0:00-0:10
(upbeat acoustic guitar)

0:11-0:22
Chad Watts (CITC): We're working on a watershed project here at Indian Creek, in Fairbury, Illinois, Livingston County, where we're working with farmers to help protect water quality.

0:23-0:41
Cristina Negri (Argonne National Laboratory): First of all, and particularly for the type of biomass applications and deployments that we are thinking about, where we really match bioenergy with ecosystem services, I would say that there is an increased level of sensitivity about managing nutrients correctly.

0:42-58
Herbert Ssegane (Argonne National Laboratory): Our group uses field monitoring, and this is one of our sites. Together, with the modeling, hydrological modeling or remote sensing, to design the placement of bioenergy crops on agricultural landscapes.

0:59-1:24
Cristina: When I met these people it was an instant match. I thought, because of all the work they were doing and looking at other nitrogen management or nutrient management techniques, that they were actually proposing to the farmers in the watershed. And also the fact that they had this very dedicated group of early adopters of all these technologies, who actually committed to adopt conservation, one way or another.

1:25-2:02
Herbert: Then our initial modeling showed that some of our plots at the uphill, those plots are more susceptible to nitrogen leaching. So, we drill them to up to about 5 feet depth from which it allows us to collect soil water, and we analyze it for the amount of nutrients that are at that depth. So, we deployed several of them, so that we get a spatial representation, we developed a spatial map, from which we determined which areas are most susceptible to nitrate leaching. And that's where the upper plots for willows are located.

2:03-2:33
Chad: Nutrients that go to... out of the farms and the runoff go into Indian Creek and Indian Creek is a feeder stream for the Vermillion River. And the Vermillion River then flows downstream to Pontiac and Streeter, where it's used as a drinking water source. So, if we can use voluntary conservation measures to remove nutrients from the water before it gets to Indian Creek, we feel like we can do a good job, or better job, of protecting water quality in a drinking water stream.

2:34-2:58
Herbert: Because we are trying to target nutrients, we are trying to utilize nutrients that are running off the field, so we want to intercept them, before they end up into the creek. And we have more information on how willows scavenge, utilize, they have a deeper rooting system, that was the main choice for the willows, for this test site.

2:59-3:24
Cristina: Nutrients are also very expensive. And so, they are really significant portion of the cost of producing corn, for instance. I think altogether we really need to find technically solid ways to actually reuse these hardly paid and dearly paid products so that we get the most out of it that we can. Bioenergy could provide that.

3:25-end
(inspirational music)