Innovations in Nutrient Mitigation

[00:00:00] Max Herzog: Thanks so much everyone for taking the time to join us today. I'm Max Herzog. I'm Deputy Director of Cleveland Water Alliance, deputy Director of Programs and partnerships with Cleveland Water Alliance. We're one of the two convening organizations for this series on the state of, HABs mitigation Technologies. 

[00:00:26] we're a nonprofit that's focused on supporting innovation in water technology, and we're doing this series together with the Great Lakes Commission and their HABs collaborative coalition of scientists, researchers and agencies that are working to communicate insights, and information about harmful algal blooms to the Great Lakes community.

[00:00:49] So we're really excited to team up on this series that's really focusing on the cutting edge of technology in addressing harmful algal blooms. And our last session we talked about, direct mitigation of HABs and today we're gonna be diving into, mitigation of nutrient pollution. So really excited to have that conversation with y'all.

[00:01:10] Just one quick piece of housekeeping before we dive in. Really encourage you throughout the conversation to be dropping your questions into the Q&A in your sort of toolbar at the bottom. You may need to click the three dots to see to see the Q&A. It is different from the chat, although it looks quite similar.

[00:01:34] but just want to call that out. if you enter it in Q&A, it'll let our panelists see it. and we will be going there first for questions. and we should have some time for conversation at the end. So again, really encourage you to drop those questions in throughout. With that, it's my great pleasure to introduce our moderator for today.

[00:01:52] we're very fortunate to have Laura Johnson, the Chief Science Officer for Michigan Department of Agricultural and Rural Development here today. And she's gonna kick us off with a little bit of an intro for our speakers as well as some background on our topics. So I'll hand it over to Laura.

[00:02:11] Laura Johnson: Wonderful. Thanks Max. And thank you all for being here today. I'm really excited to learn more from our panelists about ways that they have been thinking about in terms of mitigating nutrient pollution. I just wanna briefly mention we have our three panelists. Steve Chamberland, who's co-founder of Water Warriors, Parker Cohn, who is founder at Performance Resource Management, and Steve Ostanek who was President of Neundorfer.

[00:02:39] So I think each panelist will bring a unique approach to this, and so I think that we should have a nice discussion. Before I get started, in asking our panelists a lot of questions, I wanted to mention a couple of things. First of all, it might seem a little interesting that someone from Michigan Department of Ag. and Rural Development is giving this intro, and so just a brief overview since joining MDARD.

[00:03:04] As Chief Science Officer, I have been tasked with establishing an office of Agricultural Science and research in the department, and as in doing so, you can imagine. Something under that title is probably taken on a lot of the wicked challenges in that natural resources, agriculture and human health space for that, those things that require a cross-disciplinary approach.

[00:03:26] So nutrient pollution, especially in the Great Lakes, falls really into that realm. So that's the involvement here for us and being thinking of these different approaches to nutrient mitigation. I would like to then jump in and give us a quick overview of nutrient pollution, just to make sure we're level set.

[00:03:46] We're talking the same language. Everyone sort of knows where the panelists are coming from. And I'll do this quickly 'cause I don't want to belabor our point in hearing what everyone has to say here. So our quick reminder is that we're talking about nutrients. Now for those of you who know who I am from my past work in Lake Erie, probably are thinking, oh, she's only talking about phosphorus.

[00:04:11] But as a reminder for nutrients, we're talking about both nitrogen and phosphorus. Often they come in a variety of different forms. Nitrogen loves to swap between its hydrogens as oxygens and likes to be in different forms, whether it's in gas or in the water. But we know that phosphorus as well is sometimes attached to particles and sometimes it's dissolved.

[00:04:32] Those types of forms have a lot of effect over how they're treated and how they travel through our environment, their fate and ultimate transport into downstream ecosystems. Now nutrients themselves are not harmful. They only become harmful because it causes overgrowth of organisms that give us troubles, especially in the human health realm.

[00:04:52] So thinking of cyanobacteria, creating cyanotoxins or overgrowth of bacteria like e coli, especially when it comes to our beach closures, that very clearly can make us quite ill. So a great example of this when we think of Lake Erie is that. You know, we know that Lake Erie loads are driven by dissolved phosphorus loads.

[00:05:11] So particularly one form of phosphorus that we are worried about, but that toxicity is associated with nitrogen. And honestly, phosphorus wouldn't be an issue if there wasn't so much nitrogen around for Lake Erie. So all of these things are intertwined in very interesting and complicated ways. So when we think of trying to fix this, anything you can't focus on just one thing.

[00:05:31] when we think of sources for nutrients, normally I like to think of them in two different ways. We have waste either from humans or animals, or we have runoff from land, whether it's fertilizers or manure. Manure is one of those tricky ones 'cause it's both an animal waste as well as something that gets applied to land.

[00:05:49] So it can also look like it's just the typical land runoff. same thing with biosolids, right? That's something that's a human waste, but ultimately there is nutrient value in these products. and that's why they get applied to land. We have to remember that when we're thinking about nutrients, phosphorus is non-renewable and nitrogen is incredibly energy intensive to create.

[00:06:14] And so, you know, improving the sustainability and the reuse of these materials is good both for us as a society, but then also in terms of food security ultimately. We also have septic tanks that are a common source of nutrients and those kind of fall in that funny gray area as well. If you have drain fields, is it run off like land or is it a pipe that's being regulated, like a wastewater treatment plant?

