Project Search
Since its inception in 2004, CIG has funded hundreds of projects, boosting natural resource conservation while helping producers improve the health of their operations for the future. Use this tool to search for CIG projects based on any of the criteria listed below.
CIG projects from 2004-2009 may be missing information in the following categories: Resource Concern (specific), Conservation Practice, Production/Use.
Showing 1501 - 1510 of 1760 projects
Cayuga County Soil & Water Conservation District
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NY
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2006
The Cayuga County Soil and Water Conservation District (The District) will contract with Eco Technology Solutions (ECOTS) to assist in the design and implementation of a community aboveground mesophilic "hydraulic-mix" digester, which has been proven to have superior performance in over 100 European applications and has not been implemented in the US. This innovative technology reduces the odor associated with the land application of manure and also reduces the nutrient loading to local water bodies by transforming nutrients into soluble forms that are readily used by plants. The facility will be located on 5 acres of an 88 acre parcel of rural land owned by Cayuga County on the outskirts of Auburn in Central New York. This facility will service a minimum of four (4) EQIP eligible producers, providing them with an economic and environmentally friendly waste management option that will provide them with the nutrients they need to grow feed needed to sustain their herd by returning the liquid portion of the digestate to a satellite storage unit to be land applied. The solid portion will be used as an erosion control practice along roadsides with the remainder being sold in bulk to cash croppers and the landscaping industry. The biogas will be collected and converted into electricity that will be sold to three county office buildings to offset the operation and maintenance cost associated with running a community digestion facility. This facility will serve as a demonstration project to prove the success of the technology and act as a model for others to be designed after.
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NC
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2006
North Carolina State University’s project includes five components: Construction of Value-Added Processing Infrastructure. In the case of Super Soils, grinders and processors will be constructed on site; in the case of vermiculture, sheds and worm rows will be installed on the Little Creek Hog Farms adjacent to Environmental Technologies Closed Loop System; Transfer of solids and produce value-added products; Technical evaluation of the solids and process (in the case of vermiculture); Delivery of products to buyers/users and collect feedback on market reception; and Economic assessment and delivery of results to producers, technology providers, and decision-makers.
The Board of Regents of The University System of Georgia
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GA
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2006
The purpose of this award is for the grantee to assist four dairy farmers and four conservation tillage farmers implement environmental management systems (EMS). EMS will help them assess and prioritize environmental concerns on their farms, implement innovative practices to address their priority concerns, and monitor changes in environmental and economic conditions as a result of their practices. The University of Georgia will conduct one-on-one meetings with participating farmers, group meetings between farmers and technical specialists, farmer-to-farmer meetings, and farm demonstrations on agricultural EMS implementation. Technical personnel and farmers will work together to develop field and computer-based environmental record keeping tools. They will also develop field-based and technical environmental monitoring tools. Based on their farm environment policy statements, environmental records, monitoring information, and farm environmental assessments, participating farmers will identify and implement innovative resource conservation practices on their farms. They will also use their increased environmental awareness and improved record keeping enhancing their eligibility for CSP and EQIP. Throughout the project, farmers and technical specialists will conduct environmental baseline and monitoring assessments to measure changes in environmental conditions as a result of resource conservation practices. In addition, we will publish extension publications and technical papers to provide practical and technical guidelines for using EMS to enhance farmer adoption of pollution prevention practices. We will monitor and evaluate project activities through on-going interactions with participating farmers, collaborator meetings, farm meeting evaluations, and telephone interviews with randomly-selected farm meeting participants. This on-going process will allow us to modify project activities to best meet the needs of participating farmers and the environment where they farm.
University of Georgia/ Biological & Agricultural Engineering
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GA
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2006
The purpose of this award is for the grantee to demonstrate the use of photovoltaic cells in combination with wind turbines to provide water to cattle on the coast of Georgia in areas where they have been fenced out of available water supplies. University of Georgia will work with farmers/ranchers who have been involved in other federal or state programs designed to exclude livestock from environmentally sensitive surface water supplies who are left with few options for supplying water to their livestock. Field days will be used to demonstrate that wind power in combination with solar power can be used as a viable alternative for providing water supplies to livestock in areas of coastal Georgia that have limited availability to power from typical electrical sources. The use of both wind and solar systems will provide a consistent and constant source of power for pumping water from shallow water supplies. The hybrid system will be used to access shallow groundwater or surface water sources for watering livestock displaced from environmentally sensitive areas instead of tapping deep water sources such as the Floridian Aquifer system. By reducing the water withdrawn from the Floridian Aquifer system, the salt water intrusion problem is reduced. The translocation of shallow groundwater and surface water will reduce the dependency on deep groundwater as well as protecting sensitive areas such as stream and pond banks. In addition, the use of the proposed hybrid systems will eliminate the cost of running electric service to isolated locations as well as reducing the risk of persons coming in contact with power lines in remote locations.
University of Delaware
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DE
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2006
The purpose of this award is for the grantee to demonstrate that animal agriculture can be sustained by producing and exporting value-added manure products from farms with manure surpluses to fauns that have traditionally relied upon inorganic fertilizers and to the horticultural operations that comprise the Green Industry.St. Andrews Center and the UD College of Agriculture and Natural Resources to will evaluate pelletized broiler litter, dairy and equine composts as organic fertilizers on the 1,500 acre St. Andrews School farm. Agronomic crop studies will be at the field scale (10+ acres) while vegetable/specialty crop projects will be in small plots; horticultural projects will use lawns, athletic fields, gardens, and greenhouses. Large-scale demonstrations will be installed at St. Andrews showing innovations management of riparian buffers separating cropland used for our demonstrations from water bodies that enhance water quality, farm ecological conditions, and wildlife Habitat. The findings will be available for education purposes on a website, through host field days for farmers and the Green Industry, agriculture and natural resource camps/workshops for K-16 teachers and students, and community education workshops designed to show the full value of farming to urban and suburban adults.
