A short, anonymous survey aimed at determining the number of horses in Geauga County could benefit horse owners, boarding stables and regional water resources.
A short, anonymous survey aimed at determining the number of horses in Geauga County could benefit horse owners, boarding stables and regional water resources.
The survey is the first step in a longer effort to collaborate with the local horse industry and eventually convert large quantities of horse manure into compost, said Carmela Shale, district director of the Geauga County Soil and Water Conservation District.
“We are home to one of the biggest populations of horses in Ohio,” she said in a Feb. 6 phone interview. “We get complaints about manure storage issues. People don’t do anything with it.”
After compiling data on the county’s horse population, Shale said she plans to pursue funding for a manure composting facility that would provide horse owners and stables with a centralized location to recycle manure.
The survey, available online at https://geaugaswcd.com/ and mailed to homes and approximately 75 boarding facilities, is completely anonymous, Shale emphasized.
“We are trying to find solutions that would be beneficial, not costly,” she said.
Shale said manure composition varies widely based on bedding materials and stable management practices.
In Geauga County, most stables use sawdust as bedding, which takes a long time to break down and requires composting before it can be used in gardens or landscaping, she said.
Straw, which is much less common in Ohio, decomposes more quickly, Shale said.
While some stables remove manure and leave clean sawdust in place, others strip and rebed stalls daily, putting large amounts of sawdust into piles or Dumpsters, Shale said.
“It makes a big difference,” she said. “It’s just alarming the amount of manure.”
One horse can produce eight to nine tons of manure annually, according to the Ohio Farm Bureau website. If Geauga County is home to 1,000 horses, including those owned by Amish, that is a significant amount of waste, Shale said.
Water Table Concerns
Improper manure storage can also pose risks to the water table, an issue that falls under the SWCD’s purview.
When manure and sawdust are piled behind barns or spread on hillside fields, runoff can contaminate streams and eventually rivers, harming downstream plants and aquatic wildlife. Composting helps prevent runoff while making nutrients available for landscaping and gardening, according to the Ohio Farm Bureau.
“Typically, a single ton of horse manure contains around eleven pounds of nitrogen, two pounds of phosphorus and eight pounds of potassium, which are essential macro nutrients for plant health, growth and soil fertility,” according to the farm bureau website, where the survey is also posted.
Large-scale manure composting is not a new concept. Sweet Peet, for example, sells composted horse and cow manure through feed stores and operates manure collection points in Ohio, Texas, New York and Connecticut, according to the company’s website.
Shale said researching existing composting operations is part of determining the best approach for developing a facility in Geauga County.
The conservation district has coordinated the survey and a work group has been formed to pursue the project once sufficient data are collected, Shale said.
The group includes Jennifer Jones, director of the Geauga Trumbull Solid Waste Management District and representatives from The Ohio State University Extension Office, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Ohio Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Shale said she hopes the USDA will provide some funding for a composting facility.
Survey results will help determine whether the county qualifies for financial support, she said, adding the cost of conducting the study is being covered by the city of Akron, which owns much of the watershed land in Geauga County and relies on those water sources.
“The city of Akron got a grant to do the survey,” Shale said, noting $20,000 came from the OEPA Protective Strategies Grant for community public water systems.
“They passed it on to us,” she said.
Shale said the survey has generated a strong response so far, after being advertised in local newspapers and distributed by mail for two weeks.
No deadline has been set, she said, but once responses slow significantly, staff will begin contacting boarding facilities that have not yet participated.
Some horse owners and stable operators have expressed concern about potential negative consequences of completing the anonymous, five-minute survey, but Shale said those fears are unfounded.
The information will be used solely to support grant applications for a composting facility and nothing more, she said.
“We’re looking for the data, not the people,” Shale said.
Ohio Farm Bureau:
“Our friends at Geauga County Soil and Water Conservation District are inviting you to complete an anonymous survey to count the number of horses in Geauga County. The survey should take less than five minutes to complete. The information will be used to help determine the amount of manure that is being generated to identify options of composting and manure removal that will benefit horse owners in our county.
You will have the ability to review the results of the survey, how the information is used, and resources as they are identified and available at geaugaswcd.com or call 440-834-1122 to have your responses added.”
