The October 2016 proposal to expand Cranberry Creek Dairy’s Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) was met with a six-month moratorium to allow for public input and environmental assessments. Cranberry Creek Dairy, owned by Jeremy Radle, is located in Dunn County, Wisconsin - an area surrounded by state public lands and waterways. The expansion would mean increasing the current operation from 1720 to 7150 dairy cows. This would have an impact on the local economy, environment, health, and quality of life for residents.

The purpose of this study is to use GIS applications to model nitrogen and phosphorus (P) transport within a watershed from non-point source pollution. Modeling nutrient loading is important toward understanding algal blooms in relation to the practice of manure spreading in CAFOs. Soil environment, land use, erosion, vegetation, elevation, and hydrology are all determining factors for P transport, which can be transferred as particulate matter through erosion or dissolved in leached overland flow. Manured fields are found to contain several times more P than non-manured fields. The methods for this analysis are broken down into two main groups: 1) ArcMap work in isolating the spreading lands and 2) OpenNspect analysis. All of the data acquisition and manipulation for this project has been completed. For a more complete analysis, I am currently working with software developer Dave Eslinger from NOAA to work out some OpenNspect kinks and produce outputs. The expected results will include: accumulated runoff (L), accumulated nitrogen (kg), nitrogen concentration (mg/L), and accumulated sediment (kg). I have also interviewed various stakeholders including Jeremy Radle (CAFO owner) and Gary Siepel (supervisor of the Dunn County Board) to understand the complexities of this situation. This project, which is still in progress, will have a larger implication on CAFOs throughout the state of Wisconsin to improve the DNR's Nutrient Management Plan and increase regulations on wastewater outputs.

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