High Plains Agriculture: Local dairies recycling water

FARWELL, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — The water table in the High Plains continues to decline. Despite the decrease, local dairies in the area are recycling and reusing water in the midst of drought.

Three million gallons is how much water co-owner of Haakma & Sons Dairy, Eric Haakma, saves a month with their water recycling process.

“It’s a very essential project I think for a lot of dairies because there’s the water usage and we could all save 3 million gallons a month,” said Haakma. “It would really add up and make a difference.”

We are tracking dry to severe levels of drought across the High Plains, more now than ever it is important to recycle water whenever it’s possible.

“Our water table here on the Texas High Plains is just going down, we have less available water. We have to be smart about how we use the water,” explained Ryan Williams, a local farmer and livestock producer from Farwell, “Recycling any wastewater that we can reuse actually is a big benefit to us.”

One gallon of water at a dairy can be used up to four times. The process of reusing water at dairies starts with clean water cooling the milk, then with that same water they flush the dairy barns. With the help of a manure separator, the water is used to irrigate crops.

“We pump it over to what’s called a separator, which is fine screens to sort out the manure, and then we pump it out on the fields. Sometimes with the drought period, that wastewater that we’ve kind of been storing up in the lagoons is pretty handy to have kind of in our back pocket.”

The manure separator is a filtration device used to separate solids from a liquid waste stream. After this process, then the recycled water will be able to be used for irrigation.

“We don’t recycle water to farmers, we use it ourselves on our own crops, but the manure gets recycled, and it goes to other farmers in the area,” explained Haakma. “They use it, they take it from us and to grow crops, and then we buy crops from those farmers. We have a mutual agreement with the waste in the crops.”

The separator systems are about $500,000. Haakma explained that about 10% of local dairies are flushing to an extent with recycled water and most of the 10% are flushing their lanes and have a separator system.

“It’s very important and I hope other people can do this project. It’s not a cheap project to do. But it’s a very essential project I think for a lot of dairies because there’s the water usage and we could all save 3 million gallons a month,” explains Haakma. “It would really add up and make a difference.”

Around 588 million of gallons of recycled water are used for agricultural irrigation in the U.S. per day. Fortunately, water recycling has become more common in the agriculture industry.

For the latest Amarillo news and regional updates, check with MyHighPlains.com and tune in to KAMR Local 4 News at 5:00, 6:00, and 10:00 p.m. and Fox 14 News at 9:00 p.m. CST.