There’s more to the picture of the manure spreader and tractor crossing the Meadow Road bridge in Waitsfield than meets the eye. After The Valley Reporter shared a town picture of a tractor and manure spreader on that bridge in last week’s paper, Warren dairy farmer David DeFreest reached out to offer context and clarity.
Last week’s story about Waitsfield adopting a traffic ordinance that creates a fee structure for the drivers of overweight vehicles that cross Meadow Road Bridge and the town’s Village Covered Bridge included estimated vehicle weights for trucks pictured crossing Meadow Road Bridge.
DeFreest said the image created an inaccurate impression that a fully loaded manure tanker was traveling across the bridge.
CROSSED EMPTY
“The spreader crossed the bridge empty,” DeFreest said.
According to DeFreest, manure stored in a pit at the Neill Farm on the east side of the Mad River was loaded into the sprayer, near Neill Farm fields, where it would later be spread. The tractor and tanker crossed the bridge without a load, filled locally, and then spread manure on nearby leased farmland without crossing back over the bridge while loaded.
He said the tractor weighs about 22,000 pounds and the empty tanker approximately 18,000 pounds. The Meadow Road bridge is posted at 16,000-pound but agricultural vehicles in Vermont have a 60,000-pound exemption. Although a fully loaded tanker can exceed 100,000 pounds, DeFreest emphasized that the vehicle photographed on the bridge carried no manure at the time.
DeFreest also said the equipment distributes weight across five axles fitted with large flotation tires designed to reduce ground pressure and lessen wear on roads and bridges.
MORE EFFICIENT
“A lot of people see big equipment and assume it’s harder on the bridge,” he said, pointing out that the weight distribution creates less stress than people realize.
Recent town discussions about the deteriorating Meadow Road Bridge have highlighted perceptions that agricultural uses have outgrown local infrastructure capacity. DeFreest said perceptions that his dairy operation has rapidly expanded are inaccurate. The farm already uses almost all available farmland in proximity to its Warren base, and there is little room for additional expansion.
“The farm really hasn’t grown significantly in herd size,” he said. “What we’ve done is become more efficient.”
FEED AND MANURE
That efficiency includes using larger equipment to reduce the number of trips required to move feed and manure.
“Instead of hauling with small trucks and making lots and lots of trips, we haul with bigger trips and make a lot less trips,” DeFreest said.
The farm works roughly 125 acres of leased fields located across the river from the main farm operation in Warren. Accessing those fields requires crossing the Meadow Road bridge or taking a significantly longer detour through Moretown. Avoiding the bridge entirely would increase fuel use, labor costs, and travel time.
