Three years ago, if you would have told me I was going to forgo my Sunday afternoon siesta to learn about how a pump house full of cow manure and food waste combines to create energy, my derisive laugh would have been heard for miles around.

But you should never underestimate the lure of a successful enterprise in the Conneaut Valley, so I found myself at the Bortnick Dairy, LLC in Conneautville a couple of weeks ago.

The Bortnick families of Donald, Ann and their four children and Jack, Michelle and their three children have teamed together to create a farming operation that draws interest from renewable energy enthusiasts throughout the northeast.

Jack’s profession is to keep 1,500 cows fed, cared for and milked per day. Donald’s career led him from Linesville High School in 1987 to envision, design, and create an anaerobic digester capable of producing electrical energy from the “output” of over 1,500 well fed cows.

In fact, the digester is constantly full and is combined with food wastes trucked in from as far away as 60-70 miles to produce the methane gas necessary for the production of electricity. The food waste helps increase the methane percentage and is closely monitored by DEP regulations.

The regular reporting, safety and management plans required for this business to run keeps all of the Bortnicks, including more than twenty-five other employees, working full-time. What originally began as a plan to reduce or eliminate farm odor for their neighbors has caught the attention of bio-gas and alternative energy students and researchers from educational institutions in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The electric energy currently produced is a fraction of this digester’s capability and the plans for the future are open for continuing possibilities. Grants from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) were funding opportunities the Bortnick families utilized to assist in making this vision a reality as Pennsylvania is a frontrunner in digester technology.

What makes the Bortnick Dairy anaerobic digester remarkable is not that it was the first one ever conceived, or that it was the biggest one in the commonwealth, it is the fact that it was created here in the Valley and functions as an important piece of evidence that federal and state investment dollars are wisely used by families who are willing to invest in the future with renewable energy technologies.

Thank you Ann, Donald, Michelle and Jack for doing a great job for the future of the Valley.