Penn State Live - New regulations aimed at reducing farm odor conflicts

New regulations aimed at reducing farm odor conflicts

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

New regulations to manage the impact of livestock farm odors, set to take effect in late February, should limit nuisance complaints and community conflicts, according to a Penn State Cooperative Extension expert.

Under the new law, certain regulated livestock facilities building new animal barns or manure-storage facilities must develop and implement an odor-management plan if construction begins on or after Feb. 27. The plan must be written by a certified odor-management planner and be approved by the Pennsylvania State Conservation Commission.

“For those regulated operations located in high-risk locations where neighbors will most likely be affected, the purpose is to reduce off-site migration of odors,” says Bob Mikesell, senior instructor in the Department of Dairy and Animal Science. “The odor-management plan targets breaking the chain between the odor source and the odor receptor.”

The Agriculture, Communities, and Rural Environments (ACRE) legislation of 2005 requires the State Conservation Commission to develop principles for effective odor-management planning and implementation. The new regulations were devised in cooperation with various agencies and institutions.

Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences contributed by developing the index that scores potential building locations for risk of odor impacts, identifying the best-management practices and helping develop the regulatory criteria of the program.

Only animal-housing facilities and manure storage were regulated, not manure application. However, many odor complaints come from manure application, according to Mikesell. “Even though application odors are not included in the regulatory package, we certainly encourage producers to take neighbors into account when field-applying manure," he says. “Ideally, manure spread near neighboring homes should be applied early in the day, on weekdays and be incorporated into the soil when agronomic practices allow. These practices will reduce application odors.”

Mikesell expects the new regulations to result in fewer nuisance complaints and community conflicts about excessive odors originating from animal operations. “These regulations bring an increased awareness for operations that are the most likely to draw odor complaints,” he says. Although odor management plans are not required for all animal operations, some farmers will voluntarily adopt a plan so they have limited liability protection provided by the law.

“The goal is to encourage farmers to build farming operations in places where they should be built to minimize community conflict,” Mikesell says.