TENNESSEE
The Polk
County Poultry Litter/Composting Program reduces the threat to
ground water by poultry farming, the largest agricultural activity
in the county, by converting dead chickens and chicken waste into
nutrient-rich fertilizer. Farmers who have installed composters
have all but eliminated potential runoff and disposal problems in a
rural area where 68 percent of the residents draw water from ground
wells. Tests of water purity conducted in different sites show that
fecal coliform salmonella and other bacteria have been reduced.
Farmers using the new composters have realized a good profit,
amounting to $1,455 a year per farmer on farms that produce 500,000
birds annually.
Contact:
Allen
Persinger
District
Conservationist
Soil
Conservation Service
Poplar Street
Office Building
Poplar and
Commerce Streets
Route 1, Box
488
Benton,
Tennessee 37307
WISCONSIN
Milwaukee
County's Neighborhood Coordinating Councils seek to improve the
lives of children in two communities by mobilizing residents to
design social service programs for their own neighborhoods. Working
with the county's Department of Human Services, residents, clergy,
and both users and providers of services assess the effectiveness
of programs, especially as they affect children. Each year the
councils develop Neighborhood Service Delivery Plans with
recommendations for funding. The plans aim to fill gaps in service
and promote prevention and early intervention, as well as identify
program strengths in different areas. The plans helped bring in $3
million in funding to programs in the two neighborhoods in 1991 and
$4 million in 1992.
Contact:
Kenneth
Herro
Neighborhood
Coordinator
Youth
Services Division
Milwaukee
County Department of Human Services
1673 South
9th Street, 3rd Floor
Milwaukee,
Wisconsin 53204
The
Xerographic Paper Program, which includes Wisconsin, Minnesota,
South Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, is the
first major multistate recycling effort. The program cuts through
the states' complex procurement processes to help create major
markets for recycled products, develop workable specifications to
define the products, and create a coalition of public-sector
purchasing agencies that will pool quantities sufficient to attract
manufacturers and suppliers. Collectively, the states purchase 30
million pounds of recycled paper for use in state and local
governments. The program has saved 187,000 trees and 560,000 cubic
feet of landfill space—the energy equivalent of 1.12 million
gallons of gasoline.
Contact:
Leo
Talsky
Deputy
Administrator
Division of
State Agency Services
Wisconsin
Department of Administration
101 East
Wilson Street, 6th Floor
Madison,
Wisconsin 53702