Other air emissions

Some air emissions have local human health and nuisance impacts while other emissions pose problems at a regional scale.

Odors from all sizes and types of animal feeding operations can cause concerns with nearby neighbors. While odor may be what causes a neighbor to have concerns, it isn’t the only thing emitted from farms. Air emissions have both local and regional impacts.

Emissions of different pollutants differ in the potential severity and the spatial scales of their effects. For example, the effects of odor are of interest mainly at a very local level (nearby neighbors). Ammonia (NH3) has relevant impacts mainly on a regional-scale perspective because once in the atmosphere it may travel for hundreds of miles before being deposited in waterways or combining with other gases to form a fine particulate.

Unlike NH3, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) does not travel far; its impacts are more at the farm level than even the neighborhood scale.

Potential Importance of AFO Emissions at Different Spatial Scales (adapted from NRC (2003))

Emissions	Global, Regional	Local, Property   Line	Primary Effects of Concern
Odor	Insignificant	Major	Nuisance, quality   of life
VOC	Significant	Minor	Odorous, ozone   formation
H2S	Insignificant	Significant	Odorous, health
NH3	Major	Minor	Atmospheric   deposition
Dust   (particulates)	Insignificant	Significant	Health, haze
GHG	Significant	Insignificant	Global climate   change
Rank order from high to low importance is   major, significant, minor, and insignificant. VOC = volatile organic compounds, H2S   = hydrogen sulfide, NH3 = ammonia, GHG = greenhouse gases

Regardless of where the impact of an emission might occur, farms should make a concerted effort to reduce air emissions to the extent possible. Controlling air emissions, whether it is from farms or non-agricultural industries makes good local, national and global sense.