Manure

As manager of Philadelphia's Pennypack Park, Tom Dagnon has long had to deal with debris - the kind that people dump behind trees and toss into ravines. His crews regularly haul away rusted refrigerators, broken bedsprings and worn-out tires. But horse manure? Tons of horse manure? "Yep, that, too," Dagnon said yesterday after an investigation into the purported illegal dumping of manure onto the banks of a stream flowing into the Pennypack Creek within the park. The investigation began several weeks ago when a woman called Dagnon at home one night and said a pickup truck had gotten stuck in mud while dumping manure in the Northeast Philadelphia park near Tabor Road and Stanwood Street.

Karl L. Spivak, described by the state Supreme Court as a "seasoned patent attorney," was late filing a patent application in 1978 for a client who had invented and manufactured a manure spreader. A big stink developed after the manure spreading specialist sold his rights to the product to the Hedlund Manufacturing Co. in December 1980. The Hedlund company smelled trouble the next year when it was notified about the denial of the patent, based on the late filing. The inventor, Mervin Martin, then signed some legal papers, switching his right to sue his attorney for negligence and breach of contract to the Hedlund firm.

Something seemed amiss in Milton Edwards' sprawling barnyard in Upper Oxford Township. The hay was fresh. The silos stood tall. Fences were mended. Contoured rows of feed corn, 100 acres in all, stretched for the sun. Yet there was no odor and few flies last week despite stifling heat, wearable humidity and the abundant droppings of 100 well-fed milking cows. "It's the floor," Edwards said, stomping his boot on a huge slab of solid cement. "Ever seen a concrete barnyard?" Edwards poured the floor two years ago, one of a half-dozen measures he took to do his share in helping to clean up, of all things, the Chesapeake Bay, whose upper reaches are 25 miles downstream from Edwards' southwestern Chester County farm.

With 1,200 dairy cows standing shoulder to shoulder in his two vast, white barns, Tom Frey needs a quarter-million gallons of water a day to flush out all the manure. It smells, of course, but, he says, not as bad as it used to. Twice a month, Frey adds a few pounds of manure-eating bacteria to the coffee-colored stream of animal waste, and presto! The amount of "solid nutrients," he said, is substantially reduced. Frey is one of a growing number of farmers to tackle the odor issue voluntarily, using an array of tactics such as covering manure pits with vegetable oil and blowing the smelly barn air through a "biofilter" made of wood chips.

It used to be a nursery where little shrubs and saplings grew. Now it's a sort of organic cemetery where trees repose, leaves decompose, and lots of other things just go to pot. One more thing. It's a place that welcomes "zoo doo" with open arms. Well, maybe not open arms, but it doesn't turn its nose up at it, either. It's the Fairmount Park Recycling Center, a 10-acre compound inconspicuously tucked away in West Fairmount Park, where leaves, trees, wood chips and manure are flopped, chopped, lopped and crushed the year round.

There's a 13-acre slab of concrete down here loaded with the stuff of mushroom life - horse manure. Piles of it, steaming under the pale winter sun. It's a sight that makes Rob Jordan smile, even as he wipes his nose. Jordan is a 35-year-old truck driver who has spent 16 years gathering and hauling horse manure. He never imagined that 25 years after he started cutting across that 13- acre storage yard to get to Mazza's Grocery for soda, he'd find it his job to keep the piles high.

Swine farms off Route 47 and Fox Run Road, already plagued by bird droppings, now find themselves laboring under yet another smelly burden. Pig manure. Tons of it. For more than a year, state agriculture officials have studied nesting habits and flight patterns to prevent birds from relieving themselves on roofs, porches and front yards near 12 farms that sit in a 6-square-mile area in the southeastern corner of Deptford. Now they have been trying to figure out how to help farmers who - in the absence of a low-cost, nearby landfill - have opted to leave their manure loads right on their land.

It was a pretty vision: a park with ball fields, nature trails, a lake and a performing arts center, an oasis amid the clogged sprawl of Bensalem Township. It has become an ugly mess, a furor over a mayor, money, manure and methane. Not to mention wetlands and a buried dump. The mayor is Edward F. Burns of Bensalem, who has pushed the plan to carve a 30-acre park out of 61 acres the township owns near Hulmeville and Byberry Roads. The money amounts to nearly $10 million - the combined cost of the park and a new municipal complex being built on the same tract.

Who says Chester County's fancy horses do nothing to earn their keep? In fact, they're employed in a very important job - and it has nothing to do with winning blue ribbons at the race track or jumping shows. About seven times a day - and that's just an average - they're producing a product vital to the mushroom industry. Granted, it's pretty easy work making manure. "There's enough demand that you can actually be paid for your manure," said Jonathan Sheppard, owner of a training stable in West Marlborough filled with about 100 thoroughbred racehorses sent to him from as far away as Europe.

