Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Cows milked by robots and tractors steering themselves?

The following information was provided by Andy Siira with Douglas County Land and Resource Management. It’s a summary of the department’s year and also addresses the issue of agricultural runoff.While Wholesale Rustic For Floor From China Manufacturers and renal colic probably cannot be prevented

With fall winding down and winter quickly approaching, now is a good time to look back at lessons learned, projects completed and where work needs to be focused in the future.

2011 will go down as a year full of weather related events; from the July storms that packed a wind punch strong enough to blow down highline power poles near Lowry and cause widespread building damage, to the 7-inch rainfall event in and around Alexandria. While these weather events create excellent openings to conversations with residents of the county from all walks of life, they also cause a great number of challenges for an office such as ours (Douglas County Land and Resource Management), which provides a framework of guidelines for property owners, contractors, and farm land owners to put practices on the ground that protect the natural resources our county is so proud of.Discover huge collection of cheap Wholesale Rustic Mosaic Tiles For Wall,

The Land and Resource Management (LRM) office enforces the Douglas County zoning ordinance, which is the “rule book” when it comes to setbacks, square footage limits of impervious surface, as well as agricultural issues (such as livestock permitting). My role in the LRM office is primarily handling issues related to livestock, such as where feedlots are allowed and how animal waste is stored and applied to crop land.

Earlier this fall a two-part series ran in the Echo Press highlighting issues associated with the many rain events we have had this year and their end result: runoff. Runoff is a natural event that occurs when moisture falls on saturated ground or falls at a rate faster than what the ground can absorb. Runoff in itself isn’t so much of a problem but the material runoff picks up and carries with it, whether it is plant material, soil, livestock waste,Choosing Wholesale Ceramic wall tiles For Wall WARE that's right for you doesn't have to be complicated or inorganic fertilizer spread on agricultural fields or lawns, is where the problem lies. The problem is the worst when the ground is bare or exposed and doesn’t have a vegetative buffer to hold soil and nutrients in place.

Many times the most visible runoff contributors are not necessarily the greatest contributor to the problem. Livestock often get the blame for contributing to nutrient loading and it is true that livestock do produce a smelly unsightly waste but it is also true that livestock are regulated fairly heavily. Although some problems still arise, for the most part livestock producers have made vast improvements in how manure is handled and stored in order to protect our resources.

A common practice in agricultural production is the tiling of fields,We are professional Steel pipe,Wholesale Soluble Salt For Countertops From China Manufacturers manufacturers which is where a perforated pipe is placed several feet in the ground with inlets going up to the surface in areas where water accumulates during large storm events. Tiles are present in many fields throughout the county but other than an occasional flag or stake marking an inlet, the average passerby wouldn’t know that they are out there. These inlets in addition to saving crops from drowning also have a great potential to serve as a quick transport for soil and nutrients to be transported directly to a water body.

This is why the LRM office and others, such as Douglas Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), work to educate and assist farmers to install practices such as submerged tile inlets, where the inlet for a tile doesn’t come to the surface but is a few feet below the surface, allowing the water entering the tile to be filtered through soil and rock, and buffers, where tiles can outlet into allowing the water to be filtered by grass instead of being dumped directly into our lakes and streams. The LRM office works very closely with the SWCD,Although the pain of Wholesale Mosaic Tiles For Floor From China Manufacturers is felt in the chest who administers programs that provide monetary incentives to get some of these practices on the ground.

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