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Together with Creighton Brothers, Kosciusko County is almost ready to begin the roadkill composting program. All that's left to wait for are the donated cement blocks for building the bins.
Creighton Brothers General Manager Ron Truex said, "I'm really pleased to be a part of this."
County Administrator Ron Robinson said the county is beginning the animal composting because "our thought was that we needed some outlet to do something with all the dead animals."
He said no one wants to claim the responsibility of cleaning them up. For years, the highway department picked up the carcasses and then buried them. Now with all the buried cable wires and phone lines, the highway department can no longer do that, he said.
Currently, farmers and Creighton Brothers help remove carcasses when the county asks. They put the bodies in their shipment to the Plymouth fertilizer plant. But now, with the possibility of that plant being closed, another option had to be found, Robinson said.
"We've looked at that composting for a long time," Truex said. "The science of composting has come a long way."
Robinson said, "It's tremendous that Creighton Brothers is willing to help us try this. It's something that will benefit everyone in this county."
Kosciusko County will be only the second government body in Indiana to have an animal composting site. The state highway department currently has animal carcass composting in Rochester. They began roadkill composting after receiving information from a Missouri company that composts hogs.
Robinson said there are no legal guidelines now for animal composting by a government body.
At first, Robinson said, "we thought it may be a big expense for the county to do."
But that hasn't been the case, with Creighton Brothers' assistance. One reason Creighton Brothers is involved is because they have a similar situation with their animals. What to do with the one that die?
Tara Still, of the Kosciusko County health department; Marsha Eikenberry, director of the Kosciusko County Solid Waste Management District; Robinson and Truex met to discuss the composting and come up with a plan.
Creighton Brothers is now providing the facilities and the labor for the composting. The building is at least a quarter of a mile from any residence and is the ideal site for composting, Truex said. Creighton Brothers will also maintain utilities. There is absolutely no smell to the composting, both Robinson and Truex said.
The county animal control officer and the Warsaw animal control officer will pick up the carcasses from the roadsides. Any calls about roadkill once the composting is up and running should be directed toward the animal control officers, not Creighton Brothers. KCSWMD provided some money to offset initial set-up expenses. A sawmill in Marshall County is providing free sawdust.
The only expected expense for the county will be the gas mileage of the animal control officer to go out and remove the roadkill.
"When we purchased the new truck for the animal control officer, it was outfitted with the needed equipment," Robinson said.
Once the carcasses are composted, the product will be put to good use.
Truex said, "The compost will be used as a fertilizer at some point." He said down the road, they may even be able to sell the fertilizer back to the community.
"We'll get some final analysis of the product and see where we go with it," Truex said.
The composting process is very simple, he said.
First, a foot of sawdust is laid down in a bin. The deer, stray dog or other animal carcass is then laid on top of the sawdust. The animal is covered with more sawdust and remains there for 90 days. After 90 days, the carcasses are flipped in another bin, where they decompose for an additional 90 days. There are very little if any bone remaining, and the process begins again.
"Bones will be no more than the size of a finger," Robinson said. He also said that when the state began their roadkill composting, "they didn't find enough (deer) bone fragments to reconstruct one deer."
"The pile shrinks by 50 percent and there's no odor," Truex said. "There's no chance of run-off or anything."
Robinson told Truex, "You're going to have some counties driving you nuts to see what we're doing."
Truex said, "We're fairly confident that none of the neighbors will know what we're doing." He said they can't see the facilities from the road and there will be no smell. He also said, "We have the capacity to make it grow, we can expand it by whatever we need."
The facilities will be locked so no one can wander in. Each bin is 10 feet wide by 20 feet long and 4 feet high.
"(The compost) is never going to be piled outside," Truex said. "Even if the bins are filled, we'll pile it into another part of the building."
Al Baillieul, a crew member of the state highway, Rochester unit, said, "I was the first person to say it wouldn't work. Now, I would be the first person to admit I was wrong. It does work."
He said in 1997, the first year the highway department composted the carcasses, they had 160 carcasses. In 1998, they had 200 deer.
"I know one thing," Baillieul said. "It's a good program."
