Ore. project would use manure, tires for energy

An Oregon company is seeking permits for a facility on the Columbia River that would harness methane gas for energy by collecting it from decomposing old tires and cow manure.

Portland-based Northwest Biogas proposes an anaerobic digester project at a large dairy farm and is seeking a permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to store waste tires.

The DEQ scheduled an information meeting Tuesday to discuss the permit, which would allow using 40,000 waste tires to help grow micro-organisms for producing the methane.

The company would use the waste tires inside a lined and covered digester lagoon. If the facility ceases to operate, Northwest Biogas will have to clean, remove and recycle the tires.

Bruce Lumper is a permit writer with the DEQ's Solid Waste Program out of The Dalles. He told the newspaper that this will be a new digester and that plans for a previous one at the farms "never quite penciled out."

Threemile Canyon Farms has 16,000 cows that produce about 120 pounds of waste a day each. Threemile flushes the manure along cement alleys and pipes to a lined lagoon, where it releases methane.

Clean methane, the DEQ said, offers an alternative to natural gas. Generators also use methane to produce electricity. And using the tires eliminates the potential for tire fires or the breeding of mosquitoes.

Oregon has similar digesters, Lumper said. In 2003, the Port of Tillamook Bay constructed a centralized methane digester to biologically process the manure from 4,000 of Tillamook County's 30,000 dairy cows. He said it is working and producing energy.

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LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Nebraska landowners are being urged to apply for federal dollars to conserve grassland, including range and pasture land.

They can apply for some of the $1 million that is available in the Grassland Reserve Program by July 1. Applications can be made at any USDA Service Center.

The goal of the program is to protect and restore existing grasslands for working grazing operations and improving plant and wildlife diversity. Landowners maintain ownership and can sign rental agreements or have a permanent conservation easement.

Priority will be given to land previously in the Conservation Reserve Program, if there is a significant threat of conversion to uses other than grazing.