man arrested for compost pile

did y'all hear about this?

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Man Arrested for Illegally Composting Horse Manure by: Erin Ryder, News Editor August 01 2007 Article # 10117

A Loxahatchee Groves, Fla., man has been arrested by authorities with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection because he had allegedly collected around 20,000 cubic yards of horse manure, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

Agents said the man, Walter Duque, accepted horse manure for composting. Permits to compost or store manure are required by state law, and approved facilities are inspected to ensure no laws protecting groundwater are being broken, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

According to the report, Duque had mounds of manure covering several acres of his property. Some piles were 15 feet tall.

Neighbors complaining of the smell tipped off the authorities, who gave Duque three misdemeanor citations. His penalties could include $30,000 in fines and up to 18 months in jail, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- article by the Sun-Sentinel:

Loxahatchee Groves man arrested for illegally stockpiling horse manure By Joel Hood | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Law enforcement officers with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have arrested a Loxahatchee Groves man for illegally stockpiling about 20,000 cubic yards of horse manure on his property. Walter Duque received three misdemeanor citations for the violations, which could result in up to 18 months in jail and $30,000 in fines.

"Environmental crimes, like illegal composting and manure storage, can potentially harm our natural resources and impact our quality of life, and will not be tolerated," said Henry Barnet, director of the agency's law enforcement division, said in a released statement. "Enforcing Florida's laws, particularly those that protect our environment, is an important part of DEP's mission."

Agents began investigating Duque after receiving complaints from neighbors about growing piles of manure on his property and the foul odors wafting through the neighborhood. Investigators suspect the man has been accepting loads of horse manure from nearby communities and illegally composting the waste without permits. Mounds of manure as tall as 15 feet covered several acres on the property.

The state requires special permits for composting and storing horse manure. Those permits require specific nutrient and stormwater management plans to help protect ground and surface water. Composting facilities are also inspected regularly to ensure compliance with all state laws.

Reply to
rachael simpson
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When I first spotted that on Yahoo (weird news), I had wondered if it was any of my daylily hybridizing buddies of yore.

There surely defines a heap of sh*t.

C
Reply to
Cheryl Isaak

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You wanna have your drinking water supply - well or stream - downhill from that?

Reply to
Usenet2007

Hell no, but surely you can see the funny side!

Reply to
Cheryl Isaak

my question is: if he's in jail, then who had to clean up the mess?? I sure wouldn't want that job. Another news report on it said that it would take at least 10 farm (dump) trucks to haul it off. These articles said some of the piles were 15 foot high....don't you know that's a mess to have to load up? AVALANCHE!!! lol

Reply to
rachael simpson

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Good. If the idiot had simply read a grownup newspaper perhaps once every week for the past 10 years, he might've noticed steps that many hog farmers now have to take, in order to compost manure without turning it into a public hazard because of the quantitites concentrated in one place.

Idiots *should* be arrested and made to feel financial pain.

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

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"Hog farmers". How does one plant a hog? ':) Dave

Reply to
Dave

Well, if they just leave it, the "problem" will correct itselt. Can you imagine how many earthworms would be working away in there by the end of a year or two? Bet they would number in the millions. And the soil five years from now would be beyond anything we usually have in our own gardens.

Wonder if the guy ever hear of the expression, "Too much of a good thing ... "

Tell you though, I really question the "15 feet high" claim, maybe piles of that diameter, but he likely didn't drive up on it to dump it off the edge for piles that high. Also, my observation from having had a dump truck of steer manure delivered is if ten trucks can haul it off, it really wasn't that much. My "regular" garden area is about 30 by 60; it would take at least five dump truck loads to cover that two feet deep so it appears that something is wrong with their reporting. But, of course, reporters never get anything wrong! A report here said "newspapers stacked within three feet of the ceiling" in an attempt to make the man look bad, three feet from a 7-foot ceiling is considerably different than three feet from a vaulted ceiling - real exact reporting that was.

My question is, what was the guy planning to do with all that manure? Maybe he was preparing a statement to deliver to their local governing agency about something? One can wonder. It is Florida, after all.

Glenna

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Reply to
Glenna Rose

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Hey....that's what I've heard them call themselves.

I think I'd try rooting cuttings, if I were raising hogs.

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

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"At least 10 dump trucks" is a lot less than 20000 cubic yards. A standard dump truck holds 6 cubic yards, and the big ones hold 12. So maybe he had 100 yards of it.

I would get 2 or 3 yards of horse manure if I could, just for my little garden. It doesn't stink nearly as bad as pig or chicken.

Bob

Reply to
zxcvbob

zxcvbob wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

Depends on the freshness of it. If it's fresh and in large amounts, it can be pretty funky. Still better than chicken or pig, true, but I happen to like horses and everything about them -- even the smell of their shi... er... manure.

Reply to
FragileWarrior

I've had 20 loads of wood chips in the last six month. One neighbor suggested I was causing the area to look amiss. I said GF.

Bill

Reply to
William Wagner

zxcvbob expounded:

Too many weed seeds in horse manure, they don't ruminate. Stick to cow manure. Chicken is great provided it's well-composted. Pig manure? Yuck!

Reply to
Ann

Ann wrote in news:251eb3dbolvcbt8jm3mm7vnvh69olqi8op@

4ax.com:

On the other hand, my draft nicely planted flax in the pasture for me before I realized I had to grind his daily dose of Omega3.

Reply to
FragileWarrior

Ann wrote in news:r49fb31j7mqtj1kmme50esn5surm3rgat3@

4ax.com:

Reply to
FragileWarrior

Too generalised advice.

I use massive amounts of horse manure and have never found weeds to be a problem. The odd weed comes up but because the manure does such a fantastic job in improving the soil, the few weeds that do grow are very easy to pull out.

Because we breed cattle, I also use lots of cow manure and my experieince is that I get more weeds from the cow manure than I do from the horse manure.

It's all about the surface of the drop zone. The horse manure comes from horses that don't poop on pasture. The poop is all collected from clean ground. The cow poop I collect off our pasture and because the poop drops straight on pasture with seeds that are all "weeds" when in my garden, then I bring in weedseeds with the cow poop. If I used poop collected from the floor of a dairy then I wouldn't have weeds from the cow poop.

Weeds will grow whether brought in with poop or brought in by wind or birds. There is no escape from weeding.

Reply to
FarmI

Reply to
Cheryl Isaak

"FarmI" expounded:

No, it's my experience. Yours is different.

I used horse manure on my gardens once. I got the same smartweed all over everything. Never again.

Cows ruminate and grind up weed seeds. Some of the cow manure I get is from a dairy farmer, I have never had a huge problem with weeds from that manure. The other manure is from a farmer that has cattle and goats. Again no massive wee problem.

The manure itself is the problem, as I said, cows ruminate, horses shoot it straight through. The fact that it might sit in a field and collect windblown weed seeds still isn't going to make up for unground seeds in the manure.

No kidding. But why increase the weeds when it can be avoided? You like horse manure? Fine. I won't use it in my flower gardens. Maybe in the veggie garden, but why bother when I've had better experience with cow manure?

Reply to
Ann

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