[00:06:41] not right now. Thanks. Yep. All right, where are we? Sorry. They wanna take out my trash and then I got distracted. So land runoff we know is one of our big challenges right now because you know, it's driven by snowmelt terrain events, and these are very pulse nutrients that move quickly through the system.

[00:07:00] They go to downstream ecosystems to cause these problems that aren't always being generated at the location where they're happening. So there's this disconnect between where the eutrophication or the algal blooms or the e coli might be happening. Sometimes with more like point sources or our wastewater that can be happening at the location and causing problems directly and nearby to where that input is happening.

[00:07:23] So, remembering to think about the locale and where our issues are is also part of the complexity of this issue. We know that agricultural runoff can be the result of recent applications if you apply right before a rain event, or it could be past applications. So let's say you applied manure to one field over and over again for 10 years without ever measuring your soil phosphorus.

[00:07:47] If you don't apply again, it's still gonna release phosphorus probably for another 10 years. So remembering that we're not always dealing with issues that are being caused in the moment and there's legacy and time lags associated with these issues. And the final point I wanna make is that our climate is rapidly changing.

[00:08:03] We're experiencing that right now, so we're getting more rain, so we're getting more land runoff. We're getting higher temperatures, so the receiving water bodies are warmer, which means we get more organisms growing. Either it's e coli or, or those blooms. This does not make anything easier for any of us.

[00:08:21] and so because of all of these challenges, I would say all of them just all together into one little funnel. We know that innovative and new approaches are really needed. This type of discussion is gonna be required to advance progress towards sustaining our water into the future. Okay, now that I have said all of my spiel, let's move on to our speakers so you can hear from them instead of from me.

[00:08:45] So with our first question for today and speakers, I'll remind you to, to review your technology and give a little introduction to yourself in this, in this first question here. Can you speak to your perspective on the evolving state of nutrient mitigation today? How is new technology changing the conversation?

[00:09:06] And I'm gonna lay, let Steve Chamberland kick us off.

[00:09:10] Steve Chamberland: Yeah, thanks Laura. And thanks for, you know, the overview. You know, I think. What we've learned over the years. I mean, it's a significant challenge, harmful algae blooms and, you know, there's, there's a lot of stuff out there in the landscape right now where, you know, perhaps it's more treating the symptoms that we see rather than.

[00:09:31] You know, the source of the problem. And from, from our perspective, you know, we develop Poseidon pellets, which captures phosphorus from water upon contact. but just, you know, going the extra step from just capturing the phosphorus, but also, being able to reuse the pellets as a soil amendment or fertilizer.

[00:09:51] because as you mentioned in the opening, phosphorus is not only a depleting resource. It's a very useful, helpful element. So I think, from our perspective, we're looking at the challenges, you know, to be able to not only solve the problem, but also be able to harness a useful element, so that it can be used for a beneficial purpose.

[00:10:17] Laura Johnson: Yeah. Thanks Steve. On our next few. Steve Ostanek, did you wanna add to that?

[00:10:26] Steve Ostanek: Yeah, thank you Laura. I think, You know, we have solutions, that are, that are available to us. And one thing we've learned, by being in the air pollution control industry is that if you wait until downstream. You know, you might be a little too late. So we're taking the approach of, and, and testing the solution that intervenes farther upstream, you know, at the source on, on the farm, and you have a better chance of success with that.

[00:10:59] and, you know, we're using a pulsed electric field technology, and I wanted to just kind of share pictures that are worth a thousand words. so I don't confuse our audience. I just wanted to share. I assume you can see my screen?

[00:11:22] Laura Johnson: I can. That's good.

[00:11:23] Steve Ostanek: Okay, good. So, the pulsed electric field technology that we're piloting right now, actually, we just finished three full scale demonstrations, of the technology is a way to shift manure treatment from downstream.

[00:11:41] From a downstream liability to maybe an upstream opportunity and, and maybe help transform the dairy operations. You know, what, what is it? Just kind of imagine breaking apart the organic waste at a cellular level, and that releases, or liberates the nutrient in this case, phosphorus.

[00:12:06] so that it can be managed more effectively. And, we're doing that without adding any chemicals, any massive infrastructure or using a lot of resources to do it. And you know, if we look at it as, or ask the question of, you know, what are the long-term consequences? Kind of take a systems approach here.

[00:12:31] we're trying to design this so that we avoid any unintended environmental trade-offs. you know, this should allow, and, and to speak to, to Steve's point is, you know, there is, and, and Laura's point too, that you made earlier, you know, phosphorus is, is a non-renewable. And, if we can create value outta something, then, the farmer benefits from that, on their own fields as well as benefits from maybe creating a revenue stream that they didn't have in the future.

[00:13:06] because we allow that phosphorus to go to the bottom of the lagoon and then that lagoon, that sludge can be harvested for future use and applied when appropriate.

[00:13:23] Laura Johnson: Okay. Parker, the floor is yours.

[00:13:26] Parker Cohn: All right. Good morning everybody. My name is Parker. I'm a mechanical engineer and founder of Performance Resource Management. So what we do is we regenerate soil using biology. So three things essentially create an opportunity for, for us, or job insurance or security, monocropping.

