Virginia Conservation District Helps Farmers Store Manure and Protect Water Quality

Mike Stiles (left) of Waverly Farm in Clearbrook and Bud Nagelvoort, board chairman of the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District, talk about the cow manure pit built on the farm several years ago. The district assisted the farm in finding programs to help pay for construction costs. Photo by Ginger Perry.

CLEARBROOK — Several years ago, Waverly Farm didn’t have a place to store manure or the funds to build a costly storage pit.

Then the farm’s owners, Mike, Ken, and Paul Stiles, received a letter from the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District offering a solution.

It gave them information about a cost-sharing program using State and Federal funds to help pay for construction of a storage pit.

“Every day we were having to scrape our barn lots and spread the manure on our fields, even if they were covered in snow,” Mike Stiles said.

The brothers did some research and decided to apply for assistance. With their request granted and funding in place, they built a receiving pit for manure with a connecting pipe and a curb to hold back drainage.

The total cost was $124,400 of which the Stiles brothers only paid $31,000.

“Now, we can spread the manure when we are ready, and we aren’t losing as many nutrients by leaving it on the ground before we actually need it,” Stiles said.

The district also helped the farmers secure funding through the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program for a fence to keep cattle out of a spring on the property, a 100-foot buffer strip of hardwood trees to filter runoff, and an underground waterline and watering trough for cattle.

The improvements totaled $6,750, but the Stiles brothers only paid $1,688.

Mike Stiles (left) of Waverly Farm talks with Bud Nagelvoort, chairman of the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District about Waverly’s manure storage system. The district helped Waverly Farm owners find programs to help pay for a manure receiving pit.  Photo by Ginger Perry.

“That was a classic example of providing farmers with funds to fence cattle out of streams and provide for alternative water sources for them,” said Bud Nagelvoort, board chairman of the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District.

Obtaining monies for land management practices is one way the district helps farmers and property owners in the region to become better stewards of their land.

The district also offers advice and guidance to landowners on various ways to protect the natural resources on their property.

The district has been assisting landowners since it was established in 1941.

At that time, the district was only serving Frederick County. Clarke and Warren counties were added to the district three years later, and Shenandoah joined in 1945. Winchester didn’t come on board until 1973, Nagelvoort said.

State districts were established, he said, because farmers didn’t seem to be receptive to federal government officials telling them what to do with problems on their land.

“Federal officials believed it would work better coming from someone close to home,” said Nagelvoort, who has been a member of the district’s board since 1996.

Ten of the district’s 12 members are elected and two are appointed by the board.

Nagelvoort said the district is under the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, which is “interestingly paired” with the Federal government’s Natural Resources Conservation Service — established in the early 1930s to teach landowners how to prevent soil erosion following severe droughts.

For many years, Nagelvoort said, the district mostly concentrated on education programs to encourage farmers to use good land management practices.

In recent years, however, a substantial amount of state and federal money has been available to assist landowners and farmers with best management practices, which include helping them implement nutrient management plans and determining the amount of fertilizer that’s needed to produce optimum yield for crops like hay, corn, and soybeans.

“The information we provide helps farmers to minimize expenses for fertilizer so they don’t use more than needed to grow a good crop,” Nagelvoort said.

“Storing our manure has cut our commercial fertilizer costs by 30 to 50 percent,” Stiles noted.

Nagelvoort said that minimizing the amount of fertilizer used on fields also reduces stream pollution, which has become a major concern of the district.

“In this area, not only do those excesses cause problems with local streams, but go on down stream into the Potomac River and into the Chesapeake Bay,” Nagelvoort said. “Sixty-percent of the pollution that gets into the bay comes from agricultural land. The rest comes from industrial and municipal waste-water treatment plants.”

In the state’s 2005 fiscal year budget, Nagelvoort said more than $400,000 was made available to the district to reduce stream pollution by doing such things as fencing cattle away from streams and then providing them an alterative source of water.

“The money for our program comes from 10 percent of the state’s budget surplus,” Nagelvoort said. “We will probably have twice that amount during the next fiscal year, because of a much larger surplus.”

In a effort to keep tabs on pollution within the district, it works closely with Friends of the Shenandoah River, a group of volunteers who monitor the quality of water in streams in the district.

“We’re developing plans to correct problems on a number of streams in the district now,” Nagelvoort said.

Landowners refusing to correct pollution problems can face fines.

In 1994, Nagelvoort said Virginia passed the Agriculture Stewardship Act, which states if a pollution complaint is received by the Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture, the commissioner will review it and determine if it is founded.

“If it is, the district in which the pollution is occurring will work with the landowner to develop a plan to correct the problem,” Nagelvoort said.

“If the landowner fails to carry out the plan within a prescribed time, he is subject to a fine of $5,000 a day until the problem is corrected.”

Nagelvoort said there have been complaints in the district, but landowners have resolved the problem.

“Which says, we do have an enforcement mechanism,” he said, “but it’s rarely needed.”

Nagelvoort said the district has hired an administrator, Cheryl Crowell, and will have a second conservation technician come on board on Feb. 1

“It’s a major challenge,” Nagelvoort said, “but within the next 90 days, we will be reviewing our long-term strategy plans and begin developing a new one for the next 5 years to help us accomplish all our pollution reduction objectives and provide clean water for municipal users, for agriculture, for business, and for recreation.”

Story by Linda McCarty, The Winchester Star.