A Summer of Pie, Live Music, and Intensive Research

                                                           A view of Lake Menomin at sunset  

     Arriving at the airport on June 13th, I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into. Spending two months doing intensive research with other students and living 2,000 miles from my home was daunting to say the least. However, I arrived with an open mind, and ready to learn from my mentor and peers in a new location. I was also excited to see whether the rumors about Midwestern hospitality and friendliness were true (they are).  On my first day in Menomonie, I was introduced to the other students in the LAKES program, the mentors, and our program coordinator over a pizza dinner. While exhausted from my flight, I appreciated how genuinely interested everyone was in my background and interests. When exploring Menomonie over the next few days, I was surprised by how empty the town felt without the presence of UW-Stout students, but happy to notice how engaged the townspeople were in community events. From pie and live music at the park to brewery events and a vibrant farmers market, I have yet to feel bored of activities happening in town. I have also been pleasantly surprised by how interested townspeople are in the work that I am doing this summer with LAKES.  

For the next 8 weeks, I will be working on Dr. Tina Lee’s anthropology team with 3 other students. There are also teams of students working on biology, engineering, and psychology projects. While we are all working on different projects, we are united in studying Lakes Tainter and Menomin in the Red Cedar Watershed. These lakes are eutrophic, have cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CHABs), and have been designated “impaired waters” by the EPA. These CHABs create an anoxic lake environment, alter food webs, and produce toxins that can be harmful to humans and pets. Runoff from agricultural sources which are high in soluble phosphorus feed these algal blooms.   

The goal of my project is to understand the policies, rules, and regulations around nutrient pollution in the Red Cedar Watershed. Because my project is policy-focused, my first task was to write up a policy landscape detailing federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding nutrient pollution. This activity will help me during the interview stage so that information doesn’t go over my head when talking to policy professionals in the area. I am also hoping to identify a “need” within the community regarding these policies. For example, past projects have cited that many community members aren’t aware of the different county or state initiatives addressing the pollution in the watershed. Community members may also not be aware of how effective these policies have been at reducing phosphorus levels. How might I identify this need, quantify the effectiveness of these policies, and present this information in a way that is accessible to townspeople? I am currently in the data collection stage, and recently started interviewing members of local government, NGOs, and community advocacy groups. So far, I have conducted two interviews and attended a meeting of community advocacy groups and a meeting of an environmental committee. I also worked with the psychology team to include questions in a survey for local farmers about their satisfaction with local government and their understanding of policies and permits related to cleaning up the watershed. As I continue to conduct interviews, I expect my research focus to narrow further. I’m excited for the next 8 weeks!  

Introduction to the Bean Project (Audrey)

    Hi, my name is Audrey Williams. I grew up in Necedah Wisconsin and I am a junior in Applied Math and Computer Science here at UW-Stout. My hobbies include gardening, being outside, and hanging out with my friends. I am currently working with UW Stout Faculty, Keith Wojciechowski and Tyler Skorczewski, and fellow AMCS Student Anna Hansen to do research for Chippewa Valley Bean. The problem we need to solve for CVB is how much water does it take to grow a hundred weight of dark red kidney beans. They are expanding their farmland into parts of Wisconsin where the soil is sandier, making it harder to manage their water resources. We will be using math and computer science to help CVB solve their problem for the next 9 weeks.

        The first step to solving our problem was to go talk with the experts of Kidney Beans, CVB. We went and toured their bean processing plant with the rest of the Lakes REU group and saw the whole process of cleaning the beans and preparing them to be sent out to be used by different companies. We learned that CVB is responsible for providing 40% of the worlds kidney beans and they are the largest kidney bean processor in the world. One way that CVB processes their beans is by giving them a grade and putting them into categories. Beans that didn't have any cosmetic defects were considered full beans. For those that had some small defects, like missing skin or a partially intact bean, CVB chose to branch out into other international markets to find a way to still make sure all of their beans get used. Because these beans are still nutritious and viable, one option for these beans is to be made into bean paste to be used in Asian confectionary cooking.