[00:13:45] Fertilizer and chemical use and tillage and compaction or overuse of a soil. So these three main things create this opportunity for a nature-based solution, which results from, you know, we start with diagnosing what the problem is because different soils have different problems. We've been managing our agricultural soils, even golf courses and sports fields have been under different managers with different philosophies and so different problems.

[00:14:10] Originate in that, in those separate fields, farms, or golf courses. So we diagnose what the problems are and use prescriptive biology to regenerate the soil and solve the problems, whether it's salt toxicity or compaction or thatch or black layer or, you know, all these, all these nutrient lockup, you know, solve these issues for our customers.

[00:14:34] Results of our program are nutrient reduction from higher efficiency or mineralization of nutrients from the soil to the plant. Water savings via less more water availability in the soil profile via better drainage and less runoff and evaporation. and also a higher quality and quantity of crops.

[00:14:56] So better nutrient absorption from the plant between the soil and the plant, and also allowing us to have a healthier, more resilient crop. What I'm seeing in, you know, as far as adoption at work across, it's very different working with farmers to working with golf course superintendents and senior directors of field management for sports fields.

[00:15:17] But something that's very consistent between the three markets is that they're very conservative, very slow to adopt change. But I'm seeing more new technology being explored by those more public facing markets. So golf courses are seeing public criticism for their use of chemicals. And there was an article that came out about six months ago about increased Parkinson's rates on, you know, populations living around a golf course.

[00:15:43] You know, the conversation about artificial turf on sports fields and the health implications of that. There's much more, I'd say golf and sports fields have much more public view and awareness. Of what's going on. You know, for instance, if you have kids at a sports field, I live in California, in the southwest, so we often have, you know, signs that say, don't drink the water 'cause we're irrigating with reclaimed water.

[00:16:09] Right. There's much more public facing information for these golf course and sports fields markets than when you go, you know, comparing to when you go to the grocery store and you're buying, you know, tomatoes, or bananas. There's no real, you have no real idea of what's going in to that tomato or those bananas, where they are actually grown, come from what chemicals practices, how they got there and what the environmental impact of those were.

[00:16:38] Whereas golf courses and sports fields are taking more risks. I think adopting more technology, looking into drones, soil sensors, soil regeneration, like what I'm doing. and, and that's, I've really seen the market move in the more public facing areas of golf and sports fields, and it's slower to adopt in agriculture.

[00:17:02] But, like the harmful algal blooms and the conversation today of all places like. I've had an incredible amount of interest from Florida because Florida has major water contamination issues with, you know, as Laura said, nitrogen phosphorus was also low dissolved oxygen, in their water sources. So, factoring in where do these harmful algal blooms come from?

[00:17:28] Look at the supply chain. Look at where did the phosphorus and the nitrates come from that caused the low dissolved oxygen in our water bodies. And if we can be more efficient upstream, right, use less. mineralize what's in the soil, and also be more efficient With every pound of fertilizer that we have to apply to maintain our monocropped systems, then we can reduce the nutrient load on harmful algal blooms down down the pipe.

[00:17:59] Laura Johnson: Thanks Parker. Okay, so I'm gonna take a moment right now to plug the Q&A. So remember, if you have questions, please put them in the Q&A spot so we can answer them both in real time or when we get to the end here. So our next question is, what limitations, risks, or other barriers stand in the way of implementing these solutions at scale?

[00:18:22] And have you seen any promising mitigation projects to fail? Let's see here. Who wants to go first? Let's go with Steve Ostanek first.

[00:18:36] Steve Ostanek: Thank you. I think there's three significant barriers that are out there. One is validation, the other is adoption, and the third is political will. so, validation, from a, you know, scientific standpoint and a financial standpoint is challenging. Every farm in this case, you know, we're talking about farms, every farm is different.

[00:19:05] You know, there's different weather, there's different waste characteristics. Different operational practices. All these things vary all the time, and that makes validation challenging. and that's also why initiatives like H2Ohio and the willingness of the EPA to fund pilot projects is so important, you know, to this process.

[00:19:29] Another barrier is adoption. Adoption is part of innovation and, we have to develop incentive structures that work for the stakeholders, in the group, and in this case the, you know, the farmers. and, we have to be able to show how these technologies can be implemented without creating a large financial burden on the stakeholders.

[00:20:07] The third political will, or the lack of it can make or break, you know, any of these technologies. over a decade ago, our technology was applied in this very similar, scenario. And it wasn't successful because the science didn't work. It was not successful because the political will faltered.

[00:20:37] And, and prevented it from proceeding.

[00:20:45] Laura Johnson: Parker, do you have more to add thinking of up on the agricultural side of things?

[00:20:51] Parker Cohn: Yeah, absolutely. So kind of bridging off of some of the things that Steve said, validation and field testing is really challenging in agriculture, and agriculture doesn't happen in a vacuum.

[00:21:06] One of the challenges I see technologies face is, you know, we, we go out and we do, we do a project where there's literally 40% less water used on the water meter, right? And 70% less nutrients used on the sports field that has been grown by the same person for 20 years. Yet there will always be scrutiny.

[00:21:27] Right. An eyebrow being raised to these changes. Oh, well. The weather was, or we had a bit more water. And a lot of these can be, we have so much capacity to collect data now. We have more data than we've, it's almost overwhelming. But one of the things that's really beneficial, and I think what we have to lean into in agriculture is.