State environmental officials said after a meeting here yesterday they were one step closer to helping Deptford rid itself of a terrible stench and other problems caused by illegal manure and trash pileups at many of the township's dozen or so swine farms. Deptford officials met at the state Agriculture Department with members of the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Farm Bureau, the Department of Agriculture, the Soil Conservation Committee, and representatives of the farmers and the community.

A few things we learned about Hadrian's Wall Path in northern England: There is no wall, there is no path, and nearly everyone in northern England sounds suspiciously Scottish. The Roman emperor Hadrian built his coast-to-coast wall - 85 crow miles [73 miles] - in 122 A.D. Nobody knows why: to occupy his army, to show off, to regulate trade; but probably not to defend against the Scots. Rome defended by attacking. Nevertheless, it stationed soldiers there for some 300 years. In 2003 the English government created Hadrian's Wall Path National Trail - more a well-marked right-of-way than an actual trail - which means you can now freely traverse the entire country (walking or pedaling)

Amy Stewart's new book is called Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $18.95). It's the insect version of her popular 2009 work, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities . What can we say? The woman has a thing for all the morbid, shocking, and disgusting stuff that happens in the natural world. Can't really argue with that. People like shocking and disgusting, and more and more, selling books is like making movies.

Operators of the Parx Casino racetrack have paid $389,000 to resolve pollution violations related to horse manure, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said Monday. "Parx has accepted responsibility for its environmental violations with a payment . . . and a binding agreement to complete projects that will prevent future pollution incidents," said Joseph A. Feola, the agency's Southeastern Pennsylvania chief. The violations pertained to discharge of manure-laden water that polluted Neshaminy Creek.

WHAT JOE McGinniss might expect for intruding on Alaska's favorite daughter: A speeding ticket for going one mile over the limit. A dozen Domino's pizzas that he didn't order. A burning bag of moose manure on his front porch. (Don't step on it, Joe, you'll ruin your Birkenstocks.) Jim Acton, Collegeville

Ozzie the Great If Low & Outside had a vote for manager of the year, the White Sox' Ozzie Guillen would get it every year. Guillen's mouth is a constant blog. By that we mean obscenities, stupidity and bad grammar spew forth regularly. This weekend, the Windy City's long-standing and inexplicable love affair with the Cubs, who have not won a World Series since Teddy Roosevelt was president, set off the volatile skipper. "We won it a couple years ago, and we're horse [manure]," Guillen said.

The Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections shut down a decades-old makeshift stable in the Strawberry Mansion section yesterday and, citing unhealthy conditions, ordered 44 horses removed. Officials with the Pennsylvania SPCA used a double horse trailer to haul away two horses seized from the stable in the 2600 block of Fletcher Street. The rest of the horses were ordered to be removed by tomorrow, and city officials said the stables will then be torn down. SPCA spokeswoman Lisa Rodgers said the horses were kept in "deplorable conditions.

Over ocean perch at the Palm, Al Taubenberger is talking manure. "Manure is highly concentrated with nitrogen, which is very important for plant growth," he says. "Most fertilizers are nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. " Taubenberger's degree in agronomy makes him an expert in manure, as well as grass roots. Both are serving him well in his attempt to become Philadelphia's first Republican mayor since Harry Truman occupied the White House. That's 60 years, for those of you keeping score at home.

Over ocean perch at the Palm, Al Taubenberger is talking manure. "Manure is highly concentrated with nitrogen, which is very important for plant growth," he says. "Most fertilizers are nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. " Taubenberger's degree in agronomy makes him an expert in manure, as well as grass roots. Both are serving him well in his attempt to become Philadelphia's first Republican mayor since Harry Truman occupied the White House. That's 60 years, for those of you keeping score at home.

Gardeners are famous for recycling. They convert kitchen scraps to compost, stake tomatoes with old pantyhose, and hang unwanted CDs on sticks to spook birds in the berry patch. But there's one thing every gardener buys that routinely gets tossed in the trash and buried in a landfill: the plastic flower pots used to grow seedlings. They're everywhere, especially at this time of year. They don't decompose, and they're not usually made of the plastic recycled in these parts.

Two teens yesterday admitted leaving a 15-year-old girl covered in mud, blood and manure after a prolonged sexual assault in New Garden Township. In separate proceedings, Chester County Court Judge Howard F. Riley Jr. accepted pleas to charges of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and kidnapping from Bolivar Barrios, 18, of Avondale, and Jose Vazquez-Bedolla, 17, of Kennett Square. The court earlier this month certified the two teens, alleged members of the Sur 13 gang, to be tried as adults.