Pee Local, Thursday June 13
May 22, 2019
Pee Local
Sustainable Agriculture through Nutrient Reclamation
Thursday June 13 | 7 PM
Want to help save the Great Bay with sustainable wastewater management? Want our farms to thrive and save money? Want to safely capture a resource you are wasting? Then come learn how to Pee Local! This presentation is free and open to all. Cosponsored by Portsmouth Public Library and Seacoast Permaculture.
You can be part of a local movement to capture a major source of water pollution and use it to improve soil health and sustainably boost crop production. PEE LOCAL is a NH based urine diversion and nutrient reclamation program implementing practical and sustainable wastewater management solutions to help address the Great Bay’s nutrient issues, conserve drinking water, and support local agriculture. The Great Bay Estuary is the receiving water body of excess nitrogen from 18 wastewater treatment plants and an estimated 50,000 septic systems, with 80% of this nitrogen from human urine. Urine is an excellent source of fertilizer, and sustainable initiatives such as that of the Rich Earth Institute in Brattleboro, VT are demonstrating the economic viability of “peecycling” programs (richearthinstitute.org).
The Rich Earth Institute currently has over 100 community members participating in a voluntary peecycling program and their urine is fertilizing hay fields at 4 local farms near Brattleboro. Similar practices are becoming common place in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and many developing countries, and Seacoast NH is on its way to being added to the list.
Inspired by Rich Earth Institute, PEE LOCAL donors are using simple collection devices and 55 gallon containers in coordination with a urine pick-up program that has supplied 1,200 gallons of urine to a local farm. Dave Cedarholm will bring examples of portable urinals for both men and women, and a few PEE LOCAL donors will also be present to talk about their experiences.
OUR SPEAKER: Dave Cedarholm is a Professional Engineer and works for Concord, NH as their City Engineer. Dave has lived in NH for 30 years and practices sustainable wastewater management with his family in Lee. He is on the Board of Directors of the Rich Earth Institute of Brattleboro, VT, which is the first organization in the US permitted to apply human urine for agricultural fertilizer. Dave is actively working toward expanding Rich Earth’s nutrient reclamation efforts in NH, and over the past 2 years PEE LOCAL has not only delivered 1.200 gallons of liquid fertilizer to a local farmer, but in doing so conserved more than 25,000 gallons of drinking water that would have otherwise been used to flush a toilet or three.
