Farm Runoff Treatment

Two-Step Reverse Osmosis (TSRO)

Client

Wisconsin Goat Dairy Farm

Year

2020

Impact & Benefits

Reduced volume of runoff/leachate
Eliminated need for new lagoon storage
Enabled growth and expansion

Case Study: TSRO, Manure/Digestate

A goat dairy based in Wisconsin has large volumes of runoff or leachate collecting in lagoons.This requires storage and land application, which is expensive. They want a filtration solution which can create clean water for direct discharge and reduce the need to build new lagoons.

Company Issue / Challenge

The farm currently collects large volumes of leachate that is expensive to land apply

The cost for land application is high and runoff has few nutrients, so paying to truck this material to farm fields is not efficient.

Managing the storage and hauling of leachate is a constant challenge and requires coordination of various trucks throughout the year.

Concentrating the nutrients in the leachate for storage and later land application with manure would be most efficient.

What We Delivered

Site Assessment

Worked with the farm to understand its unique challenges and brainstorm how best we could assist.

Pilot Testing

We collected samples from multiple lagoons and ran them through our Two-Step Reserve Osmosis unit to create clean water and concentrated fertilizers. We analyzed these in-house and at third-party labs and summarized these data for the farm owners so they could make an informed decision.

Implementation

This project is currently in the permitting phase. We have done a preliminary design of the equipment and expect implementation in late 2020.

Impact & Benefits

Our leachate filtration system is designed to recover more than 90% of the liquid as clean water for direct discharge.

Volume Reduction

The leachate filtration system is designed to recover more than 90% of the liquid as clean water for direct discharge, thereby reducing hauling and spreading costs dramatically. This also eliminates the need for new lagoons.

Water Reclamation

The reclaimed water can be directly discharged under an NPDES permit or reused on site for wash down.

Maintain Existing Infrastructure

The concentrated nutrients from the leachate can be mixed with manure for land application.

Maintain Existing Infrastructure

No new lagoons required.

PARAMETER	Unit	Lagoon Effluent	Clean Water	Percent Removal by TSRO
Total Solids (%)	%	0.52	0.02	96%
Ammoniacal Nitrogen	mg/L	74	n.d.	>99.9%
Organic nitrogen	mg/L	184	n.d.	>99.9%
Total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN)	mg/L	258	n.d.	>99.9%
Phosphorus	mg/L	34.9	n.d.	>99.9%
Potassium	mg/L	759	2.6	>99.9%
Sulfur	mg/L	40	n.d.	>99.9%
Calcium	mg/L	67.9	n.d.	>99.9%
Magnesium	mg/L	65.8	n.d.	>99.9%
Conductivity	mS/cm	5.7	0.464	N/A
pH	S.U.	7.4	6	N/A