Part 1 - An evaluation of the nasal ranger for assessment of separation distances for piggeries, and separation distances for piggeries determined by odour dispersion modelling

46 Pages

Author(s): Johann Torringer, Chris Purton

Establishing a new piggery or expanding an existing piggery involves justifying the resulting odour impacts to the regulatory authorities. This is often an expensive and complicated exercise. From an industry perspective it is desirable that this process is robust and less expensive than currently is the case. It is also preferable for the industry that odour impact assessments are subjected to assessment against national criteria, given that the piggery industry is a national industry. One objective of this study was to evaluate an alternative method for assessing piggery odour impacts using the Nasal Ranger for field odour observations at three different kinds of piggeries. The project also included an evaluation of the National Environmental Guidelines for Piggeries (NEGP) Level 1 and Level 2 assessment methods for calculation of separation distances by comparison with the field odour observations. The outcome of this investigative comparison led to the recommendation of the 98th percentile as an odour assessment criterion.