Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations Current Knowledge, Future Needs (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-13
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A 16-person ad hoc committee was appointed, the Committee on Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations, which has been guided by a Statement of Task that was agreed upon by the National Academies and the sponsoring agencies (Appendix A)
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USDA defines animal unit as 454 kg (1000 pounds) of animal live weight regardless of species.
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RECOMMENDATION: Both EPA and USDA should agree to define animal unit in terms of animal live weight rather than an arbitrary definition of animal unit. Spatial Distribution of Effects The various substances that together make up the total air emissions from animal feeding operations differ in quantity, the potential severity of their effects, and the spatial distribution of these effects.
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As noted above, it will also require attention to priorities based on the geographic scale at which impacts are of greatest concern. The local scale is considered the AFO boundary or nearest occupied dwelling.
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Current Best Management Plans As noted in the committee's interim report, available estimates of emission factors, rates, and concentrations are sufficiently uncertain that they provide a poor basis for regulating or managing air emissions from AFOs. Nevertheless, some best management practices to mitigate the adverse effects of air emissions appear at face value to warrant their use, even as new information on mitigation and best management practices is being developed.
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The complexities of various kinds of air emissions and the temporal and spatial scales of their distribution make direct measurement at the individual farm level impractical other than in a research setting. Research into the application of advanced three-dimensional modeling techniques accounting for transport over complex terrain under thermodynamically stable and unstable planetary boundary layer (PBL)
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. Improving existing emission factors to the point where they could provide scientifically credible estimates of either emission rates or concentrations would require major efforts in getting sufficient observations to characterize the variability among and within AFOs.
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RECOMMENDATION: The science for estimating air emissions from individual AFOs should be strengthened to provide a broadly recognized and acceptable basis for regulations and management programs aimed at mitigating the effects of air emissions. Process-Based Model To counter the tendency to consider only on-farm inputs and outputs from AFOs, to ensure more accurate accounting of the flows of chemicals and other air emission substances from the operation, and to provide a "mass balance" control for the total flow of inputs to and outputs from the operation, the committee recommends a "process-based modeling" approach for estimating air emissions.
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the AFO, is necessary to evaluate air emissions from the total animal production system. RECOMMENDATION: Regulatory and management programs to decrease air emissions should be integrated with other environmental (e.g., water quality)
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Current allocations of funding aimed at AFO air emissions are not adequate or appropriate in view of the amount of concern about these emissions and the recent growth in AFO livestock production. Research in the short term (four to five years)
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FINDING 13. Setting priorities for both short- and long-term research on estimating air emission rates, concentrations, and dispersion requires weighing the potential severity of adverse impacts, the extent of current scientific knowledge about them, the potential for advancing scientific knowledge, and the potential for developing successful mitigation and control strategies.
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The second is to initiate a substantial long-term research program on the overall system of producing food from animal feeding operations with the goal of eliminating the release of undesirable air and other emissions into the environment. Facing the need for defensible information on air emissions from AFOs, in a timely manner, is a major challenge for EPA and USDA.
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