Lagooning of
Livestock Wastes   in South Dakota
JAMES N. DORNBUSH, Professor
JOHN R. ANDERSEN,  Associate Professor
Civil Engineering Department
South Dakota State University
Brookings, South Dakota
The North Central region of the United States produces an agriculture animal
waste load that is equivalent to approximately 500 million people. This waste
load is being concentrated in large production units for farm animals and their
products. Consequently, the considerations of waste disposal have, in some cases,
limited these particular operations and have resulted in a search for realistic waste
management.
The North Central region produces about 75 per cent of the hogs, sheep,
beef, and dairy cattle and 40 per cent of the poultry in the United States. Therefore, 13 regional State agricultural experiment stations are currently cooperating
in a research endeavor to provide answers to the basic characteristics of these
waste varieties and to provide practical methods for their disposition.
The handling and disposal of these wastes by the time honored method of
field spreading has been suggested as being more costly than their value as a fertilizer (1). In addition, spreading of the large quantity of manure may possibly
have a harmful effect on the soil as well as a stream transporting these wastes
with runoff. The disposal of animal wastes fortunately, is receiving some attention and reports of research investigations such as those of Taiganides (2), Jeffrey
et al (3), and Hart (4,5) are providing basic quantitative and qualitative information.
A current popular method of disposal is by lagooning because they provide for
reduced labor, immediate reduction of nuisance and lessened water pollution effects. Many lagoons have been built on a trial-and-error basis and from the experience of farmers, county agents, and health officials. Many of these farm
lagoons have been constructed without consideration given to the characteristics
of the animal wastes involved. Much of the criteria that has been utilized has
been patterned after aerobic lagooning of domestic wastes (6). On the other hand,
the farm animal wastes with their high solids concentration, resulting from low
water usage for waste carriage, seems to dictate the use of the anaerobic process
rather than the aerobic process as used for municipal sewage lagooning.
The Engineering Experiment Station at South Dakota State University has been
working cooperatively with the Agricultural Experiment Station in an effort to
elucidate some ofthe basic factors involved in the design of farm manure lagoons.
To date, the engineering involvement of the investigation has taken two avenues.
First, an appraisal has been undertaken of field applications of the lagoon
method of manure disposal that are presently in operation in South Dakota. This
included the physical characteristics, the loadings, the apparent success in avoiding nuisances or operational difficulties, of the lagoon system. In addition analytical determinations such as pH, ORP, temperature, alkalinity, volatile acids,
COD, and BOD of the liquid lagoon contents are being made.   With this informa-
- 317 -