Southwest Arkansas RC&D Project Area, Inc.
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AR
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2006
The purpose of this award is for the grantee to demonstrate the unique capabilities of "Noah" units for the practical, efficient, low-cost, non-polluting, thermo-chemical conversion of biomass into high-quality (over 600 BTUs per cubic foot) hydrocarbon fuel gas and mineral ash (equivalent to a 3-3.5-7 non-toxic fertilizer) at four separate EQIP-eligible producer sites in four separate Arkansas NRCS RC&D project areas. An innovative technology has recently been developed to address the natural resource concern of foreign petroleum consumption as well as air quality and agricultural practices. This new technology has been incorporated into a unique patent-pending device called a "Noah" unit. The Noah unit accepts biomass and agricultural waste as input which it converts to a medium-BTU (over 600 BTUs per cubic foot) hydrocarbon fuel gas suitable for most uses similar to natural gas. The unit produces only one other output besides the fuel gas, which is an ash equivalent to a 3-3.5-7 non-toxic fertilizer, suitable for vegetables and pasture. The Southwest Arkansas RC&D Project Area will purchase a Noah unit as part of the Southwest Arkansas Resource Conservation and Development Project Areas initiative to enhance air quality and atmospheric resources through bio-based Energy opportunities. Under the direction of the Southwest Arkansas Resource Conservation and Development Project Area, EQIP-eligible producers will be enabled to obtain Noah units for application to bio-based Energy opportunities in their areas.
Pit Resource Conservation District
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CA
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2006
Project is the implementation phase of the Cooperative Sagebrush Steppe Restoration Initiative, a planning project partnership that was funded with a NRCS Conservation Partnership Initiative (CPI) grant in 2005. The primary work of the partnership is to assist Producers in restoring sagebrush steppe and related ecosystems through the removal of invasive western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) and applying post treatment adaptive management techniques. Ancillary work may include installation of structural practices that will aid in the implementation of the adaptive management techniques. The partnership will implement its innovative restoration prescriptions on Producer operations that have had plans completed through the CPI program and on lands of additional Producers. The partnership will cross share knowledge with a parallel USFS/BLM project that focuses on federally managed lands. Treatment prescriptions will include the use of conventional and modified forestry equipment to remove invasive juniper on Producer grazing lands. The removed material will be chipped and delivered to a biomass power facility where it will be used as a renewable Energy source in the production of electricity. Post treatment grazing and management prescriptions will be applied that insure restoration and persistence of vibrant sagebrush steppe Habitat.
Washington State University
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WA
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2006
The focus of this project will be to demonstrate a reduction in pathogen and nutrient transport to surface water and a reduced risk of herd to herd transmission of pathogens between farms that participate in a community based anaerobic digester with post AD pasteurization. A unique aspect of this project is that we will be able to obtain information on water quality and pathogen levels at individual farms before and after the adoption of the community AD.
Oregon State University
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OR
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2006
The purpose of this project is to develop and distribute accurate information about the integrated straw mulching and drip irrigation production system in various fruit production areas in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, and to increase the growers awareness of the economic, social, and environmental benefits with the integrated new system, and thus encouraging growers to use straw mulching and drip irrigation as an integrated alternative production system.Oregon State University will demonstrate and evaluate the effects of organic mulching and drip irrigation as an integrated system on sweet cherry with the goal of increasing soil quality and productivity, reducing orchard water consumption, increasing grower profitability, and improving environmental quality. A field experiment will be conducted on Mel Omegs orchard at The Dalles, Oregon from 2006 through 2008. Two ground and water management systems: straw mulching and drip irrigation system, and no ground cover (but with herbicide applications) and micro sprinkler irrigation system will be compared under sweet cherry cultivar of Bing on Gisela 6 rootstock. Soil moisture, nutrient contents, and physical and biological properties; leaf nutrient concentrations; tree vigor, fruit yield, size, firmness, color, and storability, and water consumption of sweet cherry, and costs and economic returns will be determined. The outcomes of this project are that the integrated straw mulching and drip irrigation production system will become a viable replacement to our current no ground cover and sprinkler irrigation production system, and will be widely adopted by the tree fruit growers in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.
Oregon State University
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OR
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2006
The purpose of this award is for the grantee to monitor existing riparian restoration sites established by Clean Water Services (the storm and wastewater agency for the Tualatin Basin in Oregon) and Tualatin Basin landowners for the following water quality parameters: water temperature, water nutrient levels, sediment load in the water, fecal bacterial load in the water, and value of Habitat for species of concern. This project will correlate these parameters with riparian vegetation characteristics, using a compilation of existing quantifiable assessment tools and adding a new model to account for future predictability. The resulting single user-friendly tool will be transferable to other watersheds in Oregon and will allow landowners to assess the economic values of riparian buffers and various riparian restoration activities on their agricultural lands in units that correspond to regulatory or market-based drivers. This will provide justification and incentive for using riparian buffers in water quality credit trading programs in Oregon such as the Willamette Ecosystem Marketplace, or through integrated/watershed-scale NPDES permits for clean water agencies. Riparian vegetation buffers have the potential to be valued as an agricultural commodity that enhances environmental sustainability.