Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifteen. Sunrise is 6:25 AM and sunset 5:47 PM, for 11h 21m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 8.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the eight hundred forty-fourth day.
On this day in 1862, the Siege of New Madrid, Missouri begins: “Union General John Pope began the siege of New Madrid, Missouri. The 8th and 15th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries took part in this effort to open the Mississippi River to Union shipping.”
Recommended for reading in full:
Sarah Whites-Koditschek and Coburn Dukehart report Most nitrate, coliform in Kewaunee County wells tied to animal waste (“The latest findings from a study of drinking water wells and their surroundings finds manure from cows that is stored or spread on farm fields poses the highest risk for certain contaminants”):
Scientists are one step closer to understanding how dangerous contaminants from fecal matter are entering private wells in Kewaunee County. New research by U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist Mark Borchardt shows nitrate and coliform in the water mostly comes from agriculture — and not human waste.
“Where we see the strong relationships, the strong linkages, those are with agricultural factors. So that would suggest that agriculture is primarily responsible for those two contaminants,” he said in an interview.
Borchardt presented his updated findings on the risk factors associated with contamination in wells at the Midwest Manure Summit in Green Bay on Wednesday. In 2017, his research found over 60 percent of wells sampled in Kewaunee County were contaminated with fecal microbes, which can come from both septic systems or animal waste.
The new study aims to understand the precise sources of contamination and how certain factors can reduce or increase the risk of tainted drinking water. Borchardt used models to predict how those factors — like the distance of a well from a manure lagoon or agricultural field, weather and the quality of well construction — can impact contamination levels.
Borchardt’s study found that the No. 1 risk factor for contamination was the proximity of a well to a manure storage pit. Borchardt said the closest well in the study was 150 feet from a manure pit, but even wells three miles away still have some risk of being contaminated with coliform.
SpaceX had both a successful launch and docking of the Crew Dragon capsule (unmanned on this flight). The capsule is designed to take up to seven astronauts into low Earth orbit:
Launch:
Docking with International Space Station:
See SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule successfully docks to the ISS for the first time and SpaceX Crew Demo-1 Press Kit.