As a reporter at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, I spent a lot of time talking with farmers about poop.
That’s because manure management is a huge part of any large animal operation, and it can create headaches for local communities who rely on groundwater from heavily-farmed areas.
When my graduate program challenged us to tell a story with data, I picked the most colorful story I knew front and back: Wisconsin’s manure lagoons.
Large dairy and cattle operations in Wisconsin often have manure lagoons. These are large concrete-lined pits into which all of the manure from the cows is washed.
Sometimes, they leak, and they can contaminate groundwater supplies with nitrate and nitrites. This is especially dangerous for those who get drinking water from a private well, because they might not be testing their water regularly for this kind of contamination.
This assignment was a graphic design challenge as well as a data storytelling one.
Completed: December 2021
Technologies used: Python (BeautifulSoup, Pandas) / QGIS / Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator and Photoshop)
Andrew Steven Hahn 