Planned Maquoketa facility to turn cow waste into refined fertilizer

A proposed Maquoketa facility would collect manure from dairy farms and other cattle operations and process it into carbon and fertilizer products — and it might create dozens of jobs, too.

Illinois-based Quality Flow Environmental announced its intention to build such a facility last year in an industrial park of that city, but construction has not begun. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced this week it is contributing nearly $4.7 million to the project.

"There are a lot of dairy operations up there in Northeast Iowa and opportunity to convert their dairy waste into fertilizer," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday while attending the Farm Progress Show in Boone.

The federal grant is among numerous investments the USDA has made to help diversify fertilizer production. Fertilizer prices spiked in recent years due to short supplies caused by the pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and trade restrictions.

Quality Flow plans to start construction in 2025, with the hope to be operational by the end of the year, said Jack McCarthy, a spokesperson for the company.

It has been negotiating with large dairy farms in the Maquoketa area and beef operations to haul their manure by truck to the new facility, where it would heat the material under certain conditions to yield organic fertilizer for crop fields, activated carbon to clean wastewater, biochar to enhance soil quality and biocoal to burn for fuel.

The facility would have the ability to adjust the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the fertilizer, which can be spread as a liquid, pellet or powder.

"The dairy farms are very enthusiastic and pushing us to get going," McCarthy said. "We're going to have, right in Iowa, an endless supply of fertilizer for farms in this area."

The company also plans to pre-process the waste material at the dairy and beef operations to remove liquids from it. That water could be treated for reuse at the operations or put back into the ground, McCarthy said.

He said the company is seeking livestock operations within a 200-mile radius of Maquoketa, including those that use biodigesters to extract methane from decomposing manure. Quality Flow can use the leftover material from those processes.

When the facility is fully operational, it is anticipated to have 40 full-time employees.

Comments: (319) 368-8541; jared.strong@thegazette.com