Reduction of Selected Pathogens in Anaerobic Digestion

Anaerobic digesters are becoming a popular waste treatment option in New York State. These systems generate energy for on-farm use and sale while providing significant odor reduction. Research has shown that mesophilic systems (T=100oF) have the potential to reduce pathogens entering the environment. A plug flow digester was monitored for 14 months starting in May 2001. Samples taken from the digester influent and effluent were tested for the fecal coliform group of indicator organisms and Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (Map). M. avium paratuberculosis is the microorganism responsible for Johne’s disease in dairy cattle and other ruminants. Results show almost a 3-log reduction in fecal coliforms and slightly more than a 2-log reduction in Map. This paper describes an anaerobic digester and shows the comparative results of testing between a farm with a digester and a farm without a digester. Since both farms in this study compost and sell excess solids, analyses were done on the composted manure as well

Reduction of Selected Pathogens in Anaerobic Digestion

Anaerobic digesters are becoming a popular waste treatment option in New York State. These systems generate energy for on-farm use and sale while providing significant odor reduction. Research has shown that mesophilic systems (T=100oF) have the potential to reduce pathogens entering the environment. A plug flow digester was monitored for 14 months starting in May 2001. Samples taken from the digester influent and effluent were tested for the fecal coliform group of indicator organisms and Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (Map). M. avium paratuberculosis is the microorganism responsible for Johne’s disease in dairy cattle and other ruminants. Results show almost a 3-log reduction in fecal coliforms and slightly more than a 2-log reduction in Map. This paper describes an anaerobic digester and shows the comparative results of testing between a farm with a digester and a farm without a digester. Since both farms in this study compost and sell excess solids, analyses were done on the composted manure as well

Measuring the temporal instability of land change using the Flow matrix

This article introduces the Flow matrix, which expresses the sizes of transitions among categories between two time points. We use the Flow matrix to create a metric R that measures the instability of annual change among time intervals that partition the time extent. Specifically, R is the proportion of change that would need to be reallocated to different time interval(s) to achieve uniform change during the time extent. This article computes R for 10 Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites and for seven case studies from published land change data. Of the 10 LTER sites analyzed, the Andrews site in Oregon had the highest R value (37.1% of change), while the Luquillo site in Puerto Rico had the lowest (1.7% of change). We analyze the mathematical behavior of R, especially with respect to how the partitioning of the time extent into intervals can influence R. © 2013 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC. The available download on this page is the author manuscript accepted for publication. This version has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process