[00:21:49] You know, historic yields, like leaning into average historic yields going back 10, 15 years, is pretty standard for crop insurance. And looking at, looking at what our inputs were, then, what our outputs were then. And then what technology have we adopted and what has actually changed, in the field?

[00:22:07] What have we done to our yields? What have we done to our nutrient, applications? And I like the main thing that here that I see as a challenge is agriculture has become more monopolistic or smaller farms, the ones that are more incentivized to, 'cause it's, it's, it's either, it's either tread water or sink really.

[00:22:27] And they're really forced to adopt technology to keep, you know, the lights on. They're being bought up by the larger ones, making it more private and more restricted from the public view. Kind of getting back to what I said before about what fosters innovation, and economies of scale, allow these farms to operate the same way they have without incentive to do anything different.

[00:22:51] 'cause they have, you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of acres in some cases. I'd like to see competition come into place somehow. To encourage nutrient reductions and adoption of technology that reduces the nutrient load and chemical applications at, at scale to somehow gamify where if you're, if you're, if you're using 20, 30, 40% less inputs while maintaining or increasing your yields, for instance, like it would be cool if we had some sort of program that would kind of gamify being more efficient from a environmental and a health.

[00:23:28] Perspective from, from our being the end consumer living on this planet.

[00:23:35] Laura Johnson: All right, I'm gonna write that down. Gamify efficiency in farming. All right, thank you. Steve Chamberland, what types of limitations, risks, or other barriers have you seen in terms of implementing solutions at scale?

[00:23:50] Steve Chamberland: Yeah, I think I'd, I'd echo a lot of, you know, what the others have said. I mean, in water, the industry as a whole is risk adverse as it should be.

[00:24:00] I mean, it's a very important resource. You know, we really need to know how we're treating the water. And so to go through all those steps is absolutely necessary. So regulation is, is, is definitely a part of it. you know, and, and having to go through that process and, and doing it the right way.

[00:24:17] So. That there is confidence and understanding of what this new, innovative technology is. and, and, you know, being able to, to put yourself in the right places. Right. I think the awareness factor, and I know when Parker was talking earlier and maybe it's some of those forms, but the conversations around this topic are much different now than they were even about five years ago.

[00:24:39] So I do think the awareness is there. You know, our Poseidon pellets are very versatile, so we have conversations in a lot of different markets. You know, whether it's agriculture runoff or wastewater treatment facilities, both municipal and industrial. you know, as well as, you know, storm water, lake and pond management.

[00:24:58] So there's a lot of different conversations that we have. We talk to a lot of different people, but the reality is, we need to be talking to the people that. There's a higher percentage of action that's going to take place. And, and what we find is not only is it awareness, but you're also, you know, the areas that have some sort of regulation and enforcement on, you know, discharge limits of phosphorus in particular, into the water.

[00:25:26] or, or different, incentives. whether it be, you know, violations that are, you know, a potential or if there's other ways to incentivize action, because I think that's when you start to move the needle a little bit more. And we're starting to see progress. We have a project that'll be coming online in the United Kingdom, a wastewater treatment facility.

[00:25:52] It'll be using 60 tons of Poseidon pellets, but that was about two years in the making. A project down in Florida, which it's been in the works for over three years, should be coming online in the next several months. So. It's a long game. It's a long process. But I think the good news is, there's a light at the end of the tunnel if you're able to keep kind of going through the steps, which are, you know, in our opinion, absolutely necessary.

[00:26:23] Laura Johnson: Okay. alright, so we only have one prescribed question remaining, and that is. What does the future of nutrient mitigation look like? And what could successful scaled implementation of this technology enable? So how about we get started? Who hasn't? Maybe Parker, do you wanna go first this time?

[00:26:47] Parker Cohn: Sure, sure. So. The future of nutrient mitigation. I really see a lot of policy influencing what nutrient mitigation is like golf specifically. Golf specifically in Florida is really, there's some policy that's gonna go into place in 2030 that is extremely aggressive, regarding nutrient use and mitigation.

[00:27:17] And we see, you know, in California, the Coastal Commission, we have a lot of regulations and policy that push it here. But I think one of the, one of the bigger things, I don't remember the statistics off the top of my head, but it's, it's like eight outta 10 products used in the United States, like aren't allowed to be used in Europe on playing fields or something, which is crazy.

[00:27:39] So we're talking about fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and. the chemicals that we use to treat nematode issues in the southeast, and we also are starting to have nematode issues on the west coast as well. But, these chemicals are extremely toxic and so with the current administration and the direction everything's going, these managers and decision makers that are managing, you know, somebody who manages a hundred golf courses, you know, billions and billions of dollars of asset

[00:28:12] We see them looking to the horizon of how are we going to displace this once it's, once it's gone, how are we gonna control these disease issues? Once these, you know, drugs are no longer available for our use, they're not on the shelf anymore. So I think the… and that's more on the public facing side of where the land managers are looking ahead.

[00:28:38] But it's being pushed by policy. It's the threat of losing the tools, right? And having tools taken out of your toolbox that is really driving the movement for, you know, nutrient mitigation from my experience.

[00:29:00] Laura Johnson: All right. Steve Chamberland, you can go next.

[00:29:04] Steve Chamberland: Yeah, I think, Again I'd echo some of those things that Parker said. You know, I do think that there's a lot of really good studies. There's a lot of really good information and I, and I think, not only just the technology of, of treatment, but the, the technology of monitoring and understanding the problem, even at a deeper level has come a long way, which.

