Holsum Irish Dairy
About 30 miles south of Green Bay, Wisconsin 3500 cows chew their cud. While each one awaits her turn in the milking parlor, her chewing does more than fill her udders with milk. Dairy cows are well-fed so they produce lots of milk and, let’s face it, cows are like people in that the more they eat, the more waste they produce.
When Holsum Irish welcomed its first cows, its waste handling system consisted of a flush system and a lagoon. Water ran underneath the barn’s slotted floors, washing the waste into a large outdoor pond with bermed edges. And there it sat.
Underneath the liquid, the organic solids decomposed. Unlike compost-style processes which give off carbon dioxide – completing a balanced carbon cycle – the collected manure decayed without oxygen and hence produced methane gas, which bubbled to the top of the pond and escaped to the atmosphere. Methane is 21 times as damaging as carbon dioxide when it comes to global warming, so the methane’s escape was not good for the planet.
Kenn Buelow, Holsum’s manager, decided to install an anerobic digester. They’re like a next-generation pond— a waste receptacle with engineering added. Today, the digester and associated changes in waste handling allow Holsum to capture the methane and feed it to generators which power the dairy. The digester also transforms the products left over when the methane is gone. They’re not waste. The digested solids are clean and used as cow bedding. The nitrogen-rich liquid is used as fertilizer and can now be pumped over the fields instead of trucked. It’s a win-win-win-win.
TerraPass funding helps make it all possible. “There are a lot of parts to the digester operation that make it financially feasible,” says Buelow. “It’s difficult to do it without all these parts working together. The sale of the power generated by the digester, supplemented by the income from selling the carbon credits, along withthe use of compost from the digester for bedding, has made it financially feasible to install and maintain the digesters. “
And it doesn’t stop there. Like many of the farm projects we fund, Holsum has a broad view of environmental responsibility. The dairy joined Wisconsin’s “Green Tier” program, and has adopted a comprehensive Environmental Management System consistent with the international ISO 14001 standard. Their track record is impressive and TerraPass is proud to have this farm as part of our portfolio!
Your carbon offset from TerraPass is always measured in “pounds of carbon dioxide”. Carbon dioxide is the worldwide standard of measure for greenhouse gas emissions. When we fund a project that reduces methane, the project’s beneficial effect is converted to “pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent,” during the project’s verification by a third party.
