Case Scenario:
You have just been hired as the senior environmental manager for a large corporate agricultural complex in the midwestern part of the United States, and you will be responsible for keeping your organization in regulatory compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and your state's department of environmental quality (DEQ).
You quickly realize that your company has several active effluent permits (one for combined stormwater/wastewater and one for solid waste hauled off-site) but no pollution prevention plan (P3). After visiting with the company's executive team, you learn that they have never been alerted of the need for a P3, and they want you to fully explain to them why the organization needs one.
They have asked you to be as comprehensive as possible so that you can ultimately present this to the board of directors for approval. As such, you have decided to conduct a P3 Pre-Assessment Study to study and document the entire situation, knowing that this will help you learn the organization's complete situation, even while being able to adequately convey it to the board of directors.
Your organization, ABC Agriculture Production, Inc., has the following general operational characteristics:
1. It is situated on 640 acres (one section) of land in southwestern Nebraska.
2. Adjacent to the 640 acres (to the west) is a private rancher's property sustaining a commercially leased and producing natural gas well.
3. Adjacent to the 640 acres (to the east) is a small, actively running salt-fork of a major river (Platte River).
4. Confined animal feed operations (CAFO) barns and production offices cover approximately 160 acres, with separate, large, full barns for swine, chicken, and beef cattle operations, one feed mill, and six barn-discharge wastewater lagoons.
5. Corn and alfalfa hay fields span 320 acres, with groundwater irrigation wells supplying several large center-pivot irrigation sprinkler systems for both crops.
6. Gypsum (CaSO4-2H2O, or calcium sulfate dihydrate) and caliche (CaCO3, or calcium carbonate) open pit excavation mines are located on the remaining 160 acres, and the products are mined and sold by the truckload.
7. Crops are routinely fertilized with commercial nitrogen fertilizers, weeds are controlled with commercial herbicides, and pests are controlled with commercial pesticides.
8. Animals are routinely vaccinated (injection) and supplemented with vitamins and antibiotics (in both feed and water).
9. Deceased animals' carcasses are disposed of in a pit and covered with hydrated lime (Ca[OH]2, or calcium hydroxide) daily, with weekly pit coverage for a complete carcass burial.
10. There is an EPA-registered National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit active with active outfalls for the CAFO wastewater lagoons and crop fields, operationalized as a combined stormwater/wastewater effluent permit. Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) includes limits for the following:
- There is a hazardous waste permit for disposing of all discarded pesticide, herbicide, and pharmaceutical wastes.
- Wind speeds average 12 mph, and rainfall averages 21 inches/year.
- High/Low temps range from winter (40°F/14°F) to summer (91°F/63°F).
- Average humidity is 65.8% with an average dew point of 37.9°F.
Beginning with this unit (Unit III) and continuing in Unit VII, you will develop a single document as your P3 Pre-Assessment Study. You will construct the first half of this document in Unit III, submitting the completed work in Unit VII.
For Unit VII's submission, you will make corrections to the Unit III work, and then draft the new section in the same document. You will format this document as an APA-Style research paper (example paper using 7th edition APA Style is linked below). For your convenience, a specific template has been provided for you to use for this project.
Download the class project template.
Provide your name on the title page.
Under the first body page's level 1 heading on p. 3, titled General Operational Characteristics, summarize and paraphrase the scenario's operational characteristics (items A-N above). Include a presentation of the TMDL information from the NPDES permit.
Under the second level 1 heading titled Potential Ecological Health Impacts, carefully consider then summarize all potential sources of ecological pollutants and their subsequent potential impacts derived from potential physical, chemical, and microbial contaminants within the operational effluents. Be sure to cite in APA Style as you write, using the CSU Citation Guide as your APA citations style guide. A link to the guide is provided below.
Under the third Level 1 (centered, bold) heading titled Potential Human Health Impacts, carefully consider then summarize all potential sources of human pollutants and their subsequent potential impacts. These will be derived from potential physical, chemical, and microbial contaminants within the operational effluents. Be sure to cite using APA Style as you write, using the CSU Citation Guide. A link to the guide is provided below.
Under the Abstract heading on p. 2 of the document, write a maximum of one sentence that reflects what you have addressed in the document for this particular unit. (Remember that we will also be adding to the abstract with a single sentence in Unit VII's assignment.) Be sure to keep the abstract blocked (not indented) and double-spaced.
Under the References heading on the last page, update your references to include the source references that you used to inform your work in this section of your project. Be sure to use the CSU Citation Guide as your APA Style guide. It also provides guidance that will help you with APA-Style paper formatting.
Leave the rest of the template blank for this unit. You will complete the remainder for Unit VII during each subsequent unit's assignment.