[00:29:25] Then naturally as you start asking questions of, well, is this chemical the best way, you know, to try to solve the problem? And, and I think as the problem, you know, continues to grow and we're seeing algae blooms in areas that never used to deal with them before. And, and certainly that's just the byproduct of warming temperatures of the water and then all of.

[00:29:46] Sudden the nutrients have always been there, but now you know the conditions are just right and now you're starting to see blooms in areas that you haven't before. So, you know, there's more and more of these treatment methods are being used and exponentially more of the products being put in the water.

[00:30:00] And then what kind of environmental impacts are those starting to show, or are we now able to measure and make sense of that maybe we weren't able to before? So I do think the trend of really going in the direction of, You know, nature-based solution type, you know, methods and, and technologies.

[00:30:19] And then of course, you know, I think in many industries, if you're not being really thoughtful on the materials and the products and the things that you're using. To either be able to reuse or, you know, to be able to capture and reuse and find beneficial purposes. I think, you know, that for sure is the future.

[00:30:41] and it's not because it's a necessity, right? We're getting to that point where, you know, there's a lot of different studies you can look at the numbers start going down as far as, you know, when we might not have access to some of the things that we've been accustomed to, in our, in our normal everyday lives.

[00:31:03] Laura Johnson: Okay. And Steve Ostanek, you wanna wrap us up on this one?

[00:31:07] Steve Ostanek: Yeah. you know, I think it's important when you start looking at the future of scale and, and implementation that we think beyond technology and the application of technology and look. And, and look toward a kind of ecosystem enablement.

[00:31:31] And, you know, if we think about nutrient mitigation as a compliance exercise, we're probably missing the boat, missing some opportunities. If we reframe that as a system optimization challenge, you know, where it creates value for the stakeholders. It improves water, it reduces long-term costs. I think that kinda liberates the thinking.

[00:31:59] and. Maybe even give some people, you know, even more hope that things could be done. Right now we're, we're seeing, and, and this is from our recent learning in this, in this area, is there's, there's alignment between, you know, public funding and private sector investment in R&D and interest in the stakeholders.

[00:32:22] that's a, that's a formula for scale. but it's not enough to take it from pilot to practice. And that's where we gotta get to. And I'll go back to something that Parker said, you know, earlier about, you know, validation. We have to change our thinking from, I'm at a zero now and I want to get to a 10.

[00:32:50] And we're missing the twos, the threes and the fours in between there that are starting to move the needle. Right. And, and this is not a, you know, it's not a home run. It's not one thing is going to do this because of all the variability that's out there. Right. and if we look at how do we, if we get to a three, that's great.

[00:33:13] What, what can we do? What can we use? What other technologies or practices can we use to move it to a five and kind of just continue down that, that continuum.

[00:33:27] Laura Johnson: Nice. Thank you. So we have a number of questions in the Q&A. A few of 'em are around the topic of manure and improve manure management. So I was hoping that maybe. Each one of you, if you're feeling so willing, would like to discuss in a little bit more detail about how you reduce the nutrients associated with, you know, manure.

[00:33:50] Either when it's in a waste, you know, as waste in a lagoon, or if it's being applied to the land, how are you making sure that maybe the nutrients are less or you're preventing runoff, like anything along that, that sort of continuum of generation to use. and I'll let… any one of you can go first. I don't know which one would wanna, maybe Steve Ostanek, since you have, technology that's directly in a lagoon and you wanna go first?

[00:34:17] Steve Ostanek: Yeah. Where do you want me to start?

[00:34:23] Laura Johnson: Well, there have been some requests here for a little bit more detail on how, like, how that operation would work anyway in terms of finances and costs and then. You know, how do, how does that get to the point where you're actually reducing, you know, potentially phosphorus or nitrogen from entering waterways?

[00:34:43] Steve Ostanek: Yeah, no, it's, you know, from an application standpoint, you know, one of the things we have to be. aware of, and, and it's not just farmers, but we'll talk about farmers. 'cause that's the context that we know now, is you don't want to burden the operation. So whether it's a farm, whether it's a golf course, whether it's a wastewater treatment plant, you don't want to burden that operation with additional

[00:35:15] Operating headaches or costs and, and that, so, I think, you know, from our standpoint, we have a very simple technology. It's, you know, we can, we and, and all three pilot demonstrations that we did, probably within four hours we had the system up and running. Over the period of weeks, you know, farmers were telling us if, if I didn't have to pay attention to the generator, now this is a temporary installation, so we had to have a generator, but I didn't have to pay attention to the generator, I wouldn't have to pay attention to this thing at all.

[00:35:58] So to them that's kind of validation. It's like, hey, this is not gonna create a burden for me. and so we just need a, you know, we need some electricity and away we go. you know, with that. so, I think we have to be super sensitive to, to that, you know, how we, how we apply these things and what are the true costs, you know, that are, that are gonna be gonna be incurred.

[00:36:34] we feel that this is a super low cost. We're, we're talking cents per gallon of, of treatment, you know, for, you know, for, for cost in, involved with this thing. The other challenge that we're faced with is this is not something that, you know, in the case of a farm, you need to have 24/7. You just need to have it at certain periods of time during the year prior to spreading.

[00:37:03] And you know, that to us is more of a service than a capital equipment purchase for, you know, for the farmer.

