JON RUTTER Staff Writer
On the afternoon of May 23, a quiet 14-year-old Peach Bottom boy named Cleason Nolt somehow slipped into a liquid manure pit where he was working on a large Kennedyville, Md., dairy farm and died.
Cleason's 18-year-old brother, Kelvin, and 48-year-old father, Glenn, also vanished into the pit.
A family member who drove to the scene that evening after the Nolts failed to respond to cellphone calls found only a parked pickup truck and two tractors, their engines switched on.
The three bodies were recovered the next day.
Maryland state police announced that the deaths were accidental. Medical examiners in Baltimore said the Nolts died of asphyxia –– lack of sufficient oxygen to their lungs.
It's possible two of the victims jumped in to try to save the third.
It's possible they were overcome by toxic gas released as they stirred the manure in the pit before pumping it out.
Cleason's body had injuries believed to have been caused by the large auger-driven propeller used to stir the manure.
An investigation by the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health agency is continuing.
Leon Ressler, district director of the Penn State Extension in Lancaster, Chester and Lebanon counties, follows such cases closely.
So far, he said, "We don't really know what happened."
And, because there were no witnesses, said a local farmer closely related to the Nolts, the full story may never be known.
The farmer, who asked not to be named, said the deaths are baffling.
Nolt, who had his own dairy operation on Goshen Mill Road, was reportedly safety-conscious and had run a manure hauling business for several years.
The lagoon was correctly constructed to prevent accidental submersions, Nolt's relative said; it was also unroofed and thus considered less likely to harbor dangerous gases than an enclosed one.
But while the details of the Nolts' deaths might be mysterious, tragedies linked to handling large quantities of animal waste are increasingly familiar.
"It reminds every manure hauler to be ready at any moment," said Nolt's relative, who has an enclosed concrete pit on his own farm.
And it causes pain and bewilderment.
The family must accept its loss, the farmer said, but "at the same time the human heart always wants explanations."
'No getting out'
Liquid manure pits are proliferating as livestock operations expand and environmental regulations tighten.
Pennsylvania has up to 10,000 of them, according to Lisa Kasianowitz, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Some 80,000 U.S. livestock facilities have built such pits, according to a recent Purdue University study.
Animal waste is collected in the pits, diluted with water and hauled away for spreading on farm fields.
More than 130 deaths and injuries involving manure storage and handling have been reported, according to the study, and more than a third of such accidents involve would-be rescuers.
In incidents here in recent years, 4-year-old Josiah Martin died on New Year's Day 2011 when he somehow crossed a chain-link fence and fell into an open lagoon at his home near New Holland.
Five years ago, 24-year-old Amos J. Stoltzfus of Christiana died when he jumped into a Bridgewater, Va. farm manure pit while trying to save his boss and three members of his boss's family who had been overcome by fumes.
All five died from toxic gases rising out of the pit.
Production agriculture is exempt from Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules governing work in confined spaces.
But the state manure management manual notes that any farmer with an employee could be fined for failing to provide a safe work environment as defined by OSHA.
Penn State animal agriculture experts released a safety bulletin last week, noting that open-air pits "meet the definition of a confined space in terms of occupational safety and health."
Ressler noted that the steep sides of the rubber-lined pits can be as slippery as ice.
That and the thick crust that can build up on top of cow manure enclosures would make swimming in it virtually impossible, Ressler added.
Liquefied cow manure turns into a souplike substance, according to Ressler; hog manure generally sinks to the bottom and is somewhat thinner, even when agitated.
Warnings are legion about methane and ammonia –– and the most chillingly lethal manure gas, hydrogen sulfide, which at high levels can kill in a couple of breaths.
The exhaustive government recommendations for manure pit safety include advising workers to measure gas levels and wear proper respirators, ropes and safety harnesses before nearing a pit.
Farmers construct "a significantly big number" of manure pits themselves, Kasianowitz said in an email.
However, she said, builders must either get a DEP permit and erect a pit to Pennsylvania's standards or get a certification from a state registered professional engineer.
Kasianowitz said permits are mandated for new or expanded storage exceeding 2.5 million gallons and, depending on the site, for some smaller capacity facilities.
Pits built after January 2000 must have a fence, gate and warning signs to be certified in Pennsylvania, Hosea Latshaw, a state conservation engineer with the National Resources Conservation Service, said.
But that's no guarantee of safety for people such as the Nolts, who were professional haulers working inside the fence.
"We're wrestling with "What is the right thing? What is the right amount of safety to require?'" Latshaw said.
"Should a person wear a life preserver" or be allowed to work only with a spotter present? "We take this very seriously," Latshaw said.
The pit in which the Nolts died is reportedly made out of clay and is more than 20 years old. It is 20 feet deep, five feet deeper than the typical enclosure in this state.
It was not fenced, according to Nolt's relative.
He said the 2-million-gallon enclosure was built like an inverted cup, with steeply sloping sides inside and out that make it virtually impossible to trip and fall in.
The Nolts had driven their tractors up onto the broad rim of the pit to do their pumping, he said.
They were apparently having problems with one of the tractors and had added oil to it, the relative noted.
That tractor was running at half-throttle when it was found, said the man, who added that he went to the farm to help search for his missing relatives.
"Many, many hours went by" before the accident was discovered, he said. "There wasn't a soul around."