 Chippewa Valley Bean striving to become more sustainable is also a reason that we are working with them. The bulk of their farms that are in close range of the processing plant in Elk Mound Wisconsin are in Minnesota. The Vice President of CVB, Charles Wachsmuth, explained to us that they track their trucks in diesel fuel miles. This means that if they wanted to expand more into Western Minnesota and the Dakotas, that they would be paying more for fuel and polluting the environment more by doing so. Mr.Wachsmuth also explained that with the supply chain issues going on, it is hard to find truck drivers and train routes to get the product where it needs to go efficiently and in a timely manner. The sandier soils of Wisconsin make growing kidney beans efficiently a challenge, but the added benefit of being closer to the processing facility makes for a large incentive.

Storage building at
Chippewa Valley Bean

Audrey Williams 

A Midwestern Summer, and other thoughts

     In Menomonie, the balance of rural life and proximity to urban centers combine perfectly into what I wanted in a summer experience. I am from the Twin Cities, so the heat of the past few weeks (as miserable as it has been) feels comfortable in its predictability. The fresh produce from the bi-weekly farmers market, the community events, the familiar faces that pop up even after only being here for less than two weeks – these things are entirely foreign to me, yet I already feel used to them.

    This familiarity extends to the water. Visible almost anywhere in town, large, glittering: lake Menomin. Even green and smelly, lakes have their own vast organic beauty about them that I admire. The lake next to my house, Lake Como, has a similar algae problem so growing up I assumed that was the fate of any lake with enough human activity around it, but it’s still surprising to see at such a culturally impactful scale. The town is small enough, and the lake is big enough, that everyone is somehow connected. The watershed is the veins and the lake the beating heart of the community. It feels strangely intimate to attempt to come in as a heart surgeon.

    That metaphor makes it sound more impressive than it is though. I wanted my summer experience to be related to agricultural conservation. Coming from school in Rhode Island (maybe the only state small enough where 100% of the land is considered urban), I had little opportunity to work with large-scale agricultural activities and actually speak to farmers. Coming from home in Minnesota, I knew I needed to have those conversations to get a truly comprehensive picture of environmental issues in the United States. The work I am doing this summer perfectly encapsulates that. So far, I have been researching and speaking with farmers and agricultural services workers more than ever before in my life and I already feel like I’ve learned so much. Farmers care about the environment more than they are given credit for, know much more than I know. I can learn about nutrient management policies and eutrophication as much as I want but at the end of the day, education in isolation isn’t a panacea.

    I feel like what we are doing in the LAKES REU program – spanning across biology, economics, political science, psychology, anthropology, engineering – is contributing to a greater picture of what solving environmental problems really needs to look like in the future in order to not collapse as a society. We need to be flexible, multifaceted, nuanced, and always ready to learn something new.

    In the future, I want to work for the federal government. Our country can feel so broken and divided and stuck in this moment, but I just see that as a challenge. Lake Menomin also seems doomed to forever be green, but that simply isn’t true. We can come together and support each other and imagine a better future on any scale we are willing to take on.

First Impressions of the LAKES REU

I was interested in joining the LAKES Program because I would have the opportunity to apply my learning in different ways. This program entails understanding the root causes and factors that are contributing to the pollution in surrounding waters. We get to confront this problem from different angles, from biology to anthropology, and even psychology. This program is really interesting because people from different backgrounds are coming together to analyze and solve the different problems surrounding the pollution of the local watershed.

I am on the psychology team which means that I am looking at this issue from a social perspective. In my project, I am going to examine how certain management practices are perceived among farmers and how different social norms tie into them. Once I collect data through a variety of surveys, I’ll be able to analyze how these perceptions influence how common or uncommon farmers think certain practices are, specifically practices that are not visible. Their perceptions of the different management practices are going to be compared to reality, how many farmers are actually participating in these different practices. Something that I have learned through the first couple of weeks here has been how to apply the different norms that I’m going to be looking at, specifically descriptive and injunctive norms. A descriptive norm is what most people in a group think or do whereas an injunctive norm reflects people’s perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved by others. One barrier we have had to overcome is finding a way to create questions for the survey that are easy to comprehend and worded correctly. Some questions could cause confusion among participants, which could make the analyzing process difficult. My mentor Sarah Wood has been great in helping me through this whole process.

