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Manure boat rescues farm from stinky lagoon

January 7, 2013, Adams Center, NY — About the size of a football field, a lagoon with room for seven million gallons of manure and sand was filling up, creating a dilemma at Hy-Light Farms; over 10 years, a massive sand pile about 10 feet deep had accumulated in the center and could not be pumped out.

Meanwhile, the farm’s 870 cattle continued to use thousands of tons of sand as bedding for their stalls each week, with increasing quantities of the sand and manure mix being sent to the lagoon. Work crews frequently had to dredge the perimeter using tractors and lagoon pumps. As a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, the farm is required by state regulations to store all of its manure in a lagoon during the winter. READ MORE