Cattlemen can protect water quality

Cattlemen do a good job of managing grass for their cattle; the acres in grass help to protect soil from erosion. Most of the grassland that producers use for brome or fescue hay was likely converted from cropland.

The change from cropland to grassland reduces the erosion of soil to those acres as well.

So, why do cattlemen still need to be concerned about protecting water quality?

Cowherds can have an impact on the water when the livestock have direct access to creeks for drinking water. The traffic of the cattle up and down the bank of the stream destroys the grass on the stream bank.

The next rain erodes the soil directly into the stream. When cattle go into the stream to drink, they may add bacteria and nutrients into the stream when they urinate or deposit manure into the stream.

From a water quality standpoint, the added soil, bacteria or manure into the stream may not reduce the performance for the cattle but could contaminate the water for those downstream.

It is the phosphorous and nitrogen in the water that contribute to the algae growth in rivers and lakes. When the lake "turns over," bad flavored water is produced; this is related to the nutrients in the water.

However, livestock and wildlife are not the only contributor; fertilizers over-applied or inappropriately applied to lawns, golf courses and fields also add to water nutrient levels.

The water in all public water supplies is treated to kill bacteria. As more bacteria is sent downstream, the public water supply must stay on top of the levels needed to keep the water safe.

We have yet to determine if cattle drinking water mildly contaminated with bacteria or phosphorus suffer any loss of production or health related issues.

However when water becomes unpalatable to the point they will not drink enough, cattlemen will find reductions in production. That can come from muddy water, salty water or other filthy conditions.

The two major things cattlemen can do for their cowherd to protect water quality are to provide alternate water supplies and place feeding sites well away from the stream.

Producers may not realize that if they place an alternate water supply, which can be a stock tank or any of the freeze proof tanks, in a pasture with a stream that 80 percent of the drinking will occur at the tank rather than the stream.

The change in drinking site reduces the contamination directly into the stream, as well as the erosion of the stream bank where the cattle travel. An additional benefit of moving the watering site is a decrease of nearly 60 percent of the time the cattle lounge in the riparian area (the timbered area near the stream).

Make sure the feeding sites are located well away from the stream, with a good amount of grass to treat the runoff from the feeding site.

From data collected at Kansas State University on 10 cattlemen's feeding sites, an area of 100 ft of good grass between the feeding site and the drainage that collects the runoff can reduce the phosphorus and bacteria levels to nearly zero.

Other issues that affect water quality include how often the old feeding sites get changed or cleaned up. Old feeding sites are a source of runoff that oozes out of the site following a rain and are also the source of many flies.

One K-State researcher has found that one round bale feeding site can be the hatching site for one million stable flies. They can measure a reduction in livestock performance with as few as 20 flies per head.

With these three changes, cattlemen can do their part to protect our water supplies.