2003 Walter Barnard Hill Awards for Distinguished Achievement in University Public Service & Outreach

William C. Merka

Throughout his career as an extension poultry scientist, Dr. William C. Merka has been driven by a desire to serve the Georgia and U.S. poultry industries by helping them use environmentally responsible methods to deal with waste-related issues. He has developed the nation’s premier extension program in poultry waste management and minimization, which saves the poultry industry over $80 million annually and has significantly improved environmental protection measures within the industry. As a result, Merka has earned a national and international reputation as one of the most innovative and highly respected extension poultry scientists in the field.

Early in his employment at UGA, Merka formed the National Poultry Waste Management Symposium in cooperation with colleagues at Ohio State University, the University of Maryland, and the United States Department of Agriculture, and industry representatives. The symposium, which attracts close to 350 participants each year, has established and maintained a national dialogue among regulatory agencies, the poultry industry, and the academic community to address present and future environmental problems.

Merka has focused his nonpoint source pollution prevention efforts on water conservation and waste minimization in poultry processing. He implemented a comprehensive water conservation program of lectures, presentations, and training sessions to educate poultry processors on controlling the costs of wastewater treatment. The program has reduced water usage by an estimated one gallon per bird, resulting in a $30 million annual cost reduction for broiler processors nationwide. Merka has also worked in the area of poultry waste stream analysis to reduce organic loading during processing. Using data from his studies, he developed a series of lectures and training sessions to teach processors methods of sampling the waste stream. In addition, Merka developed an improved Dissolved Air Flotation pre-treatment process, which reduces poultry processing wastewater strength.

Merka’s efforts to reduce nonpoint source pollution have focused on adding value to litter and evaluating the effectiveness of utilizing poultry litter on pine trees. Merka, along with colleague Dr. Sidney Thompson, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, initiated a project by which a fractionation process would allow for pelletization of poultry litter to enhance its application as an organic fertilizer. To promote markets for poultry litter, Merka assembled a team to evaluate the litter as a plant nutrient source to enhance the growth of pine trees. Results demonstrated that, in most cases, pine trees receiving broiler litter or pelletized broiler litter grew at a rate equal to or greater than pine trees receiving a standard application rate of commercial fertilizer. Merka was also instrumental in developing an innovative method of handling layer manure referred to as in-house composting. In addition, Merka has been an active member of Georgia’s Voluntary Nutrient Management plan development and implementation team, and has performed studies to show the lactic fermentation of poultry offal could produce a product that is free of bacterial pathogens.