Animal Waste Management

SWET has extensive experience in the design and permitting of animal waste management systems for dairy, swine, and poultry operations. SWET designed the first permitted, rotationally grazed dairy in the state of Florida, as well as several other conventional dairies.

Dr. Bottcher is recognized as the leading expert in Florida for assessing and designing the most appropriate environmentally sound waste management systems, as is evidenced by his participation on three state rulemaking committees for animal waste management. He has also been asked by the South Florida Water Management District to come up with solutions for all of the water quality non-compliance dairies.

Remediation Services

We provide surface and ground water restoration planning and remediation services. Our modeling skills are applicable to the control and clean-up of residual contaminants after a short-duration spill event or a long-term accumulation. Point and non-point pollution can be mitigated under plans developed by modeling existing field conditions and adding various mitigation scenarios.

Agricultural Engineering

Agricultural Best Management Practices Development and design for all agricultural operations, including dairy, swine, poultry, row crop, sugarcane, vegetables, citrus, horticultural, and beef. Complete irrigation, drainage, and fertility system designs for optimal crop production and water quality management are also available through SWET. Also, SWET has designed numerous animal waste management systems.

Field, Soil, Water Quality, and Crop Assessments

We like nothing better then to get our feet on the ground and our hands dirty! SWET has extensive experience in all aspects of field research and data collection. We put our experience into practice when planning a sampling program to identify areas in which to concentrate activities, allowing for a thorough appraisal of the situation. SWET has a LICORR1000 with associated climate chambers for infield measurement of ET and CO2 uptake. SWET has a highly sensitive pond/lake leakage measurement system as well as sediment coring device, soil sampling equipment, laser survey instrument, autosamplers, CR10 weather loggers, and GPS equipment.

Integration of these technologies into research design and sampling procedures allows for a programmatic protocol to be utilized, automating the data collection and ensuring a high level of quality control. Our expertise allows for an intuitive assessment of the records collected once they have been analyzed for their statistical and geospatial significance.

Research and Technical Review

SWET has been internationally recognized as experts in the area of watershed modeling, flood assessment, agricultural BMP development, and bio-energy. Dr. Bottcher has lead cutting edge research on sustainable environmental practices and general water resource assessment and associated abatement strategies development. This has also involved completing technical reviews of Water Supply, Environmental, and Economic Aspects of development plans as well as review of technical reports. Careful and scientific review of plans early in a major project can often guide the planning process by finding the lowest-cost, highest-return alternatives.

Bio Energy

SWET has also been very active in the development of BioEnergy from animal manure. SWET has worked with Suwannee Farms to design and install the first large scale animal methane digester in Florida. The 600 KW system uses beef cattle manure from a 5000 head feeding operation in Suwannee County. SWET has completed an extensive literature and data review for Southeast