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Health impact assessment of multi-hazards

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:03 +0000

The purpose of this document is to provide Pepin County with a summary of the reports from University of Wisconsin–Madison regarding the 2017-2022 Pepin County Multi-Hazards Mitigation Plan. Thereports cover four topics within the plan that are expected to have significant impact on Pepin County residents: extreme weather, flooding, water quality, and agricultural land use. While the following executive summaries will provide context to the assessments of these topics, the individual reports contain more detailed research, data, and recommendations.

View the and .

UniverCity Year Contact Info
Gavin Luter
Managing Director
gavin@cows.org
608-261-1141

University Faculty Contact
Jonathan Patz
patz@wisc.edu

Increasing visitors to Holden Park in Pepin County, WI

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:03 +0000

Pepin County staff are interested in increasing the number of visitors to Holden and Silver Birch Parks. The parks were acquired in the 1970’s and have not been heavily developed. Existing challenges include difficult terrain, high numbers of invasive species, and a lack of a cohesive vision for the parks. Recommendations in this report are based on literature review, publicly available data sources, site visits, and knowledge gained through courses and activities around planning, health, and restoration ecology.The report is organized around restoration, recreation, and placemaking strategies. Preliminary assessment indicates that the county can implement multiple options for increasing visitors including: initiatingamaster planning process to prioritizeand implement future improvements to the parksand create a clearvision for the park’s future; improvements to wayfinding; and accessibility of online informationand other resources. The park is in a great setting and could offer a variety of activities depending on how County staff, with input from the public, choose to develop the park.

UniverCity Year Contact Info
Gavin Luter
Managing Director
gavin@cows.org
608-261-1141

Stormwater mitigation plan for Stockholm

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:03 +0000

Local residents in the Village of Stockholm are concerned about heavy rainfall events that may cause flooding and erosion. The goal of this project is to design alternatives for stormwater mitigation to protect the Village in the event of a storm. UniverCity Year Contact Info Gavin Luter Managing Director gavin@cows.org 608-261-1141 University Faculty Contact Jan [...]

Wastewater Treatment System Design for the Village of Stockholm

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:03 +0000

The Village of Stockholm, Wisconsin (Village) is located on the Western edge of Wisconsin, along the Mississippi River and Lake Pepin in Pepin County. The following geotechnical report has been prepared for the Village as part of proposedimprovements to theVillage’sWastewater Treatment System.The Village has selected E&F Consulting to design a wastewater treatment system for Village businesses to alleviateissues withthe current wastewater treatment system.The current system consists of holding tanksthat are expensive to maintain. Proposed alternatives aim to be less of a financial burden on the Village’s businesseswhile maintaining environmental safety.E&F Consulting proposes to site the wastewater treatment system northeast from downtown Stockholm, as shown in Figure 1, along County Road J. This report contains an overview of the subsurface conditions and a geotechnical analysis of the proposed siteas well as engineering and construction recommendations.

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UniverCity Year Contact Info
Gavin Luter
Managing Director
gavin@cows.org
608-261-1141

University Faculty Contact
Mark Oleinik
moleinik@wisc.edu

Water quality data, privacy, and communication strategies

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:03 +0000

As a part of the UniverCity Year projects aiding Pepin County, our Environmental Monitoring Seminar was presented with water quality data concerning nitrate concentration within the county. Pepin is a small county in west-central Wisconsin whose rural residents rely on private wells for their water supply. The integrity of these private wells is threatened by malfunctioning septic systems, agricultural chemicals, and the land-spreading of animal wastes. Surface waters in the county too are threatened duetocontamination fromsediment and nitraterunoff.

Data collected measuring the nitrate and coliform bacteria contaminating Pepin’s water supply is neither comprehensive nor systematically-collected. This data collection effort spans 1979 to 2018, andwithout a consistent basis for recording, there are information gaps. Furthermore, Pepin is one of the smallest counties in Wisconsin; with just 7,400 residents over 249 square miles. The contamination data in its current state compromises the privacy of these residents and threatens the already-contentious relationship between rural residents and large-scale farmers.

Our goal was to gather and refine the contamination datasheets, assess their privacy concerns, and strategize methods of presenting and communicating the water and soil data. We worked to develop methods to display and disseminate the contamination data in a way that protects the privacy of Pepin residents and preserves the resident-farmer relationship.

