New Feed Source Could Aid Dairy Farms
US - Jim Takala has a growing number of hungry mouths to feed each day at his dairy farm.
7 January 2008
2 minute read
"Like other industries, we had to make a choice whether to grow or stay the same size," said Takala, of Iron, Minn. "We chose to grow."
* "This is something we really want to be involved in. It's going to be a model in the industry for other taconite plants." |
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Kathleen Hamel, the sanitary district's supervisor of operations and maintenance.
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A unique partnership between Takala, the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, United Taconite and the University of Minnesota Extension Service of St. Louis County is poised to provide the expanding herd with a new, locally produced supplemental feed source.
Biosolids trucked from the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District in Duluth are helping generate alfalfa atop a 500-acre tailings waste basin at United Taconite's iron ore processing plant in Forbes. Biosolids are the nutrient-rich organic product of wastewater treatment.
Next summer, Takala plans to begin harvesting alfalfa from the 150-foot-high tailings basin, eventually baling 1,200 to 1,500 tons of alfalfa a year.
Tailings basins are disposal sites for barren waste rock, a byproduct of iron ore pellet production.
The partnership recycles the natural fertilizing agents of biosolids to grow a useful product on an otherwise worthless waste dump.
"The alternative would be to put it in a landfill," said Kathleen Hamel, the sanitary district's supervisor of operations and maintenance. "But this is something we really want to be involved in. It's going to be a model in the industry for other taconite plants. It's just a good fit. Whatever happens here will influence what others do."
