Dairy Industry Focuses on Water Reuse

Water for milk - Dairy industry pushes water reuse as conservation tactic

It takes water to make milk.

But like other agricultural practices, dairies are searching for ways to use less of it.

"The dairy industry is pretty conscientious of conservation and best management practices," said Joe Osterkamp, who runs a dairy a few miles west of Muleshoe.

The 6,000 or so cows at his Bailey County operation obviously need water to drink, but that's just the beginning. More water goes toward cooling the milk they produce, irrigating the crops they consume and cleaning the facilities where they reside.

A way to cut back on the number of gallons, Osterkamp said, is to funnel the same pool of water through multiple uses.

Its first step is through the dairy's refrigeration system.

"We've got to have water to cool the milk," he said.

Next, water is transferred into a holding tank, and from there is used as the cows' drinking water and for washing. What the cows don't use at that stage in the process next goes into a holding lagoon, then is used as irrigation water on Osterkamp's nearby fields.

It's a system that's found throughout the dairy business.

Darren Turley, executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen, estimates water goes through the cleaning-and-cooling process three or four times before it reaches its final spot on agricultural land.

"Most people would be surprised to the amount of re-use of water that a dairy does before we use it for crops," he said. "That ability to re-use water has helped make us much more efficient."

The crops on Osterkamp's land that grow from the reused dairy water are more drought-proof than they were a generation or two ago.

"We're using genetically improved crops that use water more efficiently," Osterkamp said.

Wash-up time at many dairies is more careful too, Turley added.

Years ago, he said, staff sprayed high-pressure water hoses over the cows' feed lanes for lengthier periods of time. Now, they rely on misters and timers.

"We've cut down on the amount of water quite a bit," he said.

Now, research indicates Texas and New Mexico dairies use about 55 gallons of water per cow per day, said Ellen Jordan, a Texas A&M AgriLife dairy specialist. But because about half of that amount is typically captured and re-used for irrigation, the net impact is closer to 30 gallons per cow, she said.

An AgriLife research project supported by the Ogallala Aquifer Program indicates the dairy industry experienced a period of rapid growth in the Southern Ogallala Region. The region — which consists of about 97,000 square miles from northern Kansas to the South Plains — saw a spike from 41,500 head of dairy cows in 1990 to 466,000 head in 2009.

Some of the largest of that growth was in the Texas High Plains, where the number of cows rose from 16,800 to 234,000 between 2000 and 2010.

Osterkamp, for instance, relocated to Muleshoe from California a few years ago to escape high land prices and tough regulations.

Source: Lubbock Online

Read More Related Content On This Topic - Click Here

Media

Taxonomy

• Water Reuse & Recycling
• Water Supply
• Drinking Water