Before coming to Menomonie, I was nervous because I would be far from my family in a state that I have never visited. Everyone in the program has been very welcoming and I have had a lot of fun getting to know this charming town. When we arrived, we went to a cute place that made pizza from scratch and it was delicious. That was a great place to meet everyone and get to know all the mentors. The campus is also very beautiful, and it has been a great experience getting to walk around and see everything it has to offer. We also went to a farm and talked about different types of management practices and soil. It was a beautiful farm and I enjoyed seeing the farmer’s cows and eating the delicious food they had prepared for us. One of my favorite things I have done this summer was that I visited a cute thrift shop. Everything was a dollar or less, which was crazy to me. I was able to find some cute clothes and I even got some stuff for my siblings back home. All of us also got bikes that we could use to ride around town, and last week was the first time in years since I’ve ridden a bike. I definitely had to adjust to the bike because I was very rusty. I have had a great experience so far in the LAKES Program and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer has to offer.

Testing the Waters: Initial Impressions of the LAKES REU

 

   

Coming from the West to the Midwest, it quickly became clear to me that the Midwest is a haven of environmentalism, and Menomonie was right where I needed to be as an eager applied engineer. Everywhere I went, be it the shops on Main Street or community fairs and concerts, I was able to have a conversation with someone about Lake Menomin, which has been experiencing harmful cyanobacteria blooms for over 10 years now. The summer heat provides the perfect conditions for these organisms to take over. Cyanobacteria initiate the breakdown of the aquatic ecosystem by increasing the concentration of phosphorus and reducing the amount of oxygen in the lake.

Combatting cyanobacteria buildup is a challenge for many reasons, one of which is that high-frequency remote monitoring systems for lake health do not yet exist. Current sampling is done only every once in a while, and while data is collected at the state level through the DNR, that data is not easily accessible to citizens of the City of Menomonie. The engineering team at the LAKES summer research program aims to address these issues. 

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    Our goal in the LAKES program is to set precedent for future lake research, as well as explore various treatment and mitigation efforts for nutrient excess in Menomin. While nutrient excess is not an overnight problem with an overnight solution, it is possible for more people to be involved in the problem-solving process after this summer. This is the vision of the LAKES engineering team. 

What we have in mind is an inexpensive electronic monitoring system, outfitted with deep-range lake health metrics including but not limited to temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and more, all monitored by a LoRA microcomputer module network. Each node in the overall network would have its respective sensors ping data to the rest of the network, and the data would travel along the chain until it gets to home base, an Excel spreadsheet with each metric and the location it was collected in. By the end of the program, we hope to transfer the Excel data to a more readable format, such as a website or mobile app. This format will allow the people of Menomonie, eager to help in any way they can, to easily keep tabs on lake health. We hope our progress can be continued and exceeded after this summer by Stout’s bright fall semester students.

THE GOAL

Halting the decades-long deterioration of a lake is an ambitious goal. But with the REU program’s tag-team efforts, combining engineering, economics, biology, sociology, and psychology, we hope to increase the collective consciousness of all stakeholders and approach the goal from an optimization perspective. Using our combined knowledge, we can deploy the first prototype monitors, filters, and remediators to the places in the watershed where they are most needed, in order to achieve the greatest positive effect overall.

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Two weeks in, my LAKES teammates and mentors have helped me ascertain direction as a scientist, researcher, and rising professional. But I also cherish the fun times they’ve shared with me, with strolls through the farmer’s market and trips to beautiful swimming holes. When the go-getter in me stresses about what I will be able to accomplish this summer, I remember to do my best, knowing that my colleagues and friends have got my back if I need it, and vice versa. My goal for this summer is to do the most that I can with engineering, and get more people interested in working on this problem during our community forum in August. Maybe the way I approach the goal changes; maybe the circuit fails the first few times. But we have weeks to get it right, and I know we will get it right in some way, shape, or form. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer brings.

A Farewell to Summer

        This summer, my research team explored the potential for biochar to combat nutrient pollution in aquatic environments. Arthur, Madeline and I went through the process of biochar creation in a laboratory, and employed various chemical treatments in order to study which method most effectively extracted phosphorus from lake water samples. Biochar is a stable solid that is formed through pyrolysis, the burning of organic matter in the absence of oxygen. This results in a charcoal compound that can be treated with metallic compounds in order to extract aquatic pollutants such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). The extraction process occurs through chemical binding, in which positively charged metals used to treat the biochar attract the negatively charged phosphorus and nitrogen ions suspended in the lake water. Biochar has additional uses besides nutrient extraction. It can function as a carbon sink, plays a role in pollution remediation, and can be used a soil amendment to facilitate the growth of terrestrial plants.

