usually are not regulated under the Clean Water Act until there's a major problem.

If Stevenson finds a smaller farm that's polluting. He can offer them some state money to fix the problem. But beyond that – there's not much his office can do. As a result – some smaller farms pollute.

Jamie Saul is with Midwest Environmental Advocates. He says just offering money to farms to clean up is not good enough:

"We are the habit now of paying, and I think it's pretty unique to the agricultural industry, that we pay them to reduce their pollution. Most other industries we don't do that. We expect whatever industry it is to come into compliance with whatever standards are needed to protect the environment and public health."

Saul says all states needs better policies to keep small farms from polluting.

While Wisconsin regulators seem to be keeping an eye on their bigger farms - environmental activists say that's NOT the case in other states. They say Clean Water Act rules are often not enforced against these livestock farms – big or small - and that puts the environment and people's health at risk.

For the Environment Report, I'm Mark Brush.