Dane County prides itself on its grassroots efforts to ensure environmental consciousness and green practices, and in pursuit of these efforts, oversight of water quality, recycling, conservation and energy management falls under the authority of county government.

The Dane County Board of Supervisors oversees a host of environmental issues affecting the county through various committees.

The Land Conservation Committee provides policy oversight of land and water conservation activities of the Dane County Land and Water Resources Department.

“When it comes to water quality issues throughout our county, including the lakes that the city of Madison is surrounded by, the county government is the delivery vehicle to improve that water quality through a number of different venues and committees,” Land Conservation Committee member, Sup. Tom Stoebig, District 17, said.

Similarly, the county’s recycling efforts and landfills fall under the purview of the Solid Waste and Recycling Advisory Commission. Vice Chair Sup. David Ripp, District 29, said after 20 years on the committee, he has seen the continually changing discourse as new environmental issues emerge and the county searches for new solutions. Twenty years ago, recycling was not something people were concerned about. Now it is commonplace, Ripp said.

Currently, the county is embarking on several new environmental and sustainability projects. One of the most promising is the county’s first manure digester. The digester, using manure piped in from three Waunakee farms, will break down waste to produce methane gas. When burned, the methane gas generates energy, estimated to be able to power 1,700 homes, said Kevin Connors, director of the Dane County Land and Water Resources Department.

The digestive system also includes separation technology that will remove algae-producing phosphorous, a major source of lake pollution.

According to Green Energy-Jobs Subcommittee Co-Chair Sup. Robin Schmidt, District 24, the manure digester may serve even greater functions. Some agricultural-based countries, Schmidt said, have used energy from manure digesters to fuel transit systems.

Implementing this technology in Dane County, Schmidt said, would link the county’s agricultural economy with urban transit.

“As we think about what the [Regional Transit Authority] is doing and enhanced bus services, we could be fueling our commuter buses with methane that is generated from rural areas,” Schmidt said. “There are a lot of possibilities for how we could take that waste and make it into a resource, especially in a county like Dane that has a concentration of urban areas, and so much of our economy is based off of agriculture.”

In addition to a manure digester, the county is currently conducting a feasibility study for a food waste digester to determine how much energy could be generated as well as the financial benefits of converting food into biogas.

The development of a digester, Schmidt said, could potentially affect students, with the food waste most likely coming from large suppliers, such as residence halls and local restaurants.

“In a community like Madison, how cool would it be to take all of our food waste and drive the buses with it, heat a building with it or return power back to utilities so we don’t have to burn coal?” Schmidt said.

An additional function of county government in environmental policy is regulating the water quality of the surrounding lakes. Currently, the Land and Water Resources Department, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and City of Madison are conducting the Yahara Capital Lakes Environmental Assessment and Needs study.

A major concern is reducing phosphorus in agricultural run-off, which gets carried to waterways, Stoebig said. The construction of a manure digester, Stoebig said, is a significant first step.

Stoebig stressed the importance of county government in the process of cleaning up Madison area lakes.

“There’s a lot of the work that Dane County has done to try to improve these lakes that we love to walk around but are afraid to swim in,” Stoebig. “It probably took 60 years or longer to get these lakes as bad as they are; it will take a while to get them better. It will involve cooperation, but most of that work is going to be done by Dane County.”