Investigating the Integrity of Concrete, Liquid Swine Manure Storage Systems

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Agricultural Land Use Management and Source Water
Protection Driven by Dollars and Sense
2008 Canadian Water Network Retreat Victoria,
BC June 2008
By David L. Rudolph Dept. of Earth and
Environmental Sciences University of Waterloo
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Network Research Team

• Principal Investigators
• Brewster Conant (Waterloo)
• Rob de Loe (Waterloo)
• Jim Hendry (Saskatchewan)
• Ted Horbulyk (Calgary)
• Gary Parkin (Guelph)
• Pierre Payment (INRS)
• Will Robertson (Waterloo)
• Cathy Ryan (Calgary)
• Neil Thomson, (Waterloo)
• Allan Woodbury (Manitoba)

• Graduate Students/Res. Asso.
• Loren Bekeris
• Mike Christie
• Kate Critchley
• Claus Haslauer
• Jamie Koch
• Greg Padusenko
• Joanna Passmore
• Leslie Sebol
• Marcelo Sousa

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Agricultural Impacts on Groundwater

• Today, nonpoint source (NPS) pollution remains
  the Nations largest source of water quality
  problems
• (Nonpoint Source Pollution, US EPA, 2001)
• Nitrate is the most common groundwater
  contaminant worldwide and agriculture its most
  significant source.
• (Nitrates in Groundwater Beneath Agricultural
  Systems, M. Burkart and J. Stoner, 2003)

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Ontarios Regulatory Initiatives to Protect and
Manage Water Resources

• Nutrient Management Act (June 2002)
• Comprehensive nutrient management framework for
  Agriculture and Municipalities. (commercial
  fertilizer, manure, biosolids)
• still under development
• need science-based support for regs.
• regulation vs. voluntary guidelines

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Ontarios Regulatory Initiatives to Protect and
Manage Water Resources

• Clean Water Act (Fall 2006)
• Legislation that takes a watershed-based approach
  to source water protection and addresses all
  sources of drinking water.
• focused on drinking water
• semi-quantitative risk based strategy

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Economic and Social Significance of Agriculture
Nationally
9 service jobs associated with every farm operator
Source An Overview of the Canadian Agriculture
and Agri-food System, Agriculture and Agri-Food
Canada, May 2005
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Complexity of the Agricultural Environment

• enormous land area involved (non-point)
• variable geology and hydrology
• diversity of agricultural practices
• temporal variability of impacts
• nature of receptors
• private vs. municipal wells
• streams vs. large lakes

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Nonpoint Source Chronic Impact
Broad-Scale Land Application of Fertilizer and
Manure (likely represents the most significant
risk to regional water quality.)
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Nature of Chronic Impact on Municipal Wells
(Nitrate Concentration in Woodstock, ON Supply)
Haslauer, 2005
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Research Challenges Related to Groundwater

• Identify agricultural activities/areas of highest
  potential risk
• Provide science-based evidence of BMP/remediation
  performance
• Assess economic/social feasibility of
  implementation
• Operator level
• Priority focus for public funding incentives
• Impact on industry overall

(End users Industry, Provincial and Municipal
Government)
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Specific Research Challenges

• Strategies to assess BMP performance
• Slow response times
• Establish long-term monitoring observatories
• Partnerships
• Conventional groundwater monitoring can be
  ineffective or misleading
• Vadose zone monitoring
• Emerging isotopic fingerprinting methods

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DECADAL GEOCHEMICAL AND ISOTOPIC TRENDS FOR
NITRATE IN A TRANSBOUNDARY AQUIFER AND
IMPLICATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL BMPs
Len Wassenaar and Jim HendryEnvironment Canada
and University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Canada
(Abbotsford, BC.)
GSA 2006 T73. Nonpoint Source Pollution
Sources, Processes, Prediction, and Solutions
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Ten Years After the Implementation of Nutrient
Reductions in the Abbotsford-Sumas Aquifer have
the BMPs worked?
BMPs begin
BMPs begin
(Wassenaar et al. 2006)
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Conclusions BMPs Do they work?

• Abbotsford after a decade of a BMP Code
  implementation
• Nitrate contamination appears poised to worsen
• Increases over past 5 years, still above MCL
• Likely that best designed BMP might not be
  effective in highly vulnerable settings
  increased vigilance
• Literature review no BMP improvements ever
  documented for groundwater (?)

(Wassenaar et al. 2006)
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Specific Research Challenges

• 2. Effective upscaling of local or field scale
  results to the subwatershed scale.
• Identifying main controlling parameters
• Land use, topography, geology and hydrology
• Regional extrapolation within capture zones
• Prediction of BMP performance
• Modelling tools

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Point Scale
(Bekeris 2007 Koch 2008)
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Point Scale
Field Scale
(Bekeris 2007 Koch 2008)
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Point Scale
Field Scale
(Bekeris 2007 Koch 2008)
Sub watershed Scale
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Specific Research Challenges

• Influence of extreme hydrologic events.
• Spatially and temporally variable mass loading
  events
• Variable risk associated with dissolved vs.
  microbial species

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Mid Winter Melt/Rains Woodstock, Ont. January,
2008
(Christie, 2008)
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Implications
1). Mobility of microbial contaminants in tile
drains
(Christie, 2008)
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Implications
2). Elevated microbial concentrations in
groundwater
(Christie, 2008)
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Implications
3). Intense recharge and flushing/runoff of fall
fertilizers
(Christie, 2008)
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Specific Research Challenges

• Remediation strategies for non-point agricultural
  sources.
• Riparian buffer strips
• Passive reactive treatment at tile outlets
• Large scale in situ denitrification
• Targeted remedial measures in converging flow
  fields near municipal wells

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Specific Research Challenges

• Socio-economic assessment of BMP/Remediation
  implementation.
• Assessing of economic impact of BMP alternatives.
• Regulation vs. voluntary approaches.
• Prioritizing government incentives investment.

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Highly Volatile Economics of Agriculture
Cost vs. Value of Hogs
Corn Prices
(Ontario Pork, 2008)
(Ontario Corn Producers, 2008)
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Canadian Water Network

• Foster partnerships within and between research
  project structure.
• Tackle specific issues through the focused
  consortia approach (e.g. Pathogens in Groundwater
  Consortia).
• Engage stakeholder input at all relevant levels
  and facilitate Knowledge Transfer to decision
  makers.

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Graduate Students Working Undercover