Wisconsin's Dairy and Livestock Air Emission/Odor Project

In 2003, the State of Wisconsin adopted the Livestock Siting Law, enacted to facilitate the siting of new and expanding livestock facilities in Wisconsin. Wisconsin has developed an initial odor standard as part of the administrative rule developed to implement the siting law. Through public hearings held on the proposed rule, concerns have been raised about the odor standards. In particular, questions have been raised about the relationship between odor and livestock-generated ambient air concentrations, especially for dairy operations. These are significant issues in Wisconsin, particularly where land use is changing and residential development encroaches on agricultural operations. There are currently about 15,250 dairy operations in Wisconsin and over 1.2 million dairy cows. The livestock industry accounts for a majority of Wisconsins $51.5 billion agricultural economy. It is critical to Wisconsin’s dairy and livestock industry that producers implement best management practices to reduce odor, ambient air concentrations, and overall environmental impacts. This project will attempt to make the connection between agricultural ambient air concentrations and odor and evaluate various best management practices installed on dairy and other livestock operations. It will field test the odor standards developed as part of the administrative rule to implement Wisconsins Livestock Siting Law, and evaluate changes between pre- and post-installation levels of ambient air concentrations and odors.