Evaluating the cost and performance of vegetative treatment systems on open beef feedlots in the Midwestern United States

Abstract

United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) regulations require concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to control open feedlot runoff resulting from storms up to and including a 25 year-24 hour storm event. Runoff collection systems commonly used in the United States for open beef feedlots consists of a basin designed to intercept runoff and provide storage until field conditions exist for land application. An alternative system being evaluated by a three-state research team is a vegetated treatment system (VTS) designed to infiltrate all of the feedlot runoff. This paper reports the runoff volumes and the mass of five physical parameters released from nine CAFO's utilizing VTS's located in the U.S. Great Plains region (six sites in Iowa, two in Nebraska, one in Minnesota). Comparisons between sites were made based on the volume and mass of these parameters retained within the system. The performances of the nine VTS varied depending on site specific rainfall, stocking densities, feedlot to VTA ratio, and system design. Five of the nine VTAs monitored in 2009 did not report an actual release from their system. The percent runoff controlled varied by site ranging from a high of 100 percent to a low of -6 percent. The overall average percent of mass reduced from five tested parameters varied from 100 to 72 percent.