University of Illinois Extension Macon County
Resource Review
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/macon/rr/
For more information, please contact:
Macon County Unit
2535 Millikin Parkway
Decatur, IL 62526
Phone: 217-877-6042 / Fax: 217-877-4564
E-mail: macon_co@extension.uiuc.edu
This is your chance to find out about the potential diseases and pests that may attack your crops this year. On two consecutive nights February 23 and February 24, Dennis Bowman, University of Illinois Extension Crop Specialist and Paul Mariman, University of Illinois Extension Farm Business Educator will conduct Corn and Soybean Scouting workshops. The night of February 23 will be the Soybean Workshop and February 24 will be the Corn Workshop.
Both workshops will be held at the Extension Conference Center located at 2535 Millikin Parkway, Decatur, IL. Pre-registration is requested in order to have sufficient material available. You can register by calling 877-6042.
There is no cost for the workshop, however, during the workshops you may wish to purchase the New University of Illinois Scouting Manual and/or the Scouting CD, cost for the Manual is $55 and the cost for the CD is $55 or you may purchase the set for $99.
Participants will receive the most current information regarding basic provisions, economic incentives, cost-share, technical support, ranking criteria and sign-up periods. Landowners, farmers, lenders and agency personnel are all invited to attend.
Teleconference Agenda
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
9:00 Introductions
9:10 Farm Service Agency, Lisa Scott
9:30 Illinois Department of Natural
Resources (IDNR) Rick Mollahan
9:50 Natural Resources Conservation Service Paula Hingson
10:30 IDNR Funding Web Site
Tammy Watson
11:00 Question and Answer Session
12:00 Adjourn
Teleconference will be held at the Macon Unit Conference Center at 2535 Millikin Parkway, Decatur,IL. Pre-Registration is required by February 11, 2005 to insure that sufficient materials are available. To register call (217) 877-6042.
February 4 and February 11 are the dates of two different Tele-conferences to be held at the Macon Conference Center located at 2535 Millikin Parkway, Decatur, Il. The programs begin at 8:30 AM and are scheduled to run to approximately 12:30. Pre-registration is requested. You can register by calling the Macon Unit at 877-6042.
Corn rootworms have received much attention recently. Some areas of interest regarding corn rootworms include the advent of YieldGuard corn for rootworms, insecticidal seed treatments, rootworms damaging corn following soybeans, extended issues with northern corn rootworms, less than adequate control of rootworm larvae with soil applied insecticides and adult control programs.
Controlling corn rootworms has never been without its problems both in the past and today. Understanding the effects of weather on corn rootworm's biology and the performance of rootworm control products is important in making management decisions for this pest. Resistance management issues are important for larval and adult control programs.
Entomologists from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska will present information on managing this pest. The workshop will be taught in a distance-learning environment utilizing a teleconference system and other educational materials.
Call For Help
If you have used motor oil, used hydraulic oil, or used transmission oil there are four Townships need your used oil, are willing to take the oil off your hands, and thank you for the donation. Four Townships in Macon County heat their buildings with used oil. By heating with the waste oil the Township have reduced their operating costs and make your tax dollars go farther. One great example of this is Pleasant View Township that in the 2004 year saved taxpayers over $30,000 in heating the Township Building and the Fire Station.
This is all part of a matching grant program sponsored by the Macon County Solid Waste Management Department. The program funds come from the Illinois Solid Waste Management Act. The Department will grant up to $10,000 to any municipality that installs equipment that uses a waste product that would normally go to a landfill. The matching funds program is open to any village, township, school or municipality in Macon County. Blue Mound, Maroa, Pleasant View and South Macon Townships have all taken advantage of the program and now using used oil for heating. They would all welcome any donation of used oil. This is a great opportunity for farmers to legally dispose of used oil and help to keep Township expenditures down. You do not have to be a resident of Macon County to deliver oil to the Townships.
To find out how to deliver the oil call one of the following locations:
Blue Mound Township
5016 Boody Rd.
Decatur, IL 62521
Philip Revis
865-2911
Maroa Township
415 N. Maple
Maroa, IL. 61756
Shawn Pittman
794-3720
Pleasant View Township
305 Bolls St.
Blue Mound, IL 62513
Larry Bonn
692-2752
South Macon Township
South Macon Township Garage
South Macon IL 62544
Scott Wise
764-3772
Surface Septic Systems Failing
Surface-discharge septic systems are failing at an alarming rate, dumping as much as 42 million gallons of raw sewage into drainage ditches or waterways and putting people's health at risk.
