Central ND | PatchFarmer - 4/4/2026 05:55
I'm posting this in hopes of seeing if anyone here has dealt with NRCS on decommissioning an disused manure lagoon.
The long and short of the situation is that I bought the family farm 5 years ago, and one of the things I inherited with that is the old lagoon from the dairy operation that ceased about 10 years ago. To my knowledge there was no effort to pump liquids or solids out for probably the last 5-ish years of the dairy. My best guess is that there is about 8 feet of solids in the bottom that have been settling for 15 years. This pit is a gently sloped clay lined bowl. The part that makes it tricky is that it has a surface area of almost 2 acres.
The reason this has come to issue is that I am attempting MEAP Certification (MI Environmental stewardship). They do not like the old lagoon on concerns of leeching and overflow. I personally don't like it for kids safety and would prefer to use that area for pasture. NRCS said cost share can be as high as 75% to get rid of it for a young guy like me. My big questions are:
What does total cost look like for a project of this scale?
Is it likely that the P & K value of the sludge will offset my share?
Any input from guys that have done this with or without the .gov is hugely appreciated!
This will probably be in the realm of 40-50k yards of dirt to move, unless all the spoils to construct it were used to build a dike around it. If that's the case, it could still be 20-25k yards of dirt to move. Minimum in this day and age is about $2 per yard. I have no idea on cost to mitigate the sludge/manure. |
Old dairy lagoon and NRCS
