An Integrated Approach to Measuring Emissions from Confined Animal Feeding Operations at the Whole Facility Scale

Agricultural operations produce a variety of particulates and gases that influence air quality. Agriculture, through wind erosion, tillage and harvest operations, burning, diesel-powered machinery and animal production operations, is a source of particulate matter that can enter human lungs and cause pulmonary problems. Animal production operations can be a source of gaseous emissions such as ammonia, odor-causing volatile organic compounds, hydrogen sulfide, greenhouse gases (methane, nitrous oxides) and airborne pathogens. These emissions can negatively impact human health, property values, and the environment. The presence of buildings and other structures often make whole facility measurement capability a requirement for understanding the source strength and characteristics. The ability to use standoff methods to determine the movement and concentrations of emissions on a whole facility basis opens new capabilities for model development and verification. An integrated system to measure whole facility emission was designed to characterize the complex structures and temporally dependent emission rates often associated with production operations. This approach combines state of the art standoff measurement techniques with standard point source monitoring equipment to provide the calibrated, high spatial and temporal frequency data required to develop and validate the models required for emission reduction and regulation. This effort includes the design, construction and operation of a new multi-wavelength lidar developed to map and track particle emissions. The lidar incorporates a laser emitting simultaneous, pulsed NdYAG laser radiation at 355, 532 and 1064 nm at a pulse frequency of 10 kHz. The system also includes open path FTS measurements for integrated chemical concentrations, and state-of-the-art point measurements of turbulence, particulate and gas concentrations. This approach was evaluated in a multidisciplinary atmospheric study at a swine production farm in Iowa. Aerosol plumes emitted from the facility were prominent phenomena, and their variations with temperature, turbulence, stability and feed cycle were studied, using arrays of particle samplers and turbulence detectors. Other lidar measurements focused on air motion as seen by long duration scans of the farm region. Successful operation of this system confirms the value of the multidimensional approach for the determination of agricultural emissions in the complex terrain often accompanying production facilities