UniverCity Year Contact Info
Gavin Luter
Managing Director
gavin@cows.org
608-261-1141

University Faculty Contact
Stephen Ventura
sventura@wisc.edu

Groundwater Quality Protection in Pepin County

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:03 +0000

From 1979 to 2005, the total water use in Pepin County had increased from about 1.2 milliongallons per day to about 3 million gallons used per day (Protecting Groundwater in Wisconsinthrough Comprehensive Planning). This increase in water use is believed to be from irrigationand industrial use. Water use trends in commercial use do not reflect the use in private water, orits quality however. In 2019, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) estimated that 1 in 5(20.1%) private wells exceed the hazardous limit of 10 ppm (parts per million) nitrateconcentration. That percentage places Pepin 3rd highest among 72 counties in Wisconsin. Since2008, Pepin County Land Conservation and Planning Department (LCPD) has also conductedwell sampling tests for nitrate. The average level of nitrate in private wells for the years 1990,2008, 2010, 2015 were 4.24, 4.91, 5.72, and 6.58 mg/L respectively (Protecting Groundwater inWisconsin through Comprehensive Planning). This upward trend is expected to rise with currentfarming practices. Due to these pressing issues, recommendations to improve water quality inPepin County have been made in categories of improved well water quality and testing, septictank testing, identifying areas of high likelihood of contamination, and next steps to take.

View final report and pamphlet from the Environmental Studies 600/Soil Science 499 Capstone project.

UniverCity Year Contact Info
Gavin Luter
Managing Director
gavin@cows.org
608-261-1141

University Faculty Contact
Steve Ventura
sventura@wisc.edu
Nick Balster

Feasibility study of composting manure

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:02 +0000

Pepin County, Wisconsin is home to many dairy farms which commonly use animal manure as fertilizer for fields. High concentrations of the nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium make the manure an effective fertilizer. However, this can result in runoff containing high levels of these nutrients which can lead to damage of ecosystems, health risks, and bad odor. Aerobically composting the manure is a possible solution and is considered in this report through the lens of environmental, economic and social impacts. The environmental impacts are analyzed by pairing a material flow analysis with a life cycle assessment to quantify the amount of nutrients that end up in runoff and emissions and how much are taken up by the crops. The economic impacts are measured by estimating the capital costs and maintenance costs which are used to calculate the payback period and the net present value. Social impacts are analyzed by looking at pathogen reduction in the soil, the amount of nutrients that leach into the ground from the fields, and the amount of greenhouse gases released which correlates to odor. This analysis found that there was a reduction of nutrients after the composting process which led to lower levels of these nutrients runoff and as emissions. There are financial costs to build the composting structure, but the maintenance costs are reduced with the composting process, which leads to a short payback period for a structure that will last decades. As well, the implementation of the composting process would decrease crop yield, potentially reducing revenue or usable crops for the farm. This analysis determines that the improvements of implementing an aerobic composting system on farms in Pepin County outweigh the associated negatives and that they should be put in place on farms throughout the county.

UniverCity Year Contact Info
Gavin Luter
Managing Director
gavin@cows.org
608-261-1141

University Faculty Contact
Andrea Hicks
hicks5@wisc.edu

Historic walking app for the Village of Pepin

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:01 +0000

Students created a smartphone app that residents can use to learn about the Village of Pepin’s historic resources. UniverCity Year Contact Info Gavin Luter Managing Director gavin@cows.org 608-261-1141 University Faculty Contact Info Suman Banerjee suman@cs.wisc.edu [...]

Industrial park designs for Durand

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:01 +0000

Students in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an activity in the course Civ Engr 578 –Senior Capstone Design/GLE 479 –Geological Engineering Design prepared concepts, drawings and written materials for a small manufacturing industrial park for the City of Durand in Pepin County, Wisconsin. UniverCity Year Contact Info [...]

Marketing plans for Pepin County

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:40:01 +0000

The mission behind the creative campaign for Pepin County, WI stems from the concept that even though a lack of awareness and recognition currently exists, a path towards improving upon this current unfamiliarity can be achieved in a four-step process. We believe that implementing a series of creative materials across traditional and digital mediums can quickly get the word out about everything the location can provide for consumers. By taking these initial steps forward to develop a fresh brand identity for marketing, we can begin to position Pepin County as the “hidden gem” among those larger and more recognized competitors in the region. Development of community infrastructure and large-scale hosting capabilities can soon unfold as the county’s reputation builds among consumer groups and media outlets, and the county can eventually blossom to become one of the premiere tourism destinations along both the Mississippi River and across the Midwest region.

UniverCity Year Contact Info
Gavin Luter
Managing Director
gavin@cows.org
608-261-1141

University Faculty Contact
Doug McCleod
dmmcleod@wisc.edu