            

        Through the following chemical treatments, my research team and I were able to determine which methods showed the most potential for nutrient pollution reduction. Method 1 consisted of magnetite (Fe₃O₄), Method 2 consisted of iron (II) sulfate heptahydrate (FeSO₄⋅7H₂O), Method 3 consisted of commercial biochar (treated with magnesium and aluminum), and then we had a series of untreated biochar, and untreated biochar with a water rinse. We pyrolyzed two types of organic matter—buckthorn and reed canary grass. Both of these species are invasive in the Wisconsin area, indicating that biochar can be used to combat invasive species and prevent further ecosystem disruption. Our results showed that Method 2 for buckthorn was the most effective at removing phosphorus. We found that buckthorn Method 1 also showed a decrease in phosphorus, thought it was only a slight reduction and was not as consistently effective as buckthorn Method 2. Finally, we found that in the case of reed canary grass, all of the chemical treatment methods ended up adding phosphorus to the system. Though these findings were relatively unfortunate in terms of reed canary grass’s potential to be used in biochar, they did suggest that this species could be used for soil amendment, as terrestrial plants could rely heavily on the high amounts of phosphorus for growth. My team and I also performed calculations to determine the sheer amount of biochar that would be needed to fully combat the daily inflow of phosphorus. We calculated that approximately 40,000 pounds, or about 20 tons, of biochar would be needed to reduce the phosphorus pollution that is deposited on a daily basis. Overall, our experimental results indicate that the phosphorus extraction ability of biochar largely depends on the source material used and the chemical treatment method employed.

            

        Reflecting back on this summer, I have come to truly appreciate how much I have learned and the different ways in which I have grown. Primarily, I was able to develop the scope of my scientific knowledge. I have familiarized myself with a variety of new laboratory techniques, such as SRP and TP analysis, centrifuge and UV spectrometer operation, chemical agent preparation, and biochar treatment with metallic compounds. I was also able to hone skills found outside a laboratory environment, including interviewing and public speaking, connecting with members of the Menomonie community, and branching outside of my comfort zone with activities such as tractor driving, canoeing, and some intense biking.

I have also noticed the ways in which I have changed as a person. First, I have become more confident in myself, both as a student and as a friend. I fostered good connections with my fellow researchers and mentors, and was able to better understand the qualities that I look for in others. Additionally, I was able to dive into things that make me content, such as spending time in nature, biking, and being with people who share similar passions to me. Finally, I am grateful that I was lucky enough to befriend nine incredibly smart, fun, and thoughtful women. I made some excellent friendships and experienced different schools of thought from students that were from all over the United States. I was glad to be the only one from my state that participated in this program, because I feel like this position helped me to focus on environmental issues that are not exclusive to my hometown.

This program has also enabled me to further myself career-wise. I have experienced two months of focused research, and produced a graduate-school level scientific poster. Researching critical environmental problems that have a significant effect on the Menomonie community has made me more aware of the scale of anthropogenic climate issues. I have also refined my scientific interests in terms of wanting to go into a research field, and have become more confident about going to graduate school. I would still like to learn more about the various fields I could go into, but I have heard positive things about obtaining a master’s degree. Overall, I had a fantastic summer and I am thrilled that I was chosen for this experience.

Stewards of the Land

There’s a recurring misconception that Lake Menomin has always been green, yet this is not the case. In fact the lake hasn’t always been a lake! The Red Cedar Watershed has a long history tied to various communities with different values. Dissecting the past offers us invaluable insight into the different ways that we have shaped the land and in turn, how the land has shaped us. By cultivating a general understanding of the implications of our past relationships to the Red Cedar Watershed, we become more informed and engaged with our current social and ecological communities that make our home, home. 

This summer my partner Esther and I dedicated our summer to understanding these changes by asking: (1) How have interactions with the land evolved over time and what can we infer about our current and future land use patterns? And (2) How have our relationships to water changed and what forces acted to maintain or impede these changes?