[00:37:14] Laura Johnson: And then ultimately, as a reminder for the audience here, you know, once you've used your technology but prior to spreading, then that would ultimately reduce the at least the amount of phosphorus in the water that would be used and reused.

[00:37:28] And then it would concentrate it in the sludge, in the bottom. So then you can be more careful with your application. Is that the general approach?

[00:37:37] Steve Ostanek: Yes. That's the approach. And, at the appropriate time, a lagoon could be, could be cleaned out and then that phosphorus rich material could be applied to the fields at an appropriate time.

[00:37:57] Laura Johnson: So it increases the storage of that material so you don't have to apply it the wrong periods of time, which we know can always lead at the run off than we want. Perfect.

[00:38:07] Steve Ostanek: Right,

[00:38:07] Laura Johnson: right. All right. Okay. I'm gonna pass on to another panelist if they wanna tackle this manure question.

[00:38:16] Any, either one of you feel like going first on this topic?

[00:38:21] Parker Cohn: So, so with, with manure, so I've got some experience working with dairy farmers. On the dairy side, I can't really speak to the other sources of manure, poultry or, or anything else. But, one of the things on the agricultural production side that can help mitigate waste is feeding, you know, growing higher quality alfalfa, you know, feeding the animals.

[00:38:45] Having their feed have higher feed values, higher protein to ultimately produce less waste. You know, the high end dairy farmers buy A1 hay, they buy the premium – kind of like, it's kinda like you're at the gas pump and you select high octane. It's like the folks who are running big dairies, really looking at, at managing waste, will use feed quality, and spend more money.

[00:39:10] On higher quality feed, which has a bunch of additional benefits, right? If you have, if your animals have higher quality feed, they're gonna have better immune, better immune systems. They're gonna have higher quality product, and probably more of it, they're gonna have less waste, you know, coming out of, of, of each cow that's, you know, expensive to process, has a lot of environmental, you know, consequences to it.

[00:39:34] That's, that's the main, when, when we talk about, talk about fertilizer, how they use, how they use it, I guess as well, is when we start making, applications of fertilizer to the soil, you know, taking or applications of the dairy waste to whether it's you know, sludge or slurry or whatever, and we're injecting it into pivots and putting it out on fields like.

[00:40:04] That is essentially free fertilizer, which can be beneficial for, for growing, for growing crops. But, a lot of the, a lot of the nitrogen and the nutrients in the manure isn't readily available. It's why composting has become such, such a, I mean, has taken the industry by storm out here.

[00:40:27] You have to order your compost. If you want serious compost on your fields, you've got a. You've gotta place orders for it 6, 8, 12 months in advance to be able to get the supply to amend your soils. So in that scenario, the dairy waste is moving to the compost facility to get broken down, essentially taken to a higher quality and then sold at a higher price to the farmers to, essentially regenerate their…

[00:40:54] Not regenerate, but amend their soil in more available, you know, bioavailable forms of nutrients that results in, you know, higher feed quality over time. So my experience with working with manure generators is predominantly on the dairy side. And those are the trends that I see, kind of happening on the waste management side.

[00:41:20] Laura Johnson: Yeah. I think oftentimes when you think of application manure land, it's as you know, the challenge happens when you're being applied as a waste, and they're turning it into the resource that it really is. And having value associated with it should certainly help people sort of reframe their views around that, that type of phosphorus or nitrogen.

[00:41:38] So, Steve Chamberland, I wanna give you an opportunity to chat with you.

[00:41:42] Steve Chamberland: Yeah, and I'll keep it short. 'cause I mean, for us, you know, it would be, you know, if there was a runoff from an area where there might be livestock or, or something of that nature. because solids, if solids are caking up on the pellets, then it's gonna impede their performance in, in, capturing phosphorus.

[00:41:58] So we find ourselves in areas where the solids aren't. but we've also had plenty of conversations with other different treatment methods or even, inter rope digestion or even lagoons and, and things where there might be something that's taking place. I know Steve mentioned, you know, dredging Lagoon.

[00:42:15] I mean, that's a good example of, you know, when you dredge it and you dewater it and you have this, you know, phosphorus rich water, where is that being discharged to? And so, you know, we can get involved in areas like that. And I think with a lot of different problems out there, sometimes it's multiple technologies that you're able to integrate to really get the best results.

[00:42:36] Laura Johnson: Thank you. So since you've been talking so much about recovered phosphorus in particular, there was a panel question about if anyone is looking at non-agricultural use of that recovered phosphorus. A couple of examples. Stain flame retardants or corrosion inhibitors, but there could be a lot of other options as well. Have you guys been hearing about that aside from reusing it as fertilizer?

[00:43:03] I see a lot of head shaking, so I'm gonna say that that's probably a no. but it is an interesting thought because we know a lot of phosphates used in the drinking water process to, you know, protect pipes for corrosion that ultimately would end up in our, wastewater treatment plants to get removed before it's discharged into a waterway.

[00:43:23] Steve Ostanek: Laura, that's an, that is an interesting question and I probably just haven't, haven't thought about it much. But, it helps with the financial adoption, you know, of technologies. And if you are only looking at, if you're only looking at, okay, what, if we can only use phosphorus for agriculture, then my box is this.

[00:43:47] But if it's. Or drinking water and other applications in my box is bigger than that. And so that's, that's a, that's a good question. That's a thought provoking question for us.

