CT's 1st Manure-To-Natural Gas 'Digester' Unveiled At Ellington Farm

ELLINGTON, CT — A major north central Connecticut dairy farm that is responsible nearly a fifth of the milk produced in the state had found a way to re-use all that poop generated by all those cows.

After a year in the works, Oakridge Farm in Ellington Wednesday staged the formal unveiling of Connecticut's first methane digester, designed to convert cow manure into natural gas.

Let's face it, with 3,000 dairy cows on the farm, there's a lot of poop. Oakrdge CEO Seth Bahler, a fifth-generation farmer, knows that all too well. He said each cow on the farm consumes about 100 pounds of food and between 30 and 50 gallons of water each day. Of that intake, 75 percent is converted into milk. The other 25 percent leaves a stinky calling card.

Enter Oakridge's digester, a $15 million project that began last year and used no state grants. The digester is exactly as billed — it simulates a cow's digestive system that converts the manure into, well, methane gas.

"It's about state-of-the-art farming, and from the business side of things, it opens up a new market for us," Bahler said.

The gas is then processed into a holding tank that can accommodate about 70,000 gallons ready to be trucked away. Eventually, some of the gas will be sent directly into the Eversource Energy network via a pipeline to the street. The renewable energy produced at Oakridge will be the equivalent of that used to run about 800 to 900 cars for a one year, Bahler said.

The digester was not only a business decision, Bahler said, but part of continued efforts to make the farm carbon neutral.

There is a similar system at a farm in Thompson, but it converts the manure into the electricity market, Bahler said.

Oakridge also employs a modern system of milking — a 72-stall milking carousel that services each cow every eight hours and can produce 25,000 gallons of raw milk each session.

"The cows actually like it," Bahler said. "Look, there's one now, loading all by herself. After eight hours, they really want to get rid of all that milk and this makes it comfortable for them."

The majority of the milk produced at Oakridge is sold to the Guida's label, a major presence in the region's dairy product market. Oakridge also operates its Modern Milkman division, a throwback concept that employs milk trucks and staff members delivering products to homes in traditional glass bottles. The customer base is now about 3,000 for the Modern Milkman, Bahler said.

The biggest seller is whole milk and then 2 percent, followed by chocolate, Bahler said. Other flavors are coffee and strawberry.

There was one prevailing question toward the end of the tour ...

What about the smell?

"Oh it will get better," Bahler said. "It will get a lot better. And it gets converted into energy."