A technique for evaluating feedlot pollution potential

R. A. Young; M. A. Otterby; Amos Roos

Excerpt

PUBLIC cost-sharing funds to alleviate animal feedlot pollution are usually awarded on the basis of subjective evaluations by county committees. Specific guidelines are needed to evaluate feedlot pollution potential more objectively. Such guidelines would permit more efficient use of limited federal and state cost-sharing funds in reducing feedlot pollution.

Described here is a system for analyzing the pollution hazard from animal waste in any one of the approximately 90,000 feedlots in Minnesota (21). The system is impartial, simple, reasonably accurate, and based on current research data. It can easily be modified to fit local or regional conditions elsewhere.

Pollution indicators

Runoff from feedlots contains many pollutants, including disease-carrying organisms, other organic materials, nutrients, and suspended inorganic solids. These increase the concentrations of nutrients and suspended solids, and decrease the dissolved oxygen content of receiving water and in some cases threaten human health.

Two parameters represent the pollution hazard from feedlot runoff in our system, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and phosphorus (P). COD is a measure of the oxygen required to oxidize organic and oxidizable inorganic compounds in water. It thus indicates the degree of pollution in effluents. Phosphorus is a major contributor to eutrophication of surface …

Footnotes

R. A. Young is an agricultural engineer with the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Morris, Minnesota 56267, and an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul; M. A. Otterby, an agricultural engineer with Load King, CMI, in Elk Point, South Dakota 57025, formerly was a research fellow at the University of Minnesota; and Amos Roos is a senior engineer with the Division of Water Quality, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Roseville, 55113. This paper is a contribtion from the North Central Soil Conservation Research Laboratory, ARS, USDA, Morris, in cooperation with the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, Science Journal Series No. 11,406.
Copyright 1982 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society

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