Illinois has just under 140,000 surface-discharging systems in operation, and those systems have the potential of discharging 70 million gallons of sewage per day, said Duane Friend, University of Illinois Extension Natural Resources Management Educator. Recent studies by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) have shown that 20 to 60 percent of those systems are failing due to poor maintenance or improper use.
If you live in an area that is not serviced by a municipal sewage treatment system, it's your responsibility to provide your own treatment system, Friend said. Many homeowners in Illinois, particularly in areas with clay soils, are choosing septic systems that discharge wastewater into surface water, such as a drainage ditch. The other major type of septic system filters wastewater through an underground drainage field.
"The surface system is almost like a mini-municipal system," he explained. "Wastewater from the home goes into a concrete or plastic tank that has some type of compressor. The compressor pushes air through the water to provide oxygen for aerobic bacteria to decompose the organic material."
After some solids settle to the bottom of the tank, wastewater then flows through a chlorine dispenser to kill any remaining bacteria before it's discharged out a pipe into a waterway or creek.
But these types of systems must be maintained and that's where the problems start, said Friend.
"People are either not keeping up with the maintenance of the mechanical system or they're not putting the chlorine in correctly," he said. For example, some people are adding too many chlorine tablets, believing that "more is better." But doing this can cause the chlorine dispenser to clog, defeating its purpose of killing bacteria in wastewater.
As a result, the system fails and the liquid waste that is discharged may contain raw sewage not visible to the untrained eye. Disease-causing organisms in the sewage can result in dysentery, infectious hepatitis, typhoid or other diseases.
Additionally, any pooling discharge from a failing system is a temptation to children or animals in the area, Friend said. They can be infected by direct exposure or they can transport disease-causing organisms back to their homes. This stagnant water, with its high levels of organic material, also provides a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes identified as the primary carriers of the West Nile virus in Illinois.
According to Friend, the surface discharge system is often the only viable option for homeowners who live in a geographic region where the soil has high clay content. The space between clay soil particles is too small to allow for adequate infiltration, making a subsurface discharging system ineffective.
"Approximately 6,000 new surface-discharge systems are being installed each year," said Friend, "particularly in the clay soils in the south. A third of them are in the Marion region, there are quite a few around Edwardsville and quite a few in the Peoria and Champaign regions. There aren't too many around West Chicago."
If there continues to be problems with these systems, Friend warns that local governments or IEPA may require more regulations for operation, maintenance and installation.
"That would mean more time for approval and more paperwork," said Friend. "So they're trying to get people to do a better job of maintaining these systems on a voluntary basis."
Ideally, the IEPA would like to reduce the number of new surface-discharging systems. However, if homeowners have no other feasible alternative, Friend advises them to set up a maintenance contract when the system is installed.
"The installer can come out periodically to check the system and make sure it's working," he concluded. "These systems do work if they're maintained properly."
Two programs that are sponsored by the Macon County Solid Waste Management Department deserve special note. The first is the paint-recycling program.
The Department collects paint from private citizens that would normally go to the landfill. Then they sort the paint by type (interior, exterior, latex or oil based) and color; disposing of the paint that is no longer useable and reselling the paint to private citizens. The paint comes in 5 gallon buckets at a cost of $1.00 per bucket for colored paint and $2.00 per bucket for white paint. There is no cost for municipalities, schools, or not for profit organizations for the paint.
At the Macon Solid Waste Management Department located at the Macon County Administration Building you can go in and look at paint samples of the colors available to pick out the color right for your project. There is a wide range of colors in latex, oil based, interior and exterior. This is a great chance to brighten up the farmstead for not a lot of money.
The second program is open to local communities for spring clean up. The Department will provide a $500 grant to towns, villages, townships, or municipalities to offset the costs of container rental, transportation, advertising clean-up, recycling cost or disposal costs. This is a great opportunity for community leader to offset some of the cost of clean up.
The Macon County Solid Waste Management Department is NOT funded by tax dollars it is self funded by material taken to the landfill. For every ton of material taken to the land fill the Department receives $1.29. A great deal of the money is put back into the community in grants and programs.
For both the paint and the clean up programs contact:
