STORIES

Information Technology

Scholarships

Letter to the Editor

Achievements

Calendar of Events

Exhibitions

Credits

Archives

Farmland and Wildlife Habitat Grow from Industrial Canning Waste

Lal Singh, professor of agriculture, has worked with Pacific Coast Producers (a growers' cooperative based in Lodi, with a canning plant in Oroville) for 12 years to find ways to use cannery waste and wastewater with impressive results. His research has intensified in the last year with resources provided by the state-funded Agricultural Initiative. Singh is the principal investigator, and agriculture professor Mitch Johns is the co-investigator for experiments to improve marginal soils, grow crops, and develop marshland to attract wildlife using the canning waste products.

The Pacific Coast Producers (PCP) cannery in Oroville, which employs 3,000 workers, processes peaches, pears, and grapes and produces approximately 70 tons of fruit waste and more than a million gallons of wastewater daily. The solid and liquid waste posed a huge problem to the food processing industry in the form of ground water contamination, foul odor, and fly breeding, says Singh.

"PCP tried everything -- they tried to feed waste to livestock, they tried to sell it, they tried to used it as a garden additive -- and nothing worked," says Singh.

PCP owns 850 acres of land outside Oroville where the waste is transported and where Singh and Johns, with the help of PCP ranch manager Steve McDonald, carry out the projects. The results of the efforts since 1986 have turned star-thistle-riddled land into productive farmland and a wildlife habitat. The site is a model of industrial waste management.

The researchers are experimenting with composting, combining fruit solids with rye grass grown on the ranch, with rice hulls, and with straw. Different mixtures of the waste products have been placed in separate sections of a heavy plastic 150-foot long "Ag bag." Air is pumped down the center of the bag to help break down the straw. "We'll let the process go on as long as we can to see if we can break down the rice hulls. If the rice hulls and straw break down, it will be a boon to the rice industry, as they are always looking for ways to break down rice straw without burning," remarks Singh.

"The wastewater problem at PCP had to be solved if the cannery were to continue operating," Singh says. "The challenge was how to do that without polluting nearby streams and causing damage to the environment. We are experimenting with using it to irrigate crops."

The water is pumped through a seven-mile pipeline to a pond at the ranch and, from there, to a sprinkler system and onto a variety of crops: milo, safflower, beans, alfalfa, corn, barley, and cotton. "We found that we got as much as three bales of cotton to the acre using cannery water -- a very good yield for such poor soil," notes Singh.

Another use for the water is marshland. "We will filter the water through the marshes and see if we can come up with a clean, neutral pH water," explains Singh. The series of marsh ponds, planted with cattails and other valley marsh vegetation, serves as wildlife habitat, attracting deer, beaver, and a variety of birds.

Many of the projects Singh, Johns, and McDonald are working on have possible applications to industry throughout the United States. And, according to Singh, it is the best kind of research: "This research may result in practices that do not just eliminate food industry's problems with regulatory agencies, but provide benefit to the environment and wildlife habitation."