This problem too big a load for city folks

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Environmental problems vary depending on which part of the country they are found.

In Nebraska a current problem is burning manure.

Can megapolis America even imagine such a phenomenon?

The busy urban millions might know something about garbage barges, filthy harbors or lethal automobile emissions.

But there probably aren't any New York consulting firms we can call on to discuss the appropriate measures to put an end to smoldering dung. This is a problem that we're going to have to solve on our own.

The combustible nature of ruminant manure has been common knowledge for centuries. Pioneers and Natives used so-called buffalo chips on the plains, where kindling and firewood were scarce.

But that was a different era.

Today's manure isn't scattered across the prairie. It's piled tall, in huge mounds. Once the fire starts burning inside the mountain of dung, it's hard to stop.

For almost two months now, smoke has been rising from the towering heaps of composting manure near Milford. David Dickinson, who owns and manages Midwest Feeding Co., has tried several tactics to extinguish the blaze. He has spread the fiery compost with a front-end loader. He's doused the pile with water. But the fire burns on.

Wilma Roth, who manages a restaurant about a mile and a half from the smoky heap, says customers complain about the odor whenever the wind is from the south. Eugene Welsch said he can smell it at his farm nine miles away, when the wind is right.

The problem is believed to have started when grass clippings, added to the manure compost for carbon content, ignited spontaneously. Since then the fire has smoldered on. There are about 12,000 cattle at the feedlot now, and the manure pile isn't getting any smaller.

Actually, although flaming manure might seem a peculiar occurrence to city folk, the problem is not that uncommon wherever manure is piled high. Just last month, for example, smoke began rolling off a big pile of horse manure near Shelby, Mont. In Ferndale, Wash., fire crews described the smell of a burning dairy manure lagoon last summer as "your worst nightmare."

The state Department of Environmental Quality plans to make recommendations this week on how to put out the fire. In Montana the preferred solution was to scatter the debris, sort of like kicking out a campfire. In Washington they doused the fire with a slurry of more manure.

Somehow that seems fitting, the next best thing to fighting fire with fire.