College officials learned earlier this year that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Fund for Rural America will provide $3.84 million over four years to fund the creation of a National Center for Manure and Animal Waste Management in which the College will be a central player.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said in announcing the grant that the funding is included in $60 million being awarded through the Fund for Rural America to boost rural economies across the country.

The center initially will include 16 universities in 14 states. North Carolina State University is playing a lead role in the effort, and Dr. Frank Humenik, coordinator of the College’s waste management programs, will serve as center director.

While the center will fund some waste management research, its primary role will be to serve as a clearinghouse for waste management information, helping to ensure that research is not duplicated at the 16 center universities and that scientists at the various universities know about and are able to benefit from work done by their colleagues in different parts of the country. The center also will work to ensure that farmers are aware of the latest waste management research and information.

Humenik said one of the center’s first tasks will be to establish a Web site where waste management information may be shared. The center will also commission the preparation of white papers, which will be available on the Web site, on various waste management topics. The white papers will discuss what is known about the subject and suggest areas where more research and technological evaluation and demonstration are needed.

Center members, in addition to N.C. State, are Cornell University, Duke University, Iowa State University, Michigan State University, Oklahoma State University, Purdue University, the Texas A&M University system, University of Arkansas, University of California-Davis, University of Georgia, University of Maryland, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Wisconsin.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was included for the expertise of faculty members in pathogen studies, while Duke was included for odor expertise.

In another waste management development, the College broke ground in May on an Onslow County farm for installation of a constructed wetland designed to treat swine waste.

Researchers believe constructed wetlands may be an alternative to the lagoon/spray field system now used to treat waste on North Carolina hog farms.

The Onslow County wetland will treat waste from 3,520 hogs in four houses. The finishing farm, between Richlands and Jacksonville, is owned by Brandon Howard. Waste from the houses will go first to a solids separator, a screen that removes the solid portion of the waste stream. This material will be used in a vermiculture operation. Worms will be allowed to feed on the waste, decomposing it and turning it into a nutrient-rich substance that may be sold as a soil amendment.

The liquid waste will flow through a 13-acre constructed wetland filled with moisture-loving plants. After moving through the wetland, the liquid will flow into an irrigation pond. While the liquid will not be clean enough to discharge to surface waters such as streams, rivers or lakes, it should be much cleaner than the liquid in a typical lagoon.

College researchers, led by Humenik, have through much of the 1990s experimented with a pilot-scale constructed wetland at a swine nursery in Duplin County. That work showed that constructed wetlands are capable of removing large amounts of nitrogen from a waste stream and tend to produce little odor.

The Onslow County wetland, which is being built with funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the university, will be a full-scale treatment system. The wetland was designed in collaboration with Cavanaugh Associates, a Winston-Salem engineering firm with which College researchers have worked on a number of waste management projects.

Humenik said the Onslow County project is the second of what college officials hope will be several full-scale evaluations and demonstrations of promising alternative swine waste management technologies. Researchers already are evaluating a system that uses a cover over an existing lagoon. Biogas produced as the waste decomposes collects under the cover. The gas is then used to fuel a generator that produces electricity.

During the ’90s, college researchers evaluated the performance of a number of alternative technologies, but all the evaluations were done at pilot scale. Researchers now are moving to the next phase of technology evaluation, testing full-scale systems to see how they operate under real-world conditions. The Onslow County wetlands system is expected to be operational sometime this summer.