Beginning Farmer Improves Farmstead

(above) O’Connell farm "before" with huge manure pile next to barn O’Connell farm "after" -- runoff from the barn yard along with waste water from the milk house now enters a new storage facility

When aspiring new farmer Richard O’Connell bought a farm in Corinth, Vermont, he got more than just the barn, land, and out buildings.  He also inherited a huge pile of manure stacked adjacent to the barn and about 100 feet from a stream.  As a dairy man milking thirty cattle, he continued to add to the pile.  Then a major rain storm hit and the manure pile started its descent to the stream.  Remembering how in the past, he tediously removed manure with a shovel and wheelbarrow, O'Connell called NRCS for help.

As a beginning farmer, O’Connell was eligible for NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program cost share for up to 90 percent of a manure storage facility.  While the manure facility was being built last summer, he finished a new tie stall barn complete with gutter cleaner.  Barn roof runoff and waste water from the milk house that  previously flowed across the barnyard — creating a mess — is now channeled away from the barnyard and into the new storage facility.

Today, the barn yard looks clean, manure no longer enters the stream, and Richard O’Connell’s operation is considerably less labor intensive allowing him to pursue other conservation measures on his farm.
Your contact is Anne Hilliard, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 802-951-6796, ext. 234.