[00:43:58] Laura Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. let me see here. I have a nice long one here in the Q&A about work on cost benefit, as it relates to reducing the need for external inputs.

[00:44:12] I think, Parker, you were talking about this a little bit more, but you might wanna add a little bit more to it. The question is, at what cost point does it become more financially feasible for farmers to reuse local nutrients rather than import commercial fertilizers?

[00:44:28] Parker Cohn: I can speak to a little bit of that, of with what we do with my business, with regenerating the soil as we're able to typically displace the use of additional inputs and mine or make available what's already in the soil.

[00:44:45] So. Every farm's gonna be different. The way that every farmer has managed their soil and the inputs that they've used and how they've used it, the crops that they've grown, the crops that they've cycled, all of this factors into what the nutrient load in that specific soil, what we're going to be able to do to displace, you know, nutrient input.

[00:45:08] One of the bigger challenges. I know we're, this is cost benefit and cost benefit has so many different nuances going into it, but there's, there are financially feasible ways to displace nutrients, but it also comes down to the education level of the farmer and their willingness to change and adapt.

[00:45:30] You know, how are we making decisions on the farm? How are we, you know, for instance, I work with a lot of tomato farmers. We take petiole samples weekly to determine what nutrients get applied. But where the folks who are making the decisions on literally 300,000 acres of tomatoes a year, they're looking at.

[00:45:56] At the plant, they're not looking necessarily at the soil, but at the beginning of the year. So even if there is phosphorus in the soil, they're typically gonna look at the plant's deficiency or where they want the plant levels to be, to make these decisions. And I think part of a strategy in the cost benefit analysis is looking at the big picture, is holistically looking at, okay, the whole system consists of the soil, what's in the soil, what's in our agronomic plan, what are we putting into the soil and what is showing up in the plant?

[00:46:33] You can often see, you know, deficiencies, inefficiency between the soil and the plant that have these opportunities to reduce phosphorus loading. There are products, there are services, there are technologies that can, that can help with that. One worth calling out–

[00:46:55] I got a long response going to the Golf specific question here, but another source of nutrients is the water source. So part of my job and, and what I'm doing with my, almost every customer I work with is. Are we quantifying the nutrient load in our water source as part of the agronomic plan and the total nitrogen?

[00:47:17] The total phosphorus applied over the course of a year, and oftentimes the nutrients that are in the water are not available, so they're not really factored in. So when, when we go to, you know. How do we make the cost, the cost benefit analysis to offset our input use? I'd say that's part of the process of, of what I do when I onboard a customer is I look at, I look at their water, I look at their soil, I look at their agronomic plan.

[00:47:55] And when I see opportunities for reduction, for instance, we have, we have more, we have two and a half times the amount of nitrogen that the plant needs. Going in, like based on, you know, nitrogen demands and studies on the specific type of Bermuda grass, for instance, right. Over time, the biggest, the biggest challenge is education and the resistance to change, doing something new, trusting, you know, a new methodology that the farmer's been, you know, doing the same thing for 40, 30, 40, 50 years.

[00:48:33] Sometimes longer if it's a multi-generational farm. I think that's the best I can contribute to that, to that cost benefit Question is, is kind of share a little bit about my approach and, and, and go from there.

[00:48:53] Laura Johnson: Anybody else wanna contribute more on that?

[00:49:01] Steve Chamberland: if, if I understand the question right. I, I think, the, the other thing, and I like when Parker was saying, you know, really look at, you know, the big picture, the whole picture. And I think one of the other things to look at is where is this reused phosphorus coming from, because it might also be solving a large problem for that stakeholder, which might have a hefty price tag that they're dealing with.

[00:49:21] And if there's a way to then, you know, be able to, to have that reuse option that's also going to save, you know, where the phosphorus was being generated from the, you know, save them money or time or convenience or whatever it might be. So I think, you know, that might also play into the cost benefit.

[00:49:45] Laura Johnson: Okay, so before I think I, we go onto the very final question. What I would like to sort of bring up real quickly is this idea. So we've been talking a lot about, you know, sort of a bit on the public facing side of things about how, you know, if there's a public viewpoint then, you know, like you, You see that change happen more or, you know, we talked a bit on the reclamation and the manure and all of that side of things, but I'm just kind of curious of your thoughts on the role of, consumer driven change over a typical sort of incentive base or other types of approaches.

[00:50:23] Have you had any experience that consumer driven changes have helped spearhead any particular technologies or helped any of your projects sort of get up and running more than you would have otherwise?

[00:50:41] Steve Chamberland: I think you do have, like in some markets that we're in, you know, I mentioned before some, you know, a lot of times it's the regulation, it's the enforcement and, and that's what's driving the action, but, you know, there are those rare individuals that are really just looking, you know, to do things the right way.

[00:51:01] And they are, they're exploring something that is environmentally friendly, that they can see that it's a better method and, in a more environmentally friendly method than what they've been doing. And so they're willing to then try, right? They're willing to create the action on their own because, you know, they, they want to do the right thing.

[00:51:21] I think maybe matches up with, if you call them the consumer. You know, they're then buying, right? They're buying the product that they then are doing that because of those reasons. not because of some enforcement or, or, you know, regulation.

