Yellow Pages
Beaver Marsh Farms owner Garritt Kuipers shovels the manure from his operations into a five-million gallon retention pond, which he fills to capacity every year. There, the manure is naturally processed and emits methane gas into the atmosphere.
Other Skagit Valley farmers are adding millions of gallons of waste to similar ponds every year. To the farmers, the ponds smell like manure, but to Kevin and Daryl Maas of Mount Vernon, they smell like money.
The Maas brothers want to contract with local farmers to process the manure in a digester that mimics a cow’s stomach, capture the methane gas and burn the gas for energy through their company, Farm Power Northwest.
The Mass brothers collect the manure for processing and return the leftover dried powder to the farm, where it can be used in place of expensive sawdust the farmers spread in holding pens.
The result, the Maases say, is clean, renewable energy.
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