The Chesapeake Bay Watershed in PA suffers from excess loading of nutrients and sediment from nonpoint sources including agricultural operations and municipal stormwater discharges. Agricultural sources include operations that have excess manure applications from livestock. PA also has approximately 200,000 acres of abandoned mine lands that require reclamation and need large nutrient inputs to support plant growth and soil health. The proposed project will address both problems by exporting excess manure and nutrient from nutrient rich areas to nutrient deficient AML areas and support the growth of biomass for renewable energy feedstocks.

PEC is working in partnership with Penn State University, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Capital RC&D Area, Wenger's Feed Mill, Inc., Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation (EPCAMR).

The project is supported by the PA State Conservation Commission, PA Department of Agriculture, the Western Pennsylvania Watershed Program and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The 30-acre demonstration project will require the transport of approximately 2,000 tons of poultry manure from farms in nutrient-impaired watersheds in the Susquehanna Watershed in or near Schuylkill County PA to an AML site where parallel plots of switchgrass and HDNS will be cultivated and harvested for sale as biofuel. Nutrient and carbon fluxes and biomass production will be monitored throughout the 3-year term of the project.

EPCAMR will assist PEC with identifying leading AML candidate sites for reclamation and biomass production using the manure and pulp mill sludge soil amendments.