Evaluating and Improving Vegetative Filter Areas for Agricultural Wastewater Treatment

Agricultural wastewater such as silage effluent, milkhouse wastewater, and other manure contaminated runoff is an environmental challenge for many livestock farms. A common approach to managing livestock production area wastewater in New York is to collect and distribute it for treatment in a vegetated filter area (VFA). Little is known, however, about the expected or actual reduction and fate of nutrients and other contaminants in wastewater treated by VFAs installed according to existing conservation practice standards. The purpose of this project is to characterize the environmental effectiveness and improve VFA methods for treating livestock production area wastewater. Hydrology information, water quality concerns, environmental engineering principles, and soil biochemical processes will be integrated to comprehensively evaluate VFA effectiveness, and the results used to improve the design and implementation procedures of the conservation practice standard for treating high concentration agricultural wastewater.