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Opinion: ADs do little to help the environment

August 13, 2013 – Green Mountain Power has a public relations campaign called “Cow Power” designed to convince consumers that manure digesters are a win-win for farmers and clean water. The company subsidizes the installation of manure digesters on select farms. Then GMP offers customers, who want to help farmers and clean up the lake, the opportunity to pay extra for their power.

Putting momentarily aside that manure digesters do not reduce phosphorus, the bulk of which comes from imported protein supplements grown conventionally in other states and imported into Vermont as feed for cows, there is no question that they divert raw manure away from streams or that they burn methane that would ordinarily volatize into the atmosphere, or that they produce inexpensive bedding as a byproduct. But manure digesters were not developed to protect water or atmospheric pollution or to make bedding; they were designed to lower farm energy costs. READ MORE