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In The News: Pulaski Company’s $1.3 Million Poultry Proposition
MOVA Technologies is one of nine companies in the state participating in a ‘Pay-For-Outcomes’ $19 million grant.
PULASKI, Va. - A Pulaski County company stands to earn $1.3 million in a state program to keep pollution out of the Chesapeake Bay.
The target: chicken poop.
MOVA Technologies is one of nine Virginia businesses chosen for the Department of Environmental Quality’s $19 million grant program, called Pay-For-Outcomes Nonpoint Source Pollution Reduction, according to a DEQ news release.
MOVA will begin testing its poultry air purification system later this year in Rockingham County, at a poultry house near the Shenandoah River, company spokesman Luke Allison said. Commercial demonstrations will begin next year. Ultimately, the system will help both farmers and MOVA make a profit, he said.
“I don’t want to downplay it because it’s huge, but the environmental gains are like a byproduct of this better business model,” Allison said. “It’s an innovation that fosters profitability. And the results are environmentally sustainable.”
The air purification system is a small one, with filters to catch the ammonia from chicken waste and deposit it in a tank. MOVA founder Steve Critchfield has said that he hopes to eventually use the ammonia in nitrogen fertilizer. For now, the project’s goal is simply to keep the odiferous gas from landing on the surrounding land, where it would eventually run off into the river, which is part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
According to the DEQ release, nonpoint pollution sources run off from larger areas, as opposed to a single source such as a pipe. They are the largest manageable pollution sources entering the bay. This pilot program will provide payments based on the amount of pollution directly removed or prevented from going into the water.
MOVA CEO John Schott said that the state has spent a lot of money over the years to prevent nitrogen nutrients from entering the bay, but they have not seen the results they expected.
“People would get the money, they’d put these best management practices in place, but no one would ever go back and check on them,” Schott said. “No one would ever validate that they actually worked … Were they implemented properly? Are they being maintained?”
The program is meant to remove about 580,000 pounds of nitrogen from the Chesapeake Bay, the equivalent of one year’s run-off from more than 52,000 acres of parking lots, roads and rooftops. The average cost would be $32.73 per pound, the DEQ release states.
According to the news release, MOVA intends to capture an amount of ammonia equivalent to about 47,100 pounds of nitrogen. Each of the participating companies will have to prove their systems work in order to get the money.
“It’s different from most grant programs,” Schott said.
Among the other eight projects is one that will restore 57 acres of oyster reef near the mouth of the Severn River. Another is converting 85 acres of active agricultural land into forest with native grasses and hardwood trees in Northumberland County. One in Gloucester County will disconnect private septic systems and connect those residences to the public sewer system.
“Linking payments directly to environmental outcomes ensures that our investments yield the greatest possible benefit for water quality, offering a clear pathway to cleaner streams, rivers, and Chesapeake Bay,” Joe Wood, Virginia senior scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said in the news release.
MOVA’s project, including commercial demonstrations, kicks off what the company hopes is business with many poultry farmers, Schott said.
“They remove toxic ammonia from the house, so you create healthier birds that are more productive, so they grow bigger, live longer, and so it’s desirable for the farm to want this system,” he said. “And second … you’re preventing that ammonia from being released to the atmosphere … then precipitate back out with rain and moisture into the lakes and the creeks, the rivers and the bay.”
