Effluent power push to help save Warrnambool saleyards - Cattle waste `could subsidise' centre

Warrnambool Standard
Thursday 24/4/2008 Page: 1

Warrnambool's saleyards should remain on Caramut Road while the city council investigates producing green power from cattle effluent to cut waste management costs, the centre's supporters said this week. In about four weeks Warrnambool City Council will consider a consultant's report into the economic impact of closing the saleyards.

The report was commissioned after the Victorian Livestock Exchange proposed building a new saleyards complex at Garvoc if the Warrnambool and Camperdown yards closed. But former Warrnambool mayor Frank McCarthy said the council should maintain the saleyards and investigate a methane plant. "It's not anything new," he declared. "They should leave the yards where they are and investigate it." Former city councillor Jim Leahy and Mr McCarthy recently held a public meeting seeking support to retain the saleyards in or near the city.

Last month Mr McCarthy inspected the Charles piggery at Berrybank and its anaerobic digester that generates electricity from methane, conserving and recycling water and collecting waste for sale as fertiliser. Owner Melville Charles said from a $2 million investment in the waste management system 17 years ago he annually saved $100,000 in electricity, sold 6000 tonnes of organic garden products valued at $1.2 million and replaced fertiliser valued at $50,000. Mr McCarthy said he and current WCC mayor David Atkinson also inspected the piggery 17 years ago. "That's what I wanted them to put down here about 20 years ago but they didn't have the foresight to do it," he said.

"If we overcome the effluent problem the saleyards could stay there for another 50 years." The council has also indicated it had no money in its 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 budgets for rubber soft flooring needed in sale pens. But Mr McCarthy said processing the cattle waste could potentially fund the needed soft-flooring. Warrnambool Stock Agents Association president Jack Kelly said he supported the council investigating the beneficial use of the saleyards' effluent. "If the byproducts could be used it would be good for everyone." Warrong farmer and Warrnambool Stock Agents Association secretary Gerald Madden said effluent options should be vigorously investigated.

"The agents have been advised by city council that the disposal costs of effluent into the waste treatment system have escalated and were a big imposition on the financial operation of the yards." Bellwether Agriculture managing director Chris Davidson said production of the estimated 13 standard cubic feet per minute of methane gas generated from the Warrnambool saleyards' waste was equivalent to:

• preventing the use of 3609 barrels of oil;
• displacing the use of 642,036.16 litres of petrol;
• removing emissions equivalent to 298 vehicles;
• a reduction of 179 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year; or
• planting 171.5 hectares of forest.

The estimated waste stream from the saleyards was very small "and therefore the viability from a capital cost point would be line-ball if relying on the production electricity at base load," Mr Davidson said. "Further details from the waste stream would need to be obtained and calculated to effect a more accurate cost model." But the "closed-loop" technology was aimed at returning revenue streams from electricity (green power) back to the national grid; solid and liquid organic fertiliser; carbon credits and recycled water.

"What they (the Warrnambool City Council) are doing is getting rid of a waste stream that could generate a net income and have environmental gains," he said. An IBR plant sufficient to handle the saleyards' waste would have a footprint equivalent to a normal house block of about 2000 square metres. Establishment cost recovery could be about four years, depending on the actual available organic waste tonnage, electricity and carbon credit prices.