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| A layer of smoke in the Mesilla Valley |
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| Bad air may come from pecan farmers burning debris |
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| Someone who doesn't give a hoot about smoke |
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| Dry desert arroyo (aka "dry wash") |
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| 49-pound desert denizen |
Monday, January 23, 2012
Smoke in the Valley
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Late Trek
1st 2: Tortugas and the Organs I took Willow for a brief walk in the arroyo beside our house this morning before heading over to the dentis...
4 comments:
Despite the smoke you still took some nice photos.
I especially like the last image--the Organ Mountains are in nice relief behind Becca.
Chipping the pecan limbs definitely would be more expensive than burning them. My guys hate using the dangerous, noisy chipper.
Thanks, Scott. I talked to a guy from the New Mexico Environment Department today, and he says there's a new technology--more expensive than burning, yes--that actually "shreds" pecan-tree debris into toothpick-like mulch, which can then be used on pecan-farming sites as a mulch that doesn't rob soil of nitrogen. The guy from "air quality" called it a "win/win" situation. He said one pecan farmer in the Mesilla Valley has been using it with much success, especially because he's growing trees on sandy soil.
We generate a lot of organic debris in our operation. One time, we hired a specialty contractor to come in to burn our huge debris pile without generating smoke. The contractor dug a large pit with a backhoe, positioned a PTO-driven fan encased in a rectangular box as long as the pit at the edge of the hole, bulldozed some of the organic debris into the pit, and ignited the wood. Then he turned on the fan. The fan forced so much oxygen into the pit that the debris burned very, very hot and completely smokelessly, which was our goal. As you might imagine, it was (1) expensive, (2) wasteful of potentially valuable organic matter (a la pecan limb toothpick mulch), and infernally hot. We haven't done it again since.
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