[00:51:44] Laura Johnson: Anyone else wanna, I

[00:51:45] Steve Ostanek: think, yeah, I think anytime when you have, when you have the consumer, drive the action. Or drive the behavior, things can change quicker, at, at that point. And there's, you know, there's lots of examples out there in various forms. in, in this specific case is, the things that we're talking about.

[00:52:15] there's a lack of awareness, I think, of what, What the challenge really is, they hear soundbites. and in this case, the soundbite that they may be hearing is, oh, we're beating up the farmers again. You know, they're, you know, they've got a problem and they're just sticking their head in the sand and not dealing with it.

[00:52:42] And that's so far from the truth. But we don't know what that problem is. Right. so. you know, someone, in the Q&A had had asked a question around the engagement of farmers. And I think if we look at farmers as that consumer, right, they're very engaged. I mean, that was surprising to us at how engaged they are to tackle the problem, the challenge that's at hand.

[00:53:16] They may not know what to do with it. And, and they, they may have constraints around their operation. but they are, they're very open-minded as being a conservative group as they are. They're very, very open-minded about this thing and willing to do something to try to help.

[00:53:41] Laura Johnson: That was a lovely segue, Steve, because I was gonna bring up that question about the engagement and interest of farmers and adopting new technologies. So I may, that might be a nice, switch over into thinking about that. And last, Parker, you wanna also talk about consumer driven change as well, so I'll let you kick it off.

[00:53:57] Parker Cohn: It's kind of a hybrid. It's kind, it sounds like it's kind of a step into your next question was what my response is gonna be, but, but consumer driven adoption from the, from the scope of soil regeneration and my experience in all markets, agriculture and specifically in agriculture is being driven more on the.

[00:54:16] land owner side. And so I've gained a lot more, a lot more traction working through the water, the water districts or working with, not really working through, but working with, because the water districts are in, are in the business of securing a water supply, right? And so when we, when we see the water district leases the land to the farmer.

[00:54:46] For, you know, five years, 10 years leases, and when the water district includes our technology for the consumer, it's almost just the tone of the engagement, the entire relationship is off to a different start. It's not combative, it's not really questioning. It's entirely educational and

[00:55:11] That service that's kind of, you know, funded for by the Water District allows the consumer to be, you know, to, to not be guarded, to really be open. And we find our, we have, it's so much more pleasant to work with folks who are just really excited to work with you rather than having to, to make a sale.

[00:55:33] And they're excited to learn from, from all the experience of the water district and the liaisons that's job is to, you know manage this property. and I think that kind of goes into your next question of like, how's policy going to affect it? but I'll end there.

[00:55:54] I'll cap it off there, and if there's anything to highlight in the next question, we will.

[00:56:03] Laura Johnson: Well really we're, we only have two minutes remaining. And so what I was going to switch over to was, you know, we can talk about policy or regulations in the next five to 10 years if you wanna give that or if you would prefer. I was thinking any last final thoughts of something that you wanted to mention related to innovations and technology associated with nutrient mitigation that you haven't had a chance to, to be able to speak to yet?

[00:56:26] And maybe Steve Chamberland will let you go first.

[00:56:29] Steve Chamberland: Yeah. And, and I think, there was a question in the chat as well. The, so, and, and what I, what I haven't mentioned to this point that the Poseidon pellets were developed through a cooperative research and development agreement with the USEPA.

[00:56:43] So it was a three year process from taking these naturally occurring mineral materials and then pelletizing them, you know, to do what they do in capturing phosphorus from water. So. The EPA was adamant that we were not going to cause another problem by trying to solve a problem. So with those naturally occurring mineral materials, the ability to then reuse, we were also in studies with the USDA that were working very closely with growing corn and fescue grass to show the beneficial reuse of the pellets.

[00:57:16] Steve Ostanek: I'll just add, and there is actually part of a question that's in the group of, I think we shouldn't be afraid of to use public funding to try to jumpstart some of this stuff and gain momentI mean, that's how all you know kind of technologies. It's that quasi, public private synergies that happen.

[00:57:45] And, and if we can do that, some of these things can come to fruition faster and maybe the scale curve is not as steep

[00:58:02] Laura Johnson: and Parker,

[00:58:04] Parker Cohn: we didn't, we didn't dive into it at all, but the farm bill, I would like to see the farm bill be put to more diversified use and to build on what Steve said.

[00:58:14] Is to actually put more of that into funding innovation is to funding technology and actual farm trials, because I've gone out and split probably 50 or 60 fields in half over the course of the past 15 years to demonstrate the tech, the technology. But splitting a 50 acre field or a hundred acre field in half is nothing like doing 5,000 acres right.

[00:58:41] Or 10,000 acres. And it's much less difficult to refute when you have the scale behind it. So in our ability to use public, you know, funding. In order to use funding from the government taxpayer dollars to prove out technologies right at scale, that can have a massive impact on, on nutrient load, quality of feed, environmental, you know, benefits I'd really like to see that start to happen.

[00:59:21] Laura Johnson: Okay, so we are certainly at time now, so I'm going to wrap us up here and just thank our panelists for giving all of their thoughts. Clearly you guys have been working in this arena for long enough to have some really thoughtful ways of us considering how we can improve new treat mitigation through innovation really is, is our goal here. And so with that, thank you all for joining us online. If you have any follow up questions, I am sure you can get them to our colleagues here at the Cleveland Water Alliance and they'll ensure they get to one of us.

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