GEOG 311-3-3 Environmental Management

Between March 2014 and June 2018, nitrate levels consistently exceeded the maximum allowable nitrate concentration (10 mg/L) under the Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines at the Steele Springs Water District drinking water overflow. This contamination was the result of dairy cow manure being spread on fields directly above the aquifer.

Interior Health, the Ministry of the Environment and the First Nations Health Authority are working with the City of Salmon Arm, the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, and Fraser Basin Council to monitor a large, algal bloom that has filled most of the Salmon Arm of Shuswap Lake.

Estimates vary, but livestock are reckoned to be responsible for up to 14% of all greenhouse emissions from human activities. Alongside carbon dioxide, farming generates two other gases in large quantities: nitrous oxide from the addition of fertilisers and wastes to the soil, and methane. The latter is largely belched out by ruminants – principally sheep and cattle – and accounts for more than a third of the total emissions from agriculture. The average ruminant produces 250-500 litres of methane a day. Globally, livestock are responsible for burping (and a small amount from farting) the methane equivalent of 3.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.

Nutritional and animal-selection strategies to mitigate enteric methane (CH4) depend on accurate, cost-effective methods to determine emissions from a large number of animals.

Methane gas is a potent greenhouse gas produced in the rumen of cattle during the normal process of feed digestion and represents a significant loss of feed energy that increases feed costs. For example, a lactating dairy cow produces about 400 grams of methane each day. These methane losses quickly add up. In one year, the amount of methane a dairy cow produces is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from a mid-sized vehicle driven 20,000 kilometres. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) scientists at the Lethbridge Research Centre in Alberta are developing methane mitigation strategies for the beef and dairy industries.

Manure can be an alternative energy source for livestock farmers. An anaerobic digester will partially convert manure to energy in the form of biogas which contains methane. Manure can be an alternative energy source for livestock farmers. An anaerobic digester will partially convert manure to energy in the form of biogas which contains methane.

The pilot system at Scott Brothers’ converts about 88 percent of the dairy’s gasified manure into biochar and other products.

Biochar is a solid product generated from the carbonization of biomass with various
potential benefits. The utilisation of biochar should be adapted to its characteristic which is
mainly influenced by its feedstock. In this study, cow and pig manure biochar generated by a
conventional process, were characterized by its physical and chemical analysis and its potential
to be used as soil amendment. For this purpose, several main parameters were analyzed:
organic carbon, Nutrient (total-N, available P and K) status, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC),
proximate data analysis (moisture content, ash, volatile matter and fixed carbon) and its ash
composition. The comparison between biochar and feedstock will be based on these
parameters. The results of this study show that the organic carbon, available P, ash, and fixed
carbon content of pig-manure biochar is higher than cow manure-derived biochar; while totalN, available K, CEC and volatile matter is lower. On its ash composition, the pig manurederived biochar is dominated by SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, P2O5, and CaO while the cow manurederived biochar is dominated by SiO2, CaO, Al2O3, K2O, and P2O5. However, both biochar
show potential for improving soil quality and reducing carbon emission from animal manure.

The story goes that charcoal buried in the soil is stable for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years and increases crop yields. The proposal to grow crops on hundreds of millions of hectares to be turned into buried ‘biochar’ is therefore widely seen as a “carbon negative” initiative that could save the climate and boost food production. That story is fast unravelling. Biochar is not what it is hyped up to be, and implementing the biochar initiative could be dangerous, basically because saving the climate turns out to be not just about curbing the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere that can be achieved by burying carbon in the soil, it is also about keeping oxygen (O2) levels up.