Monday, November 13, 2006 - 2:30 PM
46-4
National Agricultural Air Emissions Study.
The National Air Emission Monitoring Study (NAEMS) is required by the EPA Air Consent Agreement whereby livestock producers agreed to collect air emission data in exchange for temporary protection from government enforcement actions related to: 1) Clean Air Act thresholds of particulate matter and volatile organic compounds (VOC), and 2) reporting of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide required by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). The NAEMS will form a database with which additional studies of air emissions and effectiveness of control technologies can be compared, and from which emission factors can be developed. The 24-month NAEMS will employ continuous monitoring from on-farm instrument shelters (OFIS) to determine emissions from barns at a broiler site, three egg production facilites, five swine farms, and five dairies, and micrometeorological methods to do the same for dairy corrals, a swine manure basin, five swine lagoons, and three dairy manure basins. At the barns, the equipment will continuously measure pollutant concentrations at representative air inlets and outlets, barn airflows, operational processes and environmental variables. The pollutants will include particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5, TSP), total VOC, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide. Data will be retrieved with network-connected computers. The emissions from the open sources will be determined by a system of scanning tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy, UV differential optical absorption spectroscopy, and 3D and 2D ultrasonic anemometry. A monitoring team will conduct an 8- to 20-d test at each farm each quarter for two years.The benchmark NAEMS data, will allow EPA and producers to reasonably determine which farms are subject to federal regulations. The database will aid environmental consultants and air dispersion modelers to assess and reduce the impacts, if any, on neighbors and the environment.
Recorded presentation