Officials with the state Department of Environmental Conservation finished cleanup operations at Twin Birch Dairy Farm Thursday, following a manure spill that occurred the evening of July 9.
"We're having the farmers pump everything out that they possibly can," Diane Carlton, regional public affairs and education officer for the DEC, said Wednesday. "It's under control."
Carlton said that DEC officials monitored the situation and put in berms to ensure that the spill was contained. The DEC has estimated that a maximum of 25,000 to 30,000 gallons of liquid manure was spilled, Carlton said.
People at a nearby golf course first noticed the leak and contacted the farmers, whom the DEC called "very responsive" in their actions to fix the situation.
The issuing of any fines related to the spill is still under investigation, Carlton said.
Dirk Young, owner of Twin Birch, said that he didn't know if his dairy would receive any fines.
"I would suspect there will be," Young said Wednesday. "Hopefully, it will be minimal because we did everything we're supposed to."
There will be a post-spill information session July 30 to discuss the situation, how the spill was handled and how to prevent such problems in the future, Carlton said. The meeting will be attended by the DEC, nutrient management planner, soil and water conservation district and representatives from Twin Birch.
The spill occurred when an anaerobic digester pipe pumping manure from a storage tank to a lagoon burst.
The liquid manure flowed into a tributary that merges with Dutch Hollow Brook, but the spill was contained before it reached the brook that feeds into Owasco Lake, Bruce Natale, Cayuga County environmental engineer, had said.
"There was really no particular reason why it broke that we know of. It just failed," Young said of the nine-year-old pipe.
The pipe broke right by a diversion ditch, 100 yards away from a stream, the worst place for the accident to occur, Young said. "It was a worst-case scenario is what happened," he added.
But Young said that all things considered, the environmental effects are "very limited." About 80 fish were found dead in the area since the spill, which occurred in the Owasco Lake watershed, Carlton said.
There was no threat to the drinking water for Auburn and other municipalities, which get their water from Owasco Lake, she added.
Read the full report in Friday's edition of The Citizen.
Carlton said that DEC officials monitored the situation and put in berms to ensure that the spill was contained. The DEC has estimated that a maximum of 25,000 to 30,000 gallons of liquid manure was spilled, Carlton said.
People at a nearby golf course first noticed the leak and contacted the farmers, whom the DEC called "very responsive" in their actions to fix the situation.
The issuing of any fines related to the spill is still under investigation, Carlton said.
Dirk Young, owner of Twin Birch, said that he didn't know if his dairy would receive any fines.
"I would suspect there will be," Young said Wednesday. "Hopefully, it will be minimal because we did everything we're supposed to."
There will be a post-spill information session July 30 to discuss the situation, how the spill was handled and how to prevent such problems in the future, Carlton said. The meeting will be attended by the DEC, nutrient management planner, soil and water conservation district and representatives from Twin Birch.
The spill occurred when an anaerobic digester pipe pumping manure from a storage tank to a lagoon burst.
The liquid manure flowed into a tributary that merges with Dutch Hollow Brook, but the spill was contained before it reached the brook that feeds into Owasco Lake, Bruce Natale, Cayuga County environmental engineer, had said.
"There was really no particular reason why it broke that we know of. It just failed," Young said of the nine-year-old pipe.
The pipe broke right by a diversion ditch, 100 yards away from a stream, the worst place for the accident to occur, Young said. "It was a worst-case scenario is what happened," he added.
But Young said that all things considered, the environmental effects are "very limited." About 80 fish were found dead in the area since the spill, which occurred in the Owasco Lake watershed, Carlton said.
There was no threat to the drinking water for Auburn and other municipalities, which get their water from Owasco Lake, she added.
Read the full report in Friday's edition of The Citizen.
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