Common Sense

Congressman Chet Edwards writes about Waco’s dirty secret: Our dirty water.

“There are few priorities more important to Central Texas than improving the water quality at Lake Waco .  This research holds great promise in significantly reducing the quantity of cow manure in the North Bosque River while also protecting the future air quality of our area by reducing pollution from coal fired power plants,” said Edwards. “While there is no single silver bullet in addressing the Lake Waco pollution problems, this is the kind of serious option that we must pursue.”

I don’t know, not letting the dairy farms upstream put cowsh– in our drinking water in the first place would be an awful good solution to our pollution problems.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure, Waco water tastes like sh–… literally. There are many industrial-sized dairy farms north of us along the Bosque River. When it rains or if there is just enough of it, the manure from these farms and ranches seeps into the river and gets dumped (dumped!) into Lake Waco, which is Waco’s source of drinking water.

The manure causes higher than averagel algae blooms and that’s what affects the flavor so much, but it is because there is cowsh– in there, I know it. And it tastes horrible!
You can read exactly how Rep. Edwards plans to do this after the jump.

Edwards Secures $500,000 to Improve Lake Waco Water Quality 

Under 2007 Energy & Water Bill

( WASHINGTON , DC )  â€“ Congressman Chet Edwards announced that the 2007 Energy and Water Appropriations bill will include his request for $500,000 for Texas A&M to research the use of pulverized cattle manure in coal fired power plants.  This project was pushed by Edwards as part of his ongoing efforts to protect and improve water quality at Lake Waco .  Edwards also secured $2 million for the project the last two years for a total of $2.5 million.

“There are few priorities more important to Central Texas than improving the water quality at Lake Waco .  This research holds great promise in significantly reducing the quantity of cow manure in the North Bosque River while also protecting the future air quality of our area by reducing pollution from coal fired power plants,” said Edwards.  “While there is no single silver bullet in addressing the Lake Waco pollution problems, this is the kind of serious option that we must pursue.”

This project, designed by researchers at Texas A&M, is an integrated approach to extracting value from animal waste while achieving environmental protection and the utilization of a resource that has caused significant concerns over the past decade in Central Texas .  While traditional use of manure has typically been limited to land application, this process would actually burn the pulverized cattle manure in coal-fired power plants.  This process not only utilizes the dairy waste, but also addresses emissions at the coal plants.  Studies have shown that this process can potentially reduce nitrous oxide emissions by more than 80%.  Potentially harvestable manure production in the U.S. is approximately 100 million dry tons per year. 

Funding for this project was not in the Administration’s budget request, but was added by Edwards, a senior member of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.

The bill is expected to pass the House in the next few weeks before moving to the Senate.