Air Emissions Project to Get Under Way at Oklahoma Swine Operation

AMARILLO — Determining how much air emissions area hog facilities release from their buildings is a two-year project for a local Texas Agricultural Experiment Station air quality engineer.

Dr. Ken Casey will take part in the 2.5-year, $14.6 million study to measure levels of hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter (dust), ammonia, nitrous oxide, volatile organic compounds and non-methane hydrocarbons released from livestock facilities.

This is a first-ever, nationwide study to measure amounts of various pollutants discharged from poultry, dairy and swine operations, said Al Heber, a Purdue University professor of agricultural and biological engineering.

Recording has begun at most of the locations, and by midsummer the project will be under way at 20 monitoring sites in nine states. Led by Purdue, the study will help establish science-based guidelines for potential regulations on livestock air emissions, Heber said. Good data are lacking on these gases, which are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“There has never been an agricultural air emissions study this comprehensive or long term,” Heber said. “We don’t know enough about what is being emitted into the atmosphere. This study will give the EPA the data it needs to make science-based regulations and even allow us to develop strategies for reducing emissions when necessary.”

The National Air Emission Monitoring Study, overseen by the EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, will record two continuous years of emission data at concentrated animal feeding operations and manure storage locations.

The study is funded by the Agricultural Air Research Council, a non-profit organization that receives its funds from livestock industry groups.

Casey will collaborate with 13 principal researchers from seven different universities.

Industry officials worked with EPA to find sites representative of diversity within each industry, Casey said. Then a qualified and experienced researcher was sought to do the monitoring and testing. AThe pork industry and EPA wanted a typical facility in a representative geographical location,@ Casey said.

“At this site, they wanted to monitor both the buildings and the lagoon,” he said. “They had to find a facility where the emissions would not cross one another in the prevailing winds.

A site was located in the Oklahoma Panhandle using criteria developed by the National Pork Association, EPA and Heber, Casey said.

Purdue sent a trailer fully equipped with instrumentation to the site, he said. It will take about two months to install and calibrate the system. Casey and his crew will monitor ammonia, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and particulate matter continuously from the buildings. Another researcher will periodically monitor emissions from the lagoon.

“This is a baseline study to see how much of these pollutants are emitted,” Casey said. “EPA will take that data and develop emissions factors, which will be used in the development of emissions inventories.”

The dust will be measured by a piece of equipment called tapered element oscillating microbalance, he said, which gives a continuous measurement of the air being exhausted from the fans on the building.

Likewise, Casey said, samples from representative fans in each building will be drawn continuously by monitors to the instrument trailer and be analyzed for ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide.

“These measurements will give us concentration,” he said. “To get emission rates, we’ll also have to know how much air is being exhausted from the building, which is done by continuously monitoring the status of each fan and the resistance against which it operates.”

The instruments’ functions and calibration will be checked weekly by a research associate from Amarillo, Casey said. The system will be monitored daily online, and data will be e-mailed nightly to Heber at Purdue and Casey in Amarillo.

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