Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations: Current Knowledge, Future Needs

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search program is proposed that will ultimately lead to greatly decreased emissions to the environment of the constituents of air emissions as well as other losses from AFOs while maintaining a high level of production.

Effective and early adoption of the committee’s recommendations will require the commitment of EPA and USDA to a course of action that will result in scientifically credible information for their air quality programs. It will require a willingness to change the direction of some current programs and to support a vigorous, expanded research agenda. The committee believes that the results will be of great value, not only in protecting health and the environment, but in reducing costs, and improving the health and welfare of the animals.

SETTING PRIORITIES

Air emissions from animal feeding operations are of varying concern at different spatial scales, as shown in Table 8-1 (Finding 2, pp. 4, 71).

RECOMMENDATION: These differing effects, concentrations, and spatial distributions lead to a logical plan of action for establishing research priorities to provide detailed scientific information on the contri-

TABLE 8-1 Committee’s Scientific Evaluation of the Potential Importance of AFO Emissions at Different Spatial Scales

Emissions	Global, National, Regional	Local, Property Line, Nearest Dwelling	Primary Effects of Concern
NH₃	Major^a	Minor	Atmospheric deposition, haze
N₂O	Significant	Insignificant	Global climate change
NO_x	Significant	Minor	Haze, atmospheric deposition, smog
CH₄	Significant	Insignificant	Global climate change
VOCs^b	Insignificant	Minor	Quality of human life
H₂S	Insignificant	Significant	Quality of human life
PM10^c	Insignificant	Significant	Haze
PM2.5^c	Insignificant	Significant	Health, haze
Odor	Insignificant	Major	Quality of human life
^aRelative importance of emissions from AFOs at spatial scales based on committee’s informed judgment on known or potential impacts from AFOs. Rank order from high to low importance is major, significant, minor, insignificant. While AFOs may not play an important role for some of these, emissions from other sources alone or in aggregate may have different rankings. For example VOCs and NO_x play important roles in the formation of tropospheric ozone; however the role of AFOs is likely insignificant compared to other sources. ^bVolatile organic compounds. ^cParticulate matter. PM10 and PM2.5 include particles with aerodynamic equivalent diameters up to 10 and 2.5 mm, respectively.

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