Maintaining Ag Infrastructure
Cheese Plant, Methane Digester Team Up for Community Project
Beth Futrick
Pennsylvania Agricultural
Ombudsman Program
The infrastructure that supports agriculture is important to the development of food
and fiber in our country. But maintaining agricultural infrastructure can become a
challenge for small rural businesses. A community-owned cheese plant in Smicksburg,
Indiana County, Pa. faced an infrastructure challenge when the costs for disposal of the
plant's effluent became too expensive. The plant closed and the Amish community lost
the only viable market for their dairy cows' milk.
The closure had a ripple effect in the community. The closure of the plant was
pressuring the Amish families to consider relocatiing. The town had become a tourist
destination drawing thousands of visitors each year to the quaint Amish community to
patronize the local shops, restaurants and wineries. The loss of the "horse and buggy"
community represented a serious economic threat to Indiana and the surrounding
counties.
A team of community members rallied and found an innovative solution that led to
reopening the cheese plant. They worked with the Indiana County Office of Planning and
Development, the county commissioners, the Small Business Development Center at
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the Department of Agriculture, Rep. Sam Smith (RPa.),
Sen. Don White (R-Pa.), the Penn State Extension office, and the Indiana County
Conservation District to help get the cheese factory up and running.
To reopen the plant, Ed was faced with the expensive obstacle of disposing or treating
the cheese plant's waste water. The whey removed during the cheese process is
considered a waste product and a potential environmental problem. A proper disposal
method is needed when whey leaves the plant. Ed turned to Jim Resh from the Indiana
County Conservation District to help him find a financially sound process to remove the
whey. Jim knew a perfect place to dispose the waste material.
A year prior to Ed opening the plant, Jim was assisting a dairy producer, Keith
George, with the installation of an on-farm methane digester. Keith is in partnership with
his brother Kevin and William his father. They own and operate Brookside Dairy in
Homer City, a neighboring town just a few miles south of Smicksburg. A methane
digester is a system that generates electricity using bio-gases from cow manure.
Brookside Dairy's digester is fueled by 10,000 gallons of manure and animal bedding
contributed daily by the farm's 450 Holstein cows. Keith had noticed the manure coming
out of the barn was too dry for the digester pumps. The system requires a slurry material
to work effectively so Keith needed to add water to the manure.
Jim Resh approached Keith abut using liquid whey and washwater from Ed Evans'
cheese plant to help off-set the amount of water needed to run the digester. Keith agreed
and is now taking 12,000 to 18,000 gallons of waste water weekly from the plant.
The Georges do not charge the Evans' a tipping fee because the waste water
significantly reduced his water usage. Keith also noted the whey water provides a better
food source for the bacteria than manure alone. The boost in the bacteria population has increase the methane production by eight percent. The Brookside digester is steadily
making 80 kilowatts of electricity an hour, and operates more than 99 percent of the time.
The farm's monthly electricity bills were $4,000 to $4,500 before the digester was
installed. With the digester, Keith's monthly electric bill is in the $300 range, and only
comes during the summer months when the barn ventilation fans are in use.
The cheese factory is up and running. The Evans named the plant the Smicksburg
Community Cheese. Bobbi Jo Evans said. "It's named Smicksburg Community Cheese
because that's the reason - it's for the community."
