Water-quality benefits of having cattle manure deposited away from streams

Abstract

A series of runoff and infiltration studies with bovine feces placed 0.0, 0.61, 1.37, or 2.13 m from a collection point were used to assess effectiveness of vegetative filter strips. Effectiveness was evaluated on the ability of the separation distance to reduce the number of fecal coliform (FC) bacteria being transported from the manure to the edge of the plots. Bacterial transport was evaluated under conditions of variable distance, soil permeability, and rainfall intensity. The FC bacteria yields were 40–115 million at the edge of the manure pile. This is only 17% of the FC in the manure. FC concentrations and yields were further reduced as the separation increased. The analysis of data did not indicate significant differences of bacteria transport in relation to rainfall intensities of 5 cm/h versus 10 cm/h at the 0.61, 1.